Mock-up image of Atheist Bus Ad at Dundas Square - Toronto

Hey everyone, here is an update on where we’re at with the Canadian Atheist Bus Campaign, what’s coming up, and some news about a Calgary counter advert campaign.

Ottawa Atheist Bus Ads:

We’ve signed a contract and our production artwork has been submitted, the ads are scheduled to be posted on April 6th. There will be 24 King Size bus ads (the big ones on the sides of buses).

Next Step in Advertising:

We have a little bit of money left to advertise with, those who have any suggestions on the best way to spend it please post in the comments. I personally would like to either advertise quotes on the interiors of buses and subways or put a poster up on Dundas Square as seen in the mock-up picture I created to the right. Dundas Square has always seen religious groups advertising through word-of-mouth and fliers and just yesterday I saw a group attempting to convert passerby’ers to Islam. Maybe it’s time to spread a little bit of atheist love.

I also wanted to propose an idea similar to that of which the bus stop bible studies is already doing. During the CFI Ontario Annual General Meeting I proposed that we should be advertising educational quotes sponsored by donors. We would have a list of proposed quotes to advertise and donors would send us money for the advertisement and we’d handle the production and posting. We would also give the donor a choice to have his or her name listed on the advertisement as the sponsor. If you want to share your suggestions about this idea, please comment below.

Allah vs. God, What’s the Difference?

Allah by definition means God.

I’ve received at least a dozen emails asking why we are apparently picking on Christians with our advertisement (we aren’t picking on Christians btw), they would like us to advertise a message that opposes the Muslim and Islamic religion. So to anyone reading this and wondering why we don’t say ‘Allah’, here is the answer. Allah means God. Taken from godallah.com, “The word “Allah” is the perfect description of the “One God” of monotheism for Jews, Christians and Muslims“. From dictionary.com, “–noun Islam. the Supreme Being; God“. When we mention ‘God’ we are referring to all monotheistic and polytheistic gods of every religion. That’s probably why Imam Syed B. Soharwardy, a Muslim, has recently used $12,000 of credit with his own personal credit card to purchase and produce 8 advertisements for the sides of Calgary’s city transit buses.

God Exists ads that began in Calgary on March 16th/09

Imam Syed Soharwardy Buys $12,000 of Ad Space With Personal Credit.

In Calgary a group titled “God Exists” has started advertising a message that says “God cares for everyone…. even those who say he doesn’t exist”. The ads were paid for by Imam Soharwardy with his own personal credit card.

According to CBC, Soharwardy has said “The message they are saying is that believing in God creates worries, that it takes away joy from people’s life, which is wrong. It is not true,” and that “Believing in God brings strength, especially in this economic crisis when millions of people face losing their jobs.”

To add a little bit of my own commentary as a response, I would say that believing in god ‘takes strength’ rather than ‘brings strength’ because it is always harder to believe in something/someone that doesn’t exist. And rather than clasping our hands in prayer during this time of economic crisis, we should be lending eachother a helping hand and doing what we can to help our follow man/woman out.

Soharwardy has it wrong when he said that beliving in god doesn’t create worries. I’ll share with you a personal anecdote from my childhood when my friend and I went to see a church play. When I was 11 years old and at the time a Pentecostal Christian, the church I attended allowed a travelling Christian show to perform. The title of the performance was “Heaven’s Gates and Hells Flames”. The play was about various people of Christian faith and non believers- it showcased the last minutes of their lives. After each person died they appeared at the gates of heaven. Those who believed in the Christian God and Jesus were permitted to enter heaven and those who weren’t were dragged into hell after a group of demons and ‘Lucifer’ appeared. There was loud music, demonic voices, and sound effects used that were accompanied by lighting and fog machines to try and amplify the experience of hell. After my friend watched this, he told my family that he ‘gave his heart to Jesus twice’ just to be safe because he was so scared that he would go to hell. Looking back at this I feel great sadness for any child that is subjected to such mental torture and abuse. The fact is that religion does bring fear and worry into many peoples lives and so Sohwardy is wrong. I can’t imagine why anyone would want God to exist after reading the bible or the Qur’an (visit evilbible.com to see what I’m talking about).

