If you want an analogy with gay marriage would be with Christian or other religious groups refusing to officiate.

Besides which, the buses message is the rather weak ‘probably no god’ to which the religious objection is that there certainly is.

Its an agnostic bus.

If I thought that the bus company would make the same allowances for an atheist driver who didn’t want to drive buses with religious adverts, I might agree with you, but I sincerely doubt they would. I also doubt they’d make allowances for someone who was strongly ethically opposed to Coke or Nestle adverts, or adverts for 18 certificate movies, or any other kind of advert but an “anti-Christian” one. So yet again, it is just special treatment for the religious, rather than nice employers being nice.

Although I also suspect it’s “company compromising to avoid damaging their reputation” as much as anything else. Maybe I’m just too cynical.

By the way, as an atheist I have no objection to people wearing religious symbols any more than I’d object to them dying their hair green – just as long as they provide the service they are paid to do: if they refuse to deal with alcohol or proscribe the pill they can fuck off.

I don’t care if somebody believes in fairy tales so long as they don’t expect my taxes to subsidise them or that their beliefs are a licence to discriminate against people because their sex or sexuality.

The question is of universality, straight people can marry therefore gay people should be allowed to marry. In the above case buses have carried religious slogans, therefore atheist slogans should be allowed.

This man’s actions mean that any driver who disagrees to any extent with the advertising slogans on their bus should be allowed to refuse to drive.

It wouldn’t work, we’d have no buses on the road at all.

Open and free debate means that you can’t just deny someone else’s access to a public forum.

I see no reason why a local authority or a school or employer can’t decide themselves when the needs of their employee can be tolerated and accommodate them.

That, with which I agree – is called common sense – something government are lacking, very, very lacking!

Pickwick hits the nail on the head. It is not the making allowances as such, thats all fine and dandy, its the fact that it seems more necessary and reasonable to make allowances for specifically religious belief. It privileges their beliefs above others, which is inherently unfair and unequal.

Of course, I don’t mind a bit of inequality in practice if it helps keep the wheels turning. The problem is that those practical allowances are likely to be reflected in court cases and tribunal decisions as well, which means, in essence, that employers will be forced to make allowances for religious beliefs but not others (whether individually held or communally held). De facto, this means religious beliefs gain a higher and protected status, which goes against having equality before the law.

It might also create a base from which to project more power (something religions with their track record really shouldn’t have). So I don’t think an individual case like this is a problem, but it could become a problem if it ended up setting a legal precendent.

I don’t see the diference in allowing this guy to shirk his duties on grounds of superstition is substantially different from excusing a street sweeper on the grounds that he feers stepping on the cracks in the pavement.

Why not let him wear his cross and pray for our souls on his tea break if it makes him feel better?

Interesting statement from Ariane – you can read anything you want into it. I read it in the opposite way to Sunny; I see nothing supporting the bus driver there at all.

I’m all in favour of employers sorting out problems sensibly and amicably. I just hope the Christian bus driver in question has found time to consider the following points:

1. There are loads of Christian adverts on buses, to which this atheist advert is an uncombative reaction.

2. Lots of bus drivers aren’t Christians.

Or perhaps I’m being unduly optimistic.

How about if we replace atheists (rude and boisterous middle-class, middle-aged men) with the LGBT community? Imagine if someone anti-gay were to object to driving a bus featuring an advert for a gay-themed product or service?

Funnily enough, this has happened. An acquaintance of mine works for a gay magazine in Minneapolis called Lavender which placed an advert with the city’s transit authority for an advert to go on the back of buses picturing a young, semi-nude man and the slogan “Unleash Your Inner Gay”. A bus driver had complained… “on religious grounds”.

There is a solution for the bus driver: if he doesn’t like his job, he should quit and find one that suits his religious temperament better. Or perhaps stop being a hypersensitive twit and just drive the fucking bus. Work sucks. My particular version of humanism tells me that cleaning toilets is degrading, but if I found myself cleaning toilets for a living, I couldn’t just say “this conflicts with my beliefs, so I insist that I don’t do it”. Figure out what possible things might happen in your line of work – and if you don’t like them, do something different.

