Atheist Bus

[pollaxe]

I knew a Creationist, he was a nice guy but his views were frightening. I always think of Bill Hicks who believed Creationists were put on Earth by God to test his faith.

[Bazzlad]

Huh? Wuh? Nuh? It's an advert with an atheistic message, by definition this is the non-belief in any god/religion

So if this advert was plugging Dawkins' books it would be fine? This is just as much about freedom, if someone has the private money to place such an ad on a private company's buses and the private company allows this, then they can sodding well put what they like on the buses as long as it doesn't break the law.

You just don't get it do you?
Try this tip.

Read. Digest. Type.

The people above you have understood the point I was getting at, why haven't you?

Someone simply making a statement that is against your beliefs is an attack? I do not feel attacked by even the staunchest of Christian preachings to me, and I don't have a ghost in the sky protecting me or a Jewish zombie to look to for inspiration.

Making a statement and taking out multiple (I presume) adverts against what you believe are totally different thing.

If a Pepsi salesman says to you "Coke is rubbish" - that's a statement.
If they take out adverts stating "Coke is rubbish" I'm pretty sure they'd end up in court quite quicky, regardless of how much they believe that Coke is rubbish, and how much free speech they're allowed.

------

Besides my argument isn't against the advert persay, it's more to do with the double standards surrounding religion.

[directhex]

That said, anyone see that Louis Theroux episode when he meets that American Christian Cult family.

That scared the s*** out of me!

That's when Religion gets scary, when people twist it to suit their needs.

fred "god hates fags" phelps?

[MSIC]

Just the one, yes. And that one, oh... and that one too.

So... three then?

No, no, you can't worship 3 gods, that's against the rules.

But you just pointed those three out.

No, no, those 3 are one. So you're just supporting one. It's like supporting Man U, Man City, and Liverpool. They're all from the north, so it counts as one.

Oh, ok.

[mediaboy]

Just as a side note about double standards surrounding religion.. the sex discrimination act doesn't legally apply to religions in this country, if [sex discrimination] is committed to follow religous doctrine or to avoid offending followers.

Ignore me if you want, it was just a brief digression on roughly the same topic.


EDIT: Woh.. that was fast.. 2 posts in the time it took me to type out that bit. Calm down people! It's only the athiests posting stuff on the sides of buses instead of online!

[pollaxe]

fred "god hates fags" phelps?

I saw that one too. Deeply, deeply unsettling.
Hopefully the cult will die with him, the hate-mongering idiot. Supposedly he's a genius with scripture but I saw precious little evidence of it. It's the kids I really felt for being brought up in that environment, Louis was just starting to get close to them when it all came to an end.

[Bazzlad]

It's a better start than me explaining myself in circles mate - run with it.

And yes Fred "God hates fags" Phelps.
A scary amount of hatred in that man.

[Norky]

I'm done. Christian and unable to comprehend the concept of private freedom.

[Bazzlad]

Supposedly he's a genius with scripture but I saw precious little evidence of it.

I wondered about that too.
A show on BBC, you'd think a hate mongering genious with scripture would be rattling prose off all over the place - yet he seemed to not say anything to do with it......

I genuine believe he has no scripture, he's just brain washed his family slowly...

[Bazzlad]

I'm done. Christian and unable to comprehend the concept of private freedom.

You're an idiot that's for certain, I've already stated I'm not Christian.
Go play with some lego.

[kasavien]

On a side note the campaign is doing rather well - £74,000 raised so far, not a bad effort really, I can think of better causes but it's quite funny to see how fervent atheists can get. My favourite donation was by Dr Doctor who donated £666! There are quite a few funny comments too.

[JPreston]

A lot of posters seem to be slagging Richard Dawkins above, out of interest why is that and have you read (m)any of his 'proper' books i.e. those about evolutionary biology? The Extended Phenotype and The Selfish Gene are both incredible examples of popular science writing and he undisputedably deserves great credit for them - I have not discovered a better scientific author TBH.

As regards his books on religion, of course I have read them also but I prefer Christopher Hitchens by far. I disagree flat-out with many of Hitchens' political views but his writing on religion is always spot-on. Self-censorship of PS3 games notwithstanding it might be of comfort to some posters to reflect that his 'God is Not Great' presumably refers to islam right in the title but you will quite easily find it for sale in Waterstone's placed alphabetically about two shelves above the koran, without being thronged by protesting hordes of aggrieved muslims.

Both Dawkins and Hitchens have authored great books and contributed to the sum of human culture, in stark contrast to the (generally christian) simpletons who write pulp replies to attempt to debunk them with childish arguments - despite having no chance of producing anything more interesting than a particularly long poo with a piece of sweetcorn wedged comically on one end during their entire meagre lives.

So what's with the animosity towards Dawkins? He's written some great stuff, why pidgeon-hole him based (presumably) on a few TV appearances or interviews? He does talk funny for sure, but I'm genuinely curious why he is attracting so much criticism from atheists in this thread.

everyone knows this is aimed at Christians.

Oh I see.....we are inescapably 'christian atheists', then? I would have thought it perfectly clear that "There is probably no god" refers equally to all imaginary magic friends regardless of your personal pet names for them. Since 'allah' is just the arabic word for 'god', you apparently feel victimised by the fact that an advert in London is written entirely in English. "Help! Help! I'm being oppressed!"

[fuddam]

Richard Dawkins claims to be wielding science, when actually he confuses it with philosophy - that's the problem with his rantings. He's on no more faith-less ground than the theists he attacks.

pretty sad that most people who read his diatribes can't see the wood for the trees.

[0iD]

pretty sad that most people who read his diatribes can't see the wood for the trees.

In what way? (I am neither defending or atacking Dawkins, I'm just interested in the Fuddam angle on this tbh)

[Stewart]

HAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

You believe a big man with magic powers lives in the sky, and you have the gall, the cheek, the front, to say someone else can't see the wood for the trees.

You believe that when you die, you float up to heaven, to play endless games of table tennis with Mozart and James Dean, and you have the balls to say someone else can't see the wood for the trees.

You have a system of belief that ignores common sense, reason, sanity, science and logic, and replaces it with a series of fairy tales from a book written by unknown, pre-scientific peoples and a song about a little donkey... and you have the brass neck to say someone else can't see the wood for the trees.

Dude, you can't see the wood, the trees, the sign next to the trees saying 'Warning: Trees!', the sign next to that sign saying 'Warning: Warning Sign!', or the man standing next to the sign pointing you in the direction of the sign.

Fuddam, you make me smile.

[MSIC]

Stewart, you're being an idiot now. Everyone can express their views, but you are basically just insulting Fuddam without making any particular point.