To all of you that learned of our campaign through Listen Up TV and decided to check out our website, welcome to the Canadian Atheist Bus Campaign! To everyone else that hasn’t a clue what I’m talking about, Listen Up TV is a television program exploring news and current affairs from a Christian worldview. Today they aired a show about us on Global TV that can also be viewed on their website.

There are a few things I wanted to address that Lorna Dueck (Listen Up TV Host) mentioned during the show but first please take note that their broadcast is fairly slanted towards a Christian perspective and doesn’t really give a fair and equal opportunity for both Atheist and Christian viewpoints. Justin and myself spent 15-20 minutes each in-front of a camera with ListenUp but unfortunately our parts were edited and cut to a small 2-3 minutes. The show in total lasted 23 minutes 25 seconds. Despite our parts being cut short, I am grateful that they gave us an opportunity to speak with them.

During Answering Atheism Lorna spoke with David Harrison and later Dave Schmelzer, both about their religious experiences and how they went from Atheist to Christian. The two discussions revolved around experience and reason. Experience is referenced as their encounter with prayer and crying out to or asking a supposed god for help and guidance. According to them, ‘god’ responded.  A website called god Is Imaginary lists 50 proofs that god is not real and the first proof is simply asking people to try praying, I encourage you to read through it for yourself and possibly test out the first proof. Try asking God why he never heals amputees and then take a look at whywontgodhealamputees.com. Dave S. and David H. both prayed and coincidentally had some sort of result that could be explained away without a divinity.

Response to LUT’s The Wrap which discusses ’3 Reasons/Tests to Believe in God’

Response to Listen Up TV's "The Wrap"

First Test according to Lorna: “the test of reason – everything has to have a starting point, it’s the law of thermodynamics. All matter has a beginning, and if it began, it has to have a cause. Science and theology relate to that. The test of reason for belief in God is not afraid to explain origin, irreducible complexity, and cause”

There are three laws of thermodynamics. The first law of thermodynamics is that energy is never created or destroyed, it only changes form. For example: the energy used during the combustion phase of a four-stroke engine is not lost, it simply is changes form. A large portion of that energy is turned into heat, kinetic energy, and some turned into sound, but none of that energy is ever lost- it simply changes form. The second law simplified states: “It is impossible for a process to have as its sole result the transfer of heat from a cooler body to a hotter one”(About.com). The third law implies that it is impossible to cool down a system all the way to exactly absolute zero.
Apparently this is the test of reason to find God. It somehow implies a beginning and an end, doesn’t sound like it to me though.

But lets give Lorna a break, let’s suppose that everything has a beginning and an end, after all she is taking Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) five argument for the existence of God and compressing it into a dozen words. Aquinas basically argued that everything is the result of a cause before it, for example a billiard ball is moved by a cue, you move the cue, and there is a chain of movements before that leads up to that movement, or, every action is a reaction from an action before it. Aquinas believed that there was a first mover, something that originally set motion to the chain of events in our universe. He calls this first mover God. Unfortunately for Aquinas and other Christians that follow this school of thought, no one could ever prove how the first mover related to Christian theology or any theology. In other words, ‘so what’ if there was a first mover because there is nothing to imply that the first mover was the Christian god or a god of any other religion. For all we know the first mover could have been a bunch of fairies moving things, or the first mover could have moved the universe and then dropped dead. There is no evidence at all to support a first mover as the Christian god, and if there was a first movement, there’s no evidence to support it was any god of any type.