The problem is that if you make fair allowances and then bring action when it goes beyond the bounds of the ‘fair and reasonable’ test, then you end up with the courts becoming theology judges. Look at the Shabina Begum case. In this case, the courts were not simply deciding whether or not the school was right to exclude her for breaking the uniform policy, they were trying to decide whether or not Begum was justified as a Muslim to insist on her mode of dress – and brought in experts in Islamic theology.

I find it extremely worrying to have the High Court start ruling on matters of theology. The religious can choose whatever weird epistemological system they prefer, but it’s up to the court to rule on the intersection of the law and their behaviour, not whether or not they are justified in their beliefs (otherwise, well, we should have a panel of philosophers in every court room to determine whether or not the defendants are justified in their beliefs – first, of course, they’d have to solve the Gettier problem).

Nail on the head, Tom Morris.

I agreed with Sunny over the religious bangle, but these are qualitatively different circumstances. A bus driver refusing to drive a bus on religious grounds is like a pharmacist refusing to provide contraception on religious grounds or a doctor choosing never to sign of on an abortion, ever, on religious grounds. There’s also the case of the religious exemption from war.

Now, if the UK ever introduces conscription I really doubt my answer of “I can’t fight because I have a heartfelt belief in the overthrow of the British capitalist state and its replacement by a socialist network of representative councils” will work in the same way as someone being a Quaker would work. Religious exemptions and exceptions are available in almost all aspects of our society.

The problem with all of this is not the religious individual, of course. This one hypersensitive bus driver is simply a reflection of the vocalised and propagandist Christian attitude that atheists are just like an extreme evangelical Christian sect. Even reading CiF articles, it’s alright to disapprove of atheists because they’re trying to shove their beliefs down your throat. That’s before we even get to the Daily Mail attitude of “OMFG ATHEISTS R EVIL!!!!111!”

Those sources of the problem are the ones we should be challenging. Frankly I’d say most of our problem goes away if we nationalise the mass media and actually put some intelligent people in charge of it. Ten years of journalism without a deliberate and political ulterior motive and actually people might not care about atheist adverts on the side of buses and might no longer believe that a Muslim-Atheist conspiracy exists to do away with Christmas.

I don’t like McDonalds, and believe that they have a detrimental effect upon the UK. Does that mean that were I a bus driver I could refuse to drives buses with golden arches ads on the side?
It is my belief, after all: are beliefs deemed to be ‘religious’ somehow different? Could someone please explain in what way they are different, because after all they are beliefs, not facts (pace Stephen ‘Christian Voice of Intolerance’ Green)

Atheists are no more or less rational than anyone else It is in fact a special sort of religion. The atheist commits his faith to the proposition that we experience brief period s of pointless illusory conciseness interrupting infinite nothing . Its an odd self hating sort of faith in my view . Personally I would fire the driver, this is a Christian country and we do not need to treat all faiths equally but there is no requirement for a Christian to leave the sight of any statement he disagrees with He can be a good Christian and drive the bus , his views are obviously an intolerant enthusiastic sort that are not in the mainstream .

Equally where extreme foreign views held by Muslims amongst others conflict with the mainstream they should be discouraged and marginalized . I would not have actual laws nor would I go as far as the progressive fascists with their systematic abuse of public sector employment to force their views on others . Where practical difficulties arise however there should be no doubt as to who should adjust.

oops * consciousness

“this is a Christian country”

No it isn’t. Most people don’t care.

Britain is a non religious country that has religious minorities, and its about time our political system moved towards accepting that.

What Pickwick said.

“this is a Christian country”

Ahahahahahahahahaha good one!!! Oh wait, you mean that, didn’t you?

I’m split on this.

As a Christian I think the behaviour of the guy is inconsistent and nonsensical. He didn’t refuse to drive the bus when it advertised products by companies who exploit their workers. (Perhaps he should read James 5.) He didn’t refuse to drive the bus when it advertised in a way which demeaned women. So why pick this particular aspect to get worked up about?

However as a socialist my inclination is that we should welcome the actions of the company and instead of complaining that this is an unusual exception made because of the privileged position of religion (or, let’s be honest, the bus company’s desire not to get the kind of PR BA got for insisting on dress regulations), but instead use it as a precedent and encourage other workers to stand up against genuinely inappropriate adverts put up in or around their workspace.

