The Atheist Bus Campaign takes off


by Sunny Hundal    
9:59 am - October 22nd 2008

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A while ago my facebook friend Ariane Sherine wrote an article about why there should be an ad campaign to counter the advertising that religious groups put out on buses. The idea took off and after a lull, a fully fledged campaign has been launched with the support of the British Humanist Association and Richard Dawkins. [For some reason however, and I put it down to lack of researching, the BBC wrongly credits the BHA for the idea]

Anyway, they have already reached their fundraising target so there’s little point donating but you can still donate to expand their scope. Although I would encourage Ariane to go for global domination and compete with Barack Obama for online fundraising and blanket television advertising. More seriously, I said this earlier when I plugged the campaign:

I’m not an atheist, but religious advertising mostly annoys me. In fact most people who talk about religion annoy me because they’re rarely well informed on the subject.
…
People who lack compassion and tolerance are bad enough, but those who use religion as their excuse while piously informing everyone their religion is about compassion are particularly annoying.

This is why I support this light-hearted campaign, and particularly the tolerant approach Ariane takes.

And here’s another point: the speed at which donations have been raised shows that when Britons get excited about specific political issues they’re as likely as Americans to donate money online. Surely its only a matter of time before organisations here try and exploit that?

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About the author
Sunny Hundal is editor of LC. Also: on Twitter, at Pickled Politics and Guardian CIF.
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Reader comments


1. Al

“Anyway, they have already reached their fundraising target so there’s little point donating. ”

The more money, the wider the campaign can be. It’s still worth donating. Thanks!

2. Jennie Rigg

“the speed at which donations have been raised shows that when Britons get excited about specific political issues they’re as likely as Americans to donate money online.”

I think there are few mainstream political issues which chime with as many people as their continued annoyance at the fact that a religious minority continue to get special favours from the law because they squeal like stuck pigs if they think they’re not going to.

3. Jon Worth

Yes there is point donating! The more money the campaign raises the more buses with the ads we can put on the streets of London and other cities too!

There’s also a website for the campaign.

4. Col. Richard Hindrance (Mrs)

My favourite comment on the Grauniad website was along the lines of “it just goes to show what can be achieved when people get together over something they really don’t believe in.”

5. Thomas

This is ruddy marvellous!!

6. Outside Left

I’m afraid I don’t like the tolerant approach, though I respect Ariane Sherine for hers! “There’s probably no god” is like saying “there’s probably no elves at the bottom of your garden”. There are NO elves: now get over it.

7. Ted

I think its a great idea its certainly got to the attention of the religious , a boring bunch of folk that usually only drone on about age old stories of fairy god fathers .

There needs to be more of this type of public enlightenment , it seems its worked fine in providing the religious with some stimulation for some lateral thinking .

Its a miracle .

8. Martin

I notice religious think-tank Theos got widespread publicity for their very smug £50 donation. What appears to be less widely reported is that Theos changed their press release when it became clear that the campaign was being widely supported.

http://pogsurf.blogspot.com/2008/10/scoop-thoes-upgrade-atheist-bus-from.html

Is it a Christian prerogative to be able to re-write history, or can we all join in?


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