As for irreducible complexity.. that argument was debunked and disproved years ago. Michael J. Behe couldn’t ever get the scientific community to support his argument about the eye, flagellum, and mousetrap all being a complex system that would fail if one part was removed. In sum, Behe said that these complex systems would fail if a single part was removed, the removed part would render the systems useless and unable to have evolved from earlier simpler systems. His theory was largely debunked during the Kitzmiller v. Dover case when Intelligent Design was ruled out of Dover county school system.  Watch Dr. Kenneth Miller debunk irreducible complexity on YouTube here.

Second Test according to Lorna: “Test of experience, we know we experience an innate sense of right and wrong, a sense of universal moral law. Why is love the highest law of this moral code? Where does that experience originate from?”

The answer is in the words evolution and empathy and I highly recommend you read this four page PDF on “The Evolution of Empathy” from Berkley University. In this document Frans B. M. de Waal shows us how our evolutionary history suggests a deep-rooted  propensity for feelings of emotions of others.

Third Test according to Lorna: “Take the test of practice. Is belief in God and what that requires, something a person can actually consistently live with? People do practice christian doctrines in error, that explains past religious wars [...] but when Christian truth is applied correctly, does it past the test of practice. Can you live with it, day in and day out. In a way that brings you joy, peace, and improves who you are?”

Is practice of Christianity really what we want? Godisimaginary.com has created a great YouTube video titled “The Bible Is Repulsive“, it explains how according to the Bible we should be stoned and put to death if we work on the Sabbath day, that non-believing towns and inhabitants should be destroyed, and a few other shocking details about the bible that most Christians don’t know about simply because they haven’t read the bible all the way through. EvilBible.com is also a great resource to show all the horrible parts in the bible that are often overlooked. Belief in God is something we can consistently live without and there’s a popular saying that that “[...]good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things — that takes religion.” — Steven Weinberg Nobel Prize in Physics (thanks to Galen for the comment giving me the correct quote).

Anti-Atheist ad in America will no longer have free reign as American atheists start their own 'probably no god' campaign.

The Atheist Bus Campaign has been spreading like wildfire ever since it’s arrival in the United Kingdom. Below is a list of campaigns around the world for those interested in following their developments  (list borrowed from the UK Campaign):

1. Bus humaniste (français) / Canada – the Association Humaniste de Québec is running ads on buses in Montréal.
2. United Kingdom Campaign - where it all began, the original Atheist Bus Campaign with buses in dozens of cities across the UK.
3. Bus Kampagne / Germany – the campaign to put buses on the streets in Germany (Köln, München, Berlin) is now online. Site visitors can choose their slogan and make online donations. Berlin and München transport authorities do not want the ads it seems, but the guys are determined to find alternatives.
4. Uskotamon bussikampanja / Finland – the campaign for atheist buses on the streets of Helsinki. €3500 donated so far. News in English here.
5. Atheïstische Reklamecampagne / Netherlands – a huge atheist advert on the side of the A4 motorway near Schipol airport.
6. Atheist Bus / Switzerland (DE | FR | IT) – local bus firms are resisting the advertisements, but this might also result in bans on religious advertising. Paypal donations are possible.
7. Atheist trams / Croatia – ads appeared for 1 day on trams in Zagreb but were removed after complaints. Freedom of speech in a formerly communist country? News in Croatian here, Google translation from Slovenian here.
8. Campagna Bus / Italy – despite some legal issues with the bus company the campaign continues in Italy, with €30000 raised so far.
9. Bus ateo / Spain – buses in Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga with slogans in Spanish and Catalan.
10. Atheist Foundation / Australia – a one-off bus after other ads were not permitted. Latest news here.
11. Indiana Atheist bus Campaign / USA – a new campaign for buses in Bloomington, Indiana
12. Why Believe in a God / USA – bus campaign in Washington, and also a new campaign in Seattle.

We are working closely with the advertising agency that manages OC Transpo’s ad space. Within the next couple of days our contract should be finalized. If all goes well, Ottawa will be seeing our pretty pink, red, and orange banners next week.