Atheism’s no more a ‘religion’ than baldness is a hair colour.

Religion is not just a belief in a deity, it’s a set of shared moral values backed up by an appeal to a higher, unquestionable authority. Atheists do not share an orthodox set of values: It’s perfectly possible to be an atheist and homophobic, sexist or racist – but in that case the atheist would have to defend their prejudices without reference to the supernatural. The prejudice of such atheists do not exist in a realm where they are beyond rational debate.

Most religious people are atheists regarding other people’s gods, atheists just go one god further.

“but instead use it as a precedent and encourage other workers to stand up against genuinely inappropriate adverts put up in or around their workspace.”

One problem: the atheist bus ad is really not inappropriate. It is about the simplest, reasonable comment you could see in an advertising statement.

Hence the word genuinely!

You have this wrong Sunny when you say “I think every liberal / tolerant society should accept the willingness of employers to make certain allowances for their employees if it’s not too much trouble.”

In normal circumstances you would be right, but when it comes to religion, no way. The Christian Right in America , and followed by many here in the UK use Christianity as a shield to allow them to push through their agenda , and to opt out of democracy. We have already seen the little miss prissy at the council registers office who would not marry a gay couple. The Right in America want doctors and nurses to be able to refuse to treat patients they don’t approve of. Not just abortion, and gays. How would you like to be at deaths door, lying on a hospital trolley while some little Christian martyr decided to make a stand because they don’t like your religion.

See how far you would get if you would not drive the Bus because the message they were displaying was one you did not agree with. But hide behind religion, and suddenly all is possible.

The Churches in America are producing an army of people who want to go out into the wide world and gum up the system in the name of Christian values. Expect to see more little martyrs like this one, and then watch as they are backed by the likes of Mad Mel and all the other nuts who complain about people having too many rights.

I’d be interested to see “There is probably no Allah” on the side of a bus. Would a Muslim bus driver drive it?

‘Not too much trouble’ is rather vague in any case, leaving it entirely up to the employer’s subjective judgement: that’s going to lead to conflict where the employer acceeds to demands from one religious group but not another.

It’s also an invitation for religious bodies to MAKE refusing a demand too much trouble by encouraging protests, boycots and physical threats.

Sally – this is not someone refusing to treat someone and this is not someone discriminating against homosexual people. It doesn’t do any harm for the company to organise his shifts around buses that don’t have the advert. So why not let him protect his conscience? I might not agree with him but that doesn’t stop me believing that it matters to him, and it doesn’t hurt anyone else.

The argument that he shouldn’t have the right because others probably wouldn’t is crap – surely we want better conditions for all; better to argue for everyone to benefit than to level down in this instance.

shatterface @3 wrote:

I don’t see the diference in allowing this guy to shirk his duties on grounds of superstition is substantially different from excusing a street sweeper on the grounds that he feers stepping on the cracks in the pavement.

But a job isn’t a duty. A job is doing something so long as someone else is willing to pay you for it. This man’s employer is evidently still happy to pay him even though he will not be driving certain buses. As the phrase goes, his statutory rights are unaffected. He hasn’t been granted any special rights, not is he shirking a duty. It’s just a private arrangement between one man and one company, which isn’t even a question of rights or duties.

Tm f,

sorry, but your point does not fly. Once you start allowing people to opt out of normal working conditions becasue of religious views you step on to a slippy slope of never ending demands from the Religious fundies.

If the bus driver does not want to drive the bus then he should give up his job and join the church.

If he doesn’t want to drive the bus he should pack in his job and consider the lillies and the birds and let god feed and clothe him.

He’s not much of a Christian if he has so little faith in god he doesn’t trust him to honour his promisses.

“He’s not much of a Christian if he has so little faith in god he doesn’t trust him to honour his promisses.”

Great point. It is funny how little faith these people have . But then he may just be wanting to make a name for himself.

