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.

—-

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

A discussion about atheism.

Hosted by: Steve Paikin

Guests:
Justin Trottier – President of the Freethought Association of Canada and executive director of the Centre for Inquiry.
Robert Buckman – President emertius of the Humanist Association of Canada, oncologist at Princess Margaret Hospital, and author of Can We Be Good without God, and Biology, Behaviour and the Need to Believe.
Jordan Peterson – Clinical psychologist, a professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto, and author of Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief.
Gretta Vosper – Chair of the Canadian Centre of Progressive Christianity
Kathy Shaidle – Religious writer and blogger

Produced by: Meredith Martin

We are planning on renting a TTC Streetcar with our advertisement on the side but we want to get a ball-park idea of how many people might attend. The night would begin around 8pm on March 6th with ticket holders going on a cruise around downtown Toronto on a streetcar, we would then arrive back at a yet-to-be-announced location where food and drinks might be served. This is a great way to meet supporters, campaign workers, donors, fellow skeptics, and also make new friends. All of this is still in the planning stages and nothing is set in stone but if you have any ideas about how we can make this night more fun and interesting, please comment below. Thanks!

 Loading ...

Official Toronto Streetcar Party Thread on our forums – Click Here

Official Facebook Event – Click Here

Moderator of the United Church of Canada the Right Reverend David Giuliano

It’s been getting really exciting recently with the bus campaign.  There’s been an interesting new development since the United Church of Canada got in on the fun.  We are actually succeeding in the primary aim we keep going on about, namely the formation of dialogue.  Over the last two days I’ve engaged in back to back panel discussion, live on air, with the Right Reverend David Giuliano, the highest officer in the United Church of Canada.

Firstly, last night Chris Hammond and I engaged with the Reverend for an hour on CP24 television and jointly fielded half a dozen callers.  The conversation was very level except after one caller gave her point of view that since Canada was a Christian country (talk of begging the question) we had no business impugning that fact, and that a person’s religion was too holy for offending it to be acceptable.  I had to say about three times – over her voice – that Canada has no such thing as a human right to not be offended (not yet anyway).  Luckily, the host of the show is a free speech attorney who worked to defend Ezra Levant, the former editor of the Western Standard who was hauled before the Human Rights commission in Alberta for printing the Mohamed Cartoons.  So Chris and I were in very good company.

This morning I was woken up to a phone-in discussion on a Waterloo, Ontario based radio show for a conversation with the same Reverend Giuliano.  Knowing each other a little better, we now had the opportunity to explore issues of faith and divinity in more depth, and the host prompted us with leading questions like whether atheists were just out for themselves (to which I responded by describing that as a fairly archaic characterization) and whether god was a necessary additive if everyone agreed non-believers could lead moral and deeply satisfying lives.

When the Reverend described how God to him was a transcendental entity which subsumed concepts like beauty, love and ethics, I agreed that such a transcendental belief assisted some, while explaining that many people are able to appreciate the majesty of the universe and lead lives of commitment to deep ethical principles without having to label these values with the imprimateur of God.  Also consider individuals like Gretta Vosper, head of the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity and United Church minister in Scarborough, whose book With or Without God, calls Christians to move towards the use of symbols in place of doctrine and belief.  It was an interesting conversation because without caller interruptions we were able to engage in more of a good natured critique of the other’s viewpoint, always staying positive and converging in some places along the complicated spectrum that joins our worldviews, and in fact concluding with the host expressing his belief that we would make great friends, to which we both readily agreed.

I’m very pleased that precedents such as these are moving atheism into the mainstream.  To respond to criticisms that what we are doing is trivial and pointless, I would point to such examples.  That’s what this campaign is all about.

Now for something more amusing – but equally mainstream – editorial cartoons!  Since this site is well read (as opposed to my personal blog) I won’t dare reprint it, so visit here, so visit the Montreal Gazette Aislin cartoon for Feb 2, 2009.  Enjoy!

—-

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

Cross posted to Equalism Activism

Hey everyone,

Today we will be opening the official discussion board of the Canadian Atheist Bus Campaign. With this forum you can discuss, debate, and talk about atheism, religion, and a wide range of other related topics. I encourage everyone to sign up and start posting.

To access the forum please visit http://atheistbus.ca/forum.
Thanks!

*Update* Go have your say in their Yes/No poll!

Leave it to the United Church of Canada to come out and counter our ads. I think this is a really exciting new development. They’re hoping their ads have the same effect as ours – to spring up discussion in the public. I’ve been a member of their site wonder cafe for many years now because it’s proven time and again to be a really great place to have this exact discussion (and many others) with believers who have an open mind.  I’m just hoping they don’t pour  too much money into their campaign making our ads way more obscure than theirs.

Although, the discussion surrounding the ad on their website is way ….below…what I’ve found their usual conversation to be, I expected the people there to actually talk about it instead of just saying it is a silly and useless comment. I’d love to hear their intelligent thoughts surrounding the message instead of them just assuming that we’re attacking them.

With silly comments like “there’s probably no science” and “why aren’t they attacking Muslims” it’s very easy to brush the entire thread off as more people who aren’t interested in opening their mind up to new ideas and actually talking to us about the meat of the issues. However, there are a couple people on there going against that statement. Such as…

Alas – Good on you, UCC!