Below is a video that discusses the dispute with Ottawa City Council, OC Transpo, and our advertisement disapproval and then approval. The interview is with David Burton, the Director of Humanist Association of Ottawa.

The song below is at the end of the video above. It is by Paul LeClair and was created as part of the protest against the OC Transpo’s attempt to censor our ad. To listen to the full version please visit his website.

25 supporters of freethought and free speech turned out to the morning protest before the council meeting, and about 12 were in the chambers later in the afternoon when the vote took place. The protesters, representing the Humanist Assocation of Ottawa and the Freethought Association of Canada all had matching T-shirts, with the bus ad on the front, and on the back was a list of cities where atheist bus ads have run, with the heading “Atheist bus world tour”.

City Councilor Alex Cullen (also chair of the Transit Committee) spoke eloquently and passionately in defense of the fundamental right to freedom of expression, citing the Canadian Charter of rights and freedoms. Cullen emphasized that the right to freedom of speech must also apply to people with whom we disagree.

Councilor Marianne Wilkinson repeated her opposition to the ads, saying that she found them offensive to her Christian faith. She also re-iterated her comment that the ads were only rejected because they did not meet the previously stated policies and guidelines, saying that the FAC had been informed of this, but we had refused to comply. (The guidelines state that religious ads are only permitted if they refer to a specific event, and include time and location information; however, there are numerous examples of religious ads that do not meet this requirement – see http://atheistbusottawa.wordpress.com/examples-of-religious-ads-on-ottawa-buses/.)

One councilor took exception to the light-hearted spirit of our ad, likening it to a youthful prank (rather odd, since the assembled group of atheists sported more than a few gray hairs among the bunch of us). Mayor Larry O’Brien almost seemed about to vote in favour of allowing the ads, saying that it had been a topic of discussion at the Ottawa Inter-faith Council (which O’Brien chairs), and that “to a soul” all the faith leaders were in support of the ads, many even considering that there would be a positive effect of increased dialogue and attention to religious ideas. However, in the end, he said that he felt bound to uphold the city’s policies and therefore would vote against allowing the ads.

It is interesting to note that several councilors were willing to spend $10-20k of taxpayers’ money to fight a legal battle that the city solicitor said they would be almost sure to lose.

In the end, the rollcall vote had us nervously counting on our fingers, but the decision was in our favour, 13 to 7.

Despite receiving some opposition from various Councilors at Ottawa City Hall to delay the vote, our advertisement today received approval! Councilor Cullen made a very good case to support our advertisement and the city’s legal council had informed him that if we challenged their decision through the courts, they most definitely would have lost and wasted tax payers money with needless legal costs. Councilor Cullen, I applaud your great effort and I think you did an excellent job.

But even in our success I have to say that I am a little disappointed by the reaction of a few Ottawa councilors. Some of them didn’t seem to understand how hypocritical OC Transpo’s response to deny our ad really was. The few that opposed our ad kept citing that religious advertisements were permitted only “[...]if the information is designed to promote a specific meeting, gathering or event and the location, date and time of said event”. Contrast this policy to their approval of the Anglican Church, United Church of Canada, Alpha Course, and Bus Stop Bible Study ads that did not advertise a meeting, gathering, or event but rather some type of religious doctrine or school of thought.

Councilor Bob Monette mentioned that our ad was created to be funny, implying that we are running some sort of media stunt or joke. Let me tell you that this is not a media stunt, advertising a message that doesn’t agree with mainstream religion doesn’t warrant such a claim to say we are trying to be “funny”. We think it is very serious that people try to impose their beliefs on others without any credible evidence to support their claims, and it is even more serious that they try to impose their beliefs on children before a child can develop and become their own person and formulate their own world view. Somehow religion can make extreme and extraordinary claims, preach all sorts of ideologies, quote a book and claim it is true in its entirety and that people should live by it despite its scriptures of racism, hate, sexism, and murder and still these groups remain tax exempt. This is not funny, and it is not funny asking people not to worry about that, put it all aside, and just go ahead and enjoy their lives.