I see , so the idea this is a Christian country is laughable is it . Well it is certainly not an atheist country with 8% describing themselves as such . About 20% of Britain say they are not religious ‘or’ do not believe in god but many of these have other spiritual beliefs. These are included in the 10% of agnostics whio in many cases would fit comfortable into the Anglican Church if they wished to . More than 72% call themselves Christian ( last census ). In fact the torrential immigration encouraged by New Labour has ad the unintended effect of making the country more Christian . There is a great deal of soft Christianity but the ubiquity of Church weddings and funerals is a telling fact. True church attendance has declined overall but not as fast as the decline in membership of political Parties . It may not represent a lessening the spiritual yearnings of the nation as a new ways of living
Behind this , even those who hate the church like Polly Toynbee acall themselves humanists a tradition that clearly evolves from and with great debt to Christianity. It is the wider cultural stream which I am calling on when I say this is a Christian country . There are about 5% identifying with other religions of which Islam is the largest and was on 3 % (more now ).
There have only been rare periods when a passionate faith has characterised this country , the times of Cromwell perhaps . These has been taken to mean this is not a religious country I take it to mean that we are happier with a quiet religion . I accept hat the place of the church has changed formally but the country is to its former self as the man is to the child

My heart leaps up when
I behold A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man; ………

Behind this , even those who hate the church like Polly Toynbee acall themselves humanists a tradition that clearly evolves from and with great debt to Christianity.

Europe and the rest of the world only came out of the squalor of the middle ages when a minority of well educated free thinkers consciously abandoned religion during the Enlightenment.

To extol Britain’s Christian heritage is rather like celebrating the loud obnoxious clown in the room when you only get things done by ignoring him.

Really , well firstly the mediaeval period is usually said to end with the Renaissance which predates the Enlightenment and secondly the Enlightenment took place exclusively in Christian countries . The Romantic period spans the 19th century during which the world changed infinitely faster than during the age of Reason , soi disant it was marked by a resurgence of religious enthusiam .

I agree Sunny. Though I do think Ariane’s response, like pickwick implies, look more like a polite way of saying ‘get over it and drive the bus.’ “Every liberal / tolerant society should accept the willingness of employers to make certain allowances for their employees if it’s not too much trouble.” That’s what the Religion & Belief regs say, which is why First Buses would have been strongly advised to take that line. It’s open to argument, and comparisons could be drawn with the anti-civil partnerships registry office clerk and the Relate counsellor cases (both lost their discrimination claims), but the company would probably have a difficult case to prove that they would be legitimately justified in not simply assigning him to one of the (majority of) non-atheist buses. Shatterface, it is subjective, but a lot of law is just interpretation by the courts.

We saw this coming though. I’m not really against the campaign – it’s free speech, it’s thought-provoking, I find it funny and the success of the campaign is commendable in itself. But this is why I don’t share the motivation. As a teenager, in the early days of my rebellion against a religious upbringing, I felt like I had an axe to grind – I argued with family and would have jumped on board an atheist bus. Now I like to think I’m taking the moral high ground and (with some irony) turn the other cheek. If that sounds a bit patronising and self-righteous, maybe I blame my religious upbringing…! Even though I’m ‘probably’ right, it’s pointless trying to persuade people either way, and I don’t particularly want to. If I had religion I might be less worried about some things. I’ll still discuss my views with anyone who wants to but a bus campaign is a step too forceful for me. I don’t want to be part of any organised activist religion or atheism. In-your-face Christian bus ads are annoying but not really ‘scary’ to an atheist who think’s it’s all irrational and untrue nor to a religious person who is safe in the belief of eternal life…

Alisdair, yes there are some groups who deserve similar protection (non-religious vegetarians for example), although it can’t just be ‘my’ beliefs – a law that allowed completely idiosyncratic objections would become ridiculous and unworkable. So looks like you’ll have to start an anti-McD ‘religion’, wait awhile till it becomes ‘established’ and then you can start refusing to drive buses too! Human rights and discrimination legistion does now protect atheists in their non-religious beliefs, so an atheist bus driver could equally refuse to drive a Christian bus, but I don’t really see it being such an issue for them. I might be wrong but I bet not many atheist bus drivers would have felt such a strong need to object as to consider walking away from a job in what are (lest we forget) tough economic times… It’s probably different for Mr Heather for lots of reasons. Firsty, I don’t spend much time thinking about being an atheist; my lack of religion isn’t central to my life in the way that religion and God is for a religious person. But mainly because of a religious approach of being a messenger of God and fighting to convert the heathen. Mr Heather may well be worried that if he drives an atheist bus, at least without speaking out against it, he is risking the fires of hell… It might seem irrational, but that’s his belief, and I’m sure he’s not overly comforted by Ariane’s message that he should ‘stop worrying and get on with life.’

