Liverpool can’t even beat Stoke City today! How depressing. Never mind – it doesn’t take much to cheer me up again: all I have to do is think about the ‘atheist bus’. Not, of course, that a bus is capable of thinking about God anyway; but I love the adverts put up by the British Humanist Association with help from Professor Richard Dawkins. They also have t-shirts with the slogan There’s probably no God – Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.
I realise that many atheists have been annoyed that Christians have helped fund this bus advertising campaign. And why would Christians do such a naughty thing? Because, much to the annoyance of the atheists, it keeps the conversation about God and the meaning of life alive and well in the public discourse. Brilliant!
What depresses me is the stupid (both intellectually, tactically and theologically) response by certain Christian groups who have missed the point of all this and made a legal challenge to the adverts. Instead of joining in the fun and getting the country talking about God’s existence and the fulness of life offered by Jesus Christ, they reduce the whole thing to a humourless, miserable and self-righteous argument that succeeds only in making Christians seem stupid and small-minded. And this just feeds the British Humanist Association and the tired old nonsense that people are better off without the misery that religion brings them.
I wish I could put the pictures into this blog, but I am technologically challenged and can’t work out how to do it. So, here is the link if you want a laugh and an easy way in to talking about God in the pub: www.atheistbus.co.uk/.
January 10, 2009 at 10:08 pm
I just wonder who’ll be the first agnostibus driver to shout ’stop worrying and enjoy life’ to his passengers as he takes another hairpin at 40mph and throws them halfway across the bus.
January 10, 2009 at 11:02 pm
Who are these ’stupid’ Christians, Nick – the brothers and sisters for whom Christ died? Is that a charitable way to describe them? What would you say about British Muslims who objected to having to ride a bus that denounced their belief in God? Would you call them ’stupid’?
Were those Christians ’stupid’ who protested about the blasphemous and obscene ‘Jerry Springer The Opera’ shown on British state television? Do you have the mind of Christ on this?
January 12, 2009 at 12:57 pm
I would like to report the sighting of another vehicle bearing an advertising slogan. The words were spotted on the side of an empty passenger train rattling off into the distance on a branch line which heads into the middle of nowhere. On the grubby, peeling paintwork of the empty driverless train, the following words could be picked out:
There’s probably no Richard Dawkins – now stop worrying and get on with your life
The thing is – people were obeying it. They were steadfastly ignoring the little train, leaving it to rattle off into the distance, whilst they all got on with their lives! For the vast majority of people, the philosophical opinions of Professors matter very little.
Its is to be hoped that this bus campaign does not set off a slogan war between those of faith and those without it. Few will be convinced by such slogans, and many will simply be irritated by them. When the Christian faith first exploded out of Jerusalem under its initial wave of persecution, it was gossiped, rather than proclaimed or advertised. In this way a major world religion was born. No big budgets or slick advertising campaigns were involved. Instead, the faith was passed on from the mouths of those who had found faith in Jesus to the ears of those who had not.
The reality, or otherwise, of God is better discussed in the bus than advertised on the bus!
February 12, 2009 at 10:06 pm
‘I realise that many atheists have been annoyed that Christians have helped fund this bus advertising campaign.’
Not really, mo more than Christian Aid are annoyed that some of the money they collect comes from non-believers. They even collect door-to-door sometimes and don’t ask donors to recite the Apostle’s Creed to check they are Christians…
Christian Aid do a good job and I give them money.
It is a little annoying when Christian charities take other people’s money and say it is Gospel values in action. Err, some of that money is from non-believers puttinhg humanist principles above petty concerns about who gets the credit…
‘Because, much to the annoyance of the atheists, it keeps the conversation about God and the meaning of life alive and well in the public discourse.’
Yes, you can see clergymen and Bishops rushing to the Richard Dawkins forum to try to defend their beliefs against atheists, now that they are so keen on public discourse.
February 12, 2009 at 10:13 pm
RICHARD says
Instead, the faith was passed on from the mouths of those who had found faith in Jesus to the ears of those who had not.
CARR
True.
As Paul says in Romans 10, how else were the Jews going to hear about Jesus, other than from Christian preachers , preaching about him.
How could the Jews be expected to convert, when they had not heard about Jesus?
No preacher had been sent to them, so Christians had to preach about Jesus.
As Paul says,
‘How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent?’
How could Jews believe in Jesus? They had never heard of him!
Paul continues ‘But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our message?’
Of course, some Jews did not accept the Christian preaching about Jesus.
How strange that Paul never thinks that some Jews had rejected Jesus himself, rather than Christian preaching about Jesus.
October 9, 2009 at 3:26 pm
[...] balance’. Ariane Sherine, comedienne and journalist (and the inspiration behind the brilliant agnostibus adverts), seconded the motion, but made the mistake of reading the humanist Thought for the Day she [...]