All that being said, congratulations Ottawa!

OC Transpo Bus

Today (March 11th) the Ottawa City Council will vote on a motion to approve our ads. If all goes well, we could be seeing bright pink, orange, and red “probably no god” banners on Ottawa city buses very soon. If you want to tune in from your computer and watch the council vote, visit http://www.ottawa.ca/city_hall/events/plug_in_council_en.html. The webcast begins at 10:00am.

Humanist Association of Ottawa has also organized a protest that is set to take place this morning, those attending are asked to show up by 9:15am at the Lisgar Street Entrance of City Hall (click here for google map). The protest will take place right outside the council chamber.

Last month we were all a little shocked to hear that OC Transpo had rejected our ad; most of us thought it surely would’ve been approved considering Ottawa’s history of religious advertisement acceptance. Pattison Outdoors was also a little surprised- they had been predicting approval. The response from Marianne Wilkinson (Councilor of Ward 4 in the City of Ottawa) was confusing and contradicting to say the least. In her template letter that she used to respond to the majority of incoming emails asking for her reconsideration, she stated:

“[...]this policy include principles in the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards which includes as unacceptable “demean, denigrate or disparage any identifiable person, group of persons, firm, organization, industrial or commercial activity, profession, product or service or attempt to bring it or them into public contempt or ridicule”. It also condones any form of discrimination based on religion.”

Perhaps Ms. Wilkinson hasn’t realized that 1) our advertisement has been approved in Toronto and Calgary and 2) both cities we were approved in are also subject to the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards. I also certainly hope she meant to say condemn rather than condone. In her template letter she also said:

Even more direct is article 5 of the OC Transpo Ad Guidelines which states that religious advertising is not permitted “which promotes a specific ideology, ethic, point of view, policy or action, which in the opinion of the City might be deemed prejudicial to other religious groups or offensive to users of the transit system”. It then goes on to state that “Religious advertising will be permitted if the information is designed to promote a specific meeting, gathering ore event and the location, date and time of said event.”

This is odd because many Ottawa residents have seen several religious ad campaigns in recent years, such as the Anglican church’s “cometochurch.ca” campaign, United Church’s “wondercafe” ads, and the Alpha Course campaign. And all campaigns had a few commonalities: 1) they advertised a religious message, 2) none of them contained a location, date, and time for some sort of religious event. Furthermore, the Bus Stop Bible Study ads were approved by OC Transpo – some of which could be viewed as extremely offensive. For example, “What does the LORD your God require of you? He requires you to fear him, to live according to his will, to love him and worship him with all your heart and soul[...]“… apparently they’ll approve the message of a narcissist and megalomaniac but not ours.

Fortunately for us, not all of the members at Ottawa City Council bend the rules to benefit their own religious affiliation. There are some that truly believe in fairness for all rather than double standards, and it is those elected councilors that deserve the respect of the city because they’ve been able to do their jobs properly. Hopefully tomorrow OC Transpo’s double standard against our ad will draw to a close.

On another note, our advertisement in Calgary started running this past weekend. Six more ads are now making their way around on the sides of Calgary’s buses to let people know there’s probably no god.

*Update* 12:02pm March 11th – It looks like our motion is number 10 on the City Council Agenda. If you want to continue to keep an eye on the council meeting visit http://www.ottawa.ca/online_services/council_live/english/index.html to watch it live.