misssc,

I take your point that religious bus advertising is not scary. I am quite happy in my largely silent atheism. But what is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander. A strongly atheist bus driver should refuse to drive his Number 10 bus ’cause it’s got nonsense on the side of it too. Let’s see how tolerant the bus company is then.

I see where you’re coming from misssc, but when you say “wait awhile till it becomes ‘established’ and then you can start refusing to drive buses too”, that’s the rub, and part of what’s objectionable.’Established’ beliefs…they are just beliefs and just like any other belief or opinion must not be specially protected (apart from their free expression being protected…) from scrutiny, question, challenge or ridicule.

“what is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander”

Douglas, yes it is, and Ariane has her sauce; her atheist buses are running, and protected by the ATA. My point was only that I didn’t share her motivation, but that’s just my view. Everyone’s view on this is slightly biased. As I mentioned, recent changes to interpretation of the Human Rights Act (which follows in discrim law) mean that the atheist driver could refuse to drive his no.10 bus and would be protected. Because it’s quite new, and possibly because of some of the reasons I suggested, as well as the fact that atheists are less likely to be aware of their new rights, I can’t give you any examples. But the bus company’s lawyers would also advise it to be tolerant unless it wanted a test case on its hands.

“just like any other belief or opinion must not be specially protected (apart from their free expression being protected…) from scrutiny, question, challenge or ridicule.”

Alisdair, are you arguing for freedom to discriminate? I don’t want to ridicule people for their beliefs, religious or not (provided they aren’t causing harm). And scrutinise maybe, but what would you hope to achieve by questioning and challenging people about faith based beliefs? Surely in an ideal world more people would be protected as widely as possible rather than there being no protection at all?

I was joking about how you could go about setting up your unlikely religion in the existing system. As I said, I agree that Religion & Belief legislation protects religious more than other beliefs, though in theory it can be used to protect other (minority) belief systems. Hopefully this will be tested and developed as and when a legitimate need arises.

Misssc, my posts aren’t an argument for discrimination at all, rather an argument that no special protection ought to be granted to religious beliefs above any other beliefs. You respect people as individuals, but all ideas have to be open to question, and yup, ridicule: that’s not the same as licence to gratuitously offend, but if pushed, I’m on the side of satirists lampooning religion way ahead of the like of Stephen Green and Christian (ban the Life of Brian, stop the Jerry springer opera…) Voice.

Alisdair, I know what you mean. But this is going off my original point, which was in the context of employment. Satirists would be my personal choice too. It has its place and you know what you’re getting when you choose to watch it. Being able to laugh at certain ideas in a comedy context (and I wouldn’t even expect some people to do that, so there are probably some people who I wouldn’t watch or talk about certain acts with, out of respect) is different to someone being personally challenged, ridiculed or otherwise placed at a detriment while doing their job because of their beliefs. That doesn’t look very respectful. Where freedom to ridicule all indiscriminately ends up is indirect discrimination of some. Some people will have views (religious or otherwise) which are by their nature more obvious and have a greater impact on their day-to-day lives. So you might be open to ridiculing anyone but you tend to end up just ridiculing some. That by definition is indirect discrimination.

I know what you mean, misssc, and in truth I suspect our opinions are only a cigarette-paper apart on this. However, and it is thorny, personally, I’d generally still rather risk indirect discrimination then enshrine special privilege, but the field of employment is much more of a minefield, I agree.
FWIW, I am sceptical about this bus driver’s feelings being so mortally offended, especially as the advert is so vague, inoffensive and actually rather timid,and suspect him to be a bit of an evangelical fundamentalist headline-chasing friend of Stephen Green.

misssc,

You are a lawyer, perchance?

