Last Sunday evening on Global TV’s investigative television show 16:9 The Bigger Picture, Darryl Konynenbelt reported on our world renowned atheist bus campaign. What did he say? Watch the video below to see for yourself:

I wanted to address some of the things said in the broadcast, I’ll do it in a chronological order to make it easier for those of you that want to watch the video clip and skim through to the parts I reference.

The first part I wanted to briefly discuss begins at 2:04 minutes into the clip. Out of the thousand books on the shelf at the Centre For Inquiry building where Justin Trottier was being interviewed, a book titled The trouble with Christmas is zoomed in on by the videographer.  Was it deliberate? Were they trying to imply that atheists are the “party poopers” of Christmas? It might have just been coincidental but nonetheless it’s worthy of being addressed. I do not believe in a God and I think Jesus might have existed but certainly not in the sense that most Christians believe. To the point, Atheists can enjoy mythological holidays just as much as anyone else, we do not believe in the supernatural but that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate certain festivities. We can appreciate the mythological stories behind them. The artwork in St Paul’s cathedral is still beautiful even without a supernatural god, just as Christmas is enjoyed even if the Jesus story is a myth.

During the interview with Justin, Darryl asked:

“That’s a pretty ballsy statement considering that people who are Jewish, Hindu, Christian are going to be at those bus stops, watching those ads go by and say ‘that doesn’t resonate with me, why did they put it on there?’” (referring to our banner as being ballsy)

Really? Ballsy? I guess that asking people to stop worrying and enjoy their lives is ballsy, I didn’t think it was. In my opinion, advertisements that reference or directly quote the text that many of these religions are based on is ballsy, they’re the ones reading from books full of murder, rape, racism, homophobia, and slavery and teaching that these books are true. If you don’t believe the bible contains any of the mentioned atrocities please take a look for yourself, 1 Chronicles 21:9-14, Leviticus 25:44-46, for more visit evilbible.com. For an all knowing, all powerful God that supposedly is beyond time, he/she/it doesn’t really seem like a loving God to me. One-hundred million dollars of tax money being funded to churches that are also registered charities so they can teach our children these things, now that’s ballsy… and not in a good way.

As for the part where Darryl asks “That doesn’t resonate with me, why did they put it on there?” I didn’t think every advertisement was supposed to resonate or appeal to everyone. I do think that asking people not to worry and to enjoy life might resonate with some, after all, who wants to worry? But don’t flatter yourself, people aren’t donating $40k+ just to make the religious “feel good” or to “resonate” with them. We’re spending the money to raise the profile of atheism, provoke thought and discussion, and promote education about secularism, atheism, humanism, and to also open dialog between the religious and secular world.  We think that through education and understanding we can create a better world to live in, and if that resonates with you or makes you feel good, that’s great.

At about 3 minutes into the clip, Reverend David Giuliano mentions:

“It’s so sad that there are people in the world who perceive the presence of god as a source of worry and lack of enjoyment.”

If you told me god was the first cause of the universe and that was it, no more religion after that, no more texts, Bibles, Qurans, etc,  I wouldn’t be inclined to think that people should worry or not about god if people went around converting people to believe in a first mover’ism. The problem is that there are so many strings attached to mainstream religions. Many of them expect people to submit to their version of god and to take a submissive role under a father/master head. I.e. you have to believe in Jesus and submit yourself to the lord to be “saved” because God wants to save “us” humans. How narcissistic of these people to think that out of the trillions of planets, stars, and galaxies in the universe, hundreds of billions of which are capable of sustaining life, apparently we’re the centre of the universe and the sole purpose of everything. If there truly was a presence of god that Rev. Giuliano is referring to, the world might be a better place, but the problem is that there is no “presence of god” but people keep thinking there is, leaving it up to oneself to create some sort of delusional presence of god in their mind and kidding themselves into thinking it is the supernatural. Obviously it’s not all bad, some just worship, some even feel convictions to help the less fortunate and needy, but some also fly planes into buildings, kill homosexuals for being born gay, and punish women for being raped under Sharia law.

Despite all of what was mentioned on the show, perhaps one of the most troubling parts comes from Lori Patterson of Halifax Metro Transit. It’s hard to make any conclusive statements about what was said because her clip was heavily edited and cut very close, and in her defense, she might have said something after that validated her statement. The press does seem to want to create controversy where there might not be any; some papers have been adamantly trying to get us to say that we will take Ottawa’s OC Transpo to the supreme court of Canada, something that is not in our plans yet. But back to Ms. Patterson, she said:

“I don’t want to see those ads”.

Everyone obviously has the right to their own opinion but if she really doesn’t want to see those ads then she might want to consider the fact that her opinion is not what counts here, Halifax Metro Transit is a public service funded by public tax dollars, as the TTC has justified our ads, very similar rules apply to Metro Transit as Nova Scotia’s charter is not that different from Ontario’s. Ms. Patterson is not part of the Thought Police from George Orwell’s novel 1984, although  she may wish she could be.

And finally, someone gets called a fanatic! Darryl says:

“The ads are getting the evil eye from Lori Patterson of Halifax Metro Transit who doesn’t want to see fanatics target her buses.”

It’s hard to say whether they are stating they don’t want to see fanatics target their buses with ads, calling atheists fanatics, or if they mean that they don’t want someone strapping a bomb to a bus because an ad on it goes around refuting their religion. A clip of Ms. Patterson says “We have to worry about our passengers and our operators” so I tend to think that they were implying they didn’t want to attract the bomb strapping lunatics that apparently run rampant in Canada with the sole intention of hitting Halifax of all places. I’m glad I live in Toronto, a free city that doesn’t bow down to the apparent threat of religious fanaticism but maybe in Halifax the crazies run loose. I highly doubt it, I think the people of Halifax are just as civil as my fellow Canadians in Ontario, but when spokes people like Lori Patterson go around in the public eye stating those types of things, one has to wonder if she realizes she is damaging Halifax’s reputation of being a safe and beautiful city.

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