MOTION

Moved by Councillor A. Cullen

Seconded by Councillor J. Legendre

WHEREAS the Free Thought Association of Canada is running an advertisement campaign on public transit buses that states “There’s Probably No God. Now Stop Worrying And Enjoy Your Life”; and,

WHEREAS these ads are running on buses in Toronto and Calgary, but have been rejected by OC Transpo based on their interpretation of their policy that this message “might be deemed prejudicial to other religious groups or offensive to users of the transit system”; and,

WHEREAS the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states:
“2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

(a) freedom of conscience and religion;

(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;” and,

WHEREAS these fundamental freedoms can be “subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society” (Section 1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms); and,

WHEREAS the Supreme Court of Canada, in interpreting the application of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, has ruled that a public transit company, city or municipality cannot impose a blanket ban on religious (or political) advertising (Canadian Federation of Students vs. Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority); and,

WHEREAS the Supreme Court of Canada, in interpreting the application of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, has ruled that no individual has a right not to be offended, in particular: “The key is that people will disagree about important issues, and such disagreement, where it does not imperil community living, must be capable of being accommodated at the core of a modern pluralism. People are free to disagree with our beliefs as they wish.” (Chamberlain vs. Surrey School District No. 36); and,

WHEREAS the Canadian Human Rights Commission has stated: “The essence of the concept of the freedom of religion is: the right to declare religious beliefs openly and without fear of hindrance or reprisal; and the right to manifest religious belief by worship and practice or by teaching and dissemination.”; and,

WHEREAS the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards, in Section 14 – Unacceptable Depictions and Portrayals, states: “It is recognized that advertisements may be distasteful without necessarily conflicting with the provisions of this Clause (14); and the fact that a particular product or service may be offensive to some people is not sufficient grounds for objecting to an advertisement for that product or service.” ;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that OC Transpo be directed to accept the ads proposed by the Free Thought Association of Canada (subject to the usual charges).

—

Discuss this on our forums at http://atheistbus.ca/forum

Last night’s streetcar party was a success, we had over 50 guests in total and the night went off without a hitch. If you have photos of the evening that you want to share, please email them to photos[at]atheistbus.ca.

Flicker Gallery: Click on the bottom left of each photo to visit the flickr page.

Tonight we will be celebrating the Canadian Atheist Bus Campaign at the Centre For Inquiry! The evening will include a ride through downtown Toronto on one of TTC’s world-famous streetcars and also a chance to meet, mingle, and party with campaign supporters, donors, and other atheists, humanists, and skeptics. We will have food and drinks available for purchase and some good music to be heard.

Tickets can be purchased at the door with cash or online at http://streetcar.atheistbus.ca (online ticket sales close at 6:00pm tonight). The Centre For Inquiry is also offering a wonderful limited time offer, if you purchase a membership you will receive free entry to the party*. The partying will begin at 8:00pm at 216 Beverly Street, close to U of T St. George Campus.

If you are with the press or media and would like an opportunity to photograph or videotape the streetcar, please call (416) 402 8856. Press/media to arrive by 7:45pm.

To all those attending please read through http://streetcar.atheistbus.ca for full event details and instructions.

See you tonight!

*This offer unfortunately is not available for student CFI membership. You can sign up for membership at CFI door before entry to party.

In early February we were notified by the company that handles bus advertising for OC Transpo that our ad had been rejected by OC Transpo staff. On February 11, Alex Cullen, Ottawa city councilor and chair of the Ottawa Transit Committee, brought a motion before the committee to have the rejection overturned. The vote was a tie, so the motion failed and the rejection was upheld. On February 25, at the full City Council meeting, Alex Cullen tabled a motion to overturn the rejection and permit the ad. This motion is to be discussed and voted upon at the next council meeting, on 11 March. If you would like to support the right to freedom of speech, and the idea that freedom of religion must include and acknowledge the freedom to have no religion at all, please sign the petition below. Some other ways you can help:

• Come to the council meeting at City Hall on Wednesday, 11 March (more information here)
• Write a letter to your city councilor (email addresses here and suggestions for letters here)
• Sign the petition to be presented to members of the City Council in advance of the 11 March meeting
• Join the Facebook group – tell your friends