Alisdair, I agree. So that’s enough lawyery argument for argument’s sake, and on the weekend too… And I’m also a little sceptical about how offending this particular Christian finds it – but I’m not in a position to judge and I wouldn’t fancy testing him out for an even greater headline-grabbing tribunal case.

I wonder what the lieberals said if a black bus driver refused driving a bus with the KKK’s name or a “Sieg Heil” motto on its side.
They’d probably say “cmon, that’s not an excuse”, wouldn’t they.

good point in no. 17

i want to see these religious bus drivers kicking up a fuss about advertising full stop, then i’ll take their ‘concerns’ seriously.

The very first comment I find amusing: shatterface states that it is an agnostic bus. An agnostic bus, which is a concept I have been toying with trying to create, would state that ‘There is absolutely no way of determining either way whether God exists. Stop worrying, be an atheist if you’ve never had a spiritual experience, be a Christian or Hindu or Muslim or whatever if you feel you have had a spiritual experince, and enjoy your life.’ Saying that ‘God probably doesn’t exist’ is an atheist statement. Even Dawkins, the Atheist Fundamentalist, says he cannot prove for certain that God doesn’t exist, and says ‘probably doesn’t exist’. An Agnostic bus would more accurately state that both sides making unequivocal statements of that sort is wrong, as we cannot know.

Also, shatterface’s statement that he objects to people thinking their beliefs are a license to discriminate against other people because of their sexuality is a noble statement. owever, I have never found a Christian who isn’t entirely hapy to let hommosexuals practise: I have found a few people who call themselves a Christian who object, but directly disobey many things in the Bible. Depending on which analysis of the New Testament one subscribes to, the figure it represents is either a Communist or an Anarchist: no serious analysis has concluded that Jesus was a Conservative. Yet how many people who call themselves Christians would also follow these political doctrines?

And finaly, the solution is surely ‘get another job’. I object to Nestle, and wouldn’t drive a bus with a Nestle ad on it.. I would either do this by finding a bus company that didn’t have Nestle ads, and applying oto work fo them, or to find a job like cleaning toilets that isn’t driving a bus. It’s difficult to put an advert on toilets.

And even if cleaning toilets is degrading, soemeone has to do it. Just not for minimum wage.

what should have happened here is a Christian advert saying God does exist alongside the atheist advert then Im pretty sure the driver would have driven the bus.Im a Christian and would have found no problem at all.But Im pretty sure the Christian advert wouldnt have been allowed the space because free speech is only free when it refers to secular and leftist ideology.

Erm, no. If a Christian group had paid for an advert saying “God probably does exist”, I’m pretty sure they’d have taken it.

I get sick of other Christian playing the victime all the time. We’re not persecuted in this country – that’s actually a good thing. Stop pretending we are.

And if the atheist advert had read God “probably doesnt exist”then Im sure atheists like you would have the word “probably” deleted . Im waiting to see an advert on a bus etc put there by those on the left.That Allah doesnt exist but do you know what it just wont happen because of the possible consequences of putting it there.

It does include the word probably. Check your sources. (Or just read it on a passing bus!)

While you’re at it, check comment 17 before you lazily assume I’m an atheist (and note the use of the words “other” and “we” in the comment above).

Most Christian organisations welcomed the adverts as a chance to get people thinking, or were at least ambivalent. It’s only Stephen Green and the paranoid extreme-right Christian Voice that got upset. This comment from Ekklesia is perhaps closest to my position:

“”I suspect most people are as sceptical about being sold non-religion as they are about being sold religion,” commented Ekklesia co-director Simon Barrow.

“The atheist slogan chosen – “There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life” – is a bit anodyne. It’s rather like believers saying ‘There probably is a God. Have a nice day’, but it at least attempts to be non-offensive and positive, unlike a lot of religious advertising that cajoles or condemns. Christians and others should learn from this.”

Ekklesia argues that the real message that really needs to get out to the world is about encouraging one another in active compassion, even though we may have different beliefs.”

Normally the “THEY WOULDN@T DO IT TO MUSLIMS” argument is laughable but in this case especially so – do you really think the atheist campaign was being specific about a Christian God? Or do you think their position was “A Christian God probably doesn’t exist but who knows, maybe an Islamic one does”?!!

in Christian solidarity and unity

Tim