NZ Atheists Swap Buses For Billboards

Posted on July 1, 2010 | 26 Comments

This from the NZ Atheist Bus Campaign:

The NZ Atheist Bus Campaign will unveil billboards with friendly atheist slogans in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch this week.

The campaign has chosen the three winning phrases from more than 900 public submissions of billboard slogans. “We’re excited about this opportunity to promote these thoughtful slogans and hope they’ll get people to stop and think.” said Simon Fisher, spokesperson for the Campaign.

While the precise wording of the three new slogans is intended to be a surprise, Mr Fisher says that all three designs will include the text “There’s probably no God, now stop worrying and enjoy your life”
borrowed from the successful UK bus campaign.

With the launch of the billboard campaign, the organisation is also reopening its call for donations from people who want to see the billboards moved to other cities. “While the bus campaign would have been limited to main centres, the great thing about these canvases is that once printed they can be toured to other centres” said Mr Fisher.
“If a community wants to put one of our billboards up in their area they can contact us, arrange a location, and we’ll be delighted to lend them the canvas”.

Despite similar campaigns being run internationally, the organisation’s plans to place ads on buses in New Zealand hit a brick wall earlier this year when NZ Bus accepted and then rejected the billboards, leading to the Campaign’s decision to take the issue to a tribunal. “The Campaign is still committed to the discrimination case against NZ Bus through the Office of Human Rights Proceedings. “We have kept funds in reserve for a bus advertising campaign if this is successful.” said Mr Fisher.

Interested Kiwis can see the billboards in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch from Friday this week.

For more information and to donate, see NZ Atheist Campaign

Thanks to Toby Ricketts for the photos of two billboards just installed in Christchurch.

UPDATE:

Here’s one billboard I missed:

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26 responses to “NZ Atheists Swap Buses For Billboards”

  1. Fred | July 1, 2010 at 5:09 pm |

    What is the point of these ads?

    Like

  2. Matthew Holloway | July 2, 2010 at 5:03 pm |

    @Fred

    There are two basic points, (1) to raise the issue of religion for discussion, and (2) many people in New Zealand grew up in religious households but are now agnostic (in the popular definition sense) but they feel remnants of those teachings and the threats of hell. Although I was never religious as a child I was threatened by religious people about hell. This campaign is about reminding people that it’s ok not to believe and that over 36% of New Zealanders are non-believers.

    Like

  3. Ken | July 2, 2010 at 5:30 pm |

    I like the “Good Without God” one.
    Surely that has a point, Fred?

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  4. Cedric Katesby | July 3, 2010 at 1:07 pm |

    Another good one is “The lord is my shepherd, Baaaaaa.”
    I would pay serious money to see that on a billboard.
    🙂

    Like

  5. Ken | July 3, 2010 at 1:27 pm |

    Cedric, the no god site for these billboards has a post including a billboard generator – aimed at collecting ideas.

    You should go there and enter that one.

    Like

  6. Lats | July 8, 2010 at 2:52 pm |

    I like the billboards, I saw the “one god further” one in Christchurch a couple of days ago, very clever. I dare say they’ll get defaced by miffed christians in the not too distant future. Hopefully they will do it with style and a sense of humour, but I doubt it…

    Like

  7. Fred | July 8, 2010 at 3:01 pm |

    I can’t see the point in these billboards.
    They just seem to reinforce the smug image I have of atheist/warmists that they are always correct and everyone else is wrong.

    Like

  8. Ken | July 8, 2010 at 3:05 pm |

    Declaration of interest time Fred.

    What is your religion?

    Like

  9. Fred | July 8, 2010 at 3:10 pm |

    Part time Anglican.
    But I don’t have strong views on God etc.

    Like

  10. Ken | July 8, 2010 at 3:21 pm |

    Oh – I thought you were known for strong views!

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  11. Fred | July 8, 2010 at 3:32 pm |

    My only strong views are that people shouldn’t impose their strong views on others. So I won’t impose that on you

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  12. Lats | July 8, 2010 at 3:41 pm |

    Fred – Interesting you said athiests/warmists. I’m not sure of the data on this, but are you suggesting a that if one is athiest one is more likely to believe in climate change? Or were you simply implying that atheists and climate change supporters are similarly smug and superior?

    Like

  13. Fred | July 8, 2010 at 3:47 pm |

    Both

    Like

  14. Ken | July 8, 2010 at 3:57 pm |

    I watch the activity for the #climategate tag on Twitter. Normally it is relatively slow and anti-science. This morning around the release of the latest climategate report there was a large amount of traffic and clearly mostly pro-science.

    I suspect that the anti-science or denier groups actually only a very small part of the population. On the other hand the pro-science group is much larger. We could identify many groups this way. Eg Anglicans/warmists, National/warmists, Christian/warmist.

    But probably it would also be correct to identify other groups differently: ACT/deniers, Conservative Christians/deniers, extreme right wing political think tanks/deniers.

    You get the picture.

    Like

  15. Lats | July 8, 2010 at 4:11 pm |

    Hmm, I may be misrepresenting my fellow “warmists” here, but my take is that we’re more interested in evidence-based conclusions than those who seek, for whatever reason, to protect their vested interests. Aside from a few on the “lunatic fringe”, warmists seem pretty dispassionate (if you’ll pardon the expression) and less inclined to resort to distorting evidence and personal attacks than the deniers.
    I wouldn’t have assumed that religious views were especially indicative of denial of scientific findings, except in the obvious area of creationism vs natural selection. Hmm, you learn something every day, or at least some of us do 🙂

    Like

  16. Fred | July 8, 2010 at 4:26 pm |

    I define as a warmist, someone who defends the climate community whatever the circumstances.

    Someone, for example, who consistently uses the word “denier”, even if that person is critising the colour of the paper on the IPCC reports.

    Those of the warmist creed put scientists on a pedestal and worship them as though they were saints.

    I am not a “denier” or a “warmist”. I look at the evidence. The evidence for Catastrophic climate change is pretty thin, in my view. We put our faith in climate models that have zero predictive value. Ouija boards, in Lindzen’s view.

    This faith in GIGO computer models seems to have a religious aspect.

    I used to follow the “consensus”, but the whole climategate affair and especially the transparent whitewashes by the establishment have made me very sceptical and cynical.

    The evidence for some very unprofessional behaviour is there for everyone to see, and those who pretend that this did not happen are the real deniers.

    — bring on the Trolls ….

    Like

  17. Ken | July 8, 2010 at 4:48 pm |

    Ha, Ha, Fred.

    You have a reputation for own goals. You score them when you link to denier sources and use them for your information.

    I have yet to see you link to a credible source.

    Come on, surprise us. Try it.

    Like

  18. Lats | July 8, 2010 at 4:50 pm |

    Personally I’d rather not worship anyone.

    Like

  19. Ken | July 8, 2010 at 4:55 pm |

    Me neither. In my experience idols always turn out to have feet of clay.

    Like

  20. Lats | July 8, 2010 at 5:11 pm |

    I do disagree about climate models however. I’m no expert on computer modelling, but it strikes me that if used properly these can be a useful tool for predicting possible future outcomes. As with any extrapolation of data (and thats all computer models are, theres nothing especially new about extrapolation) there is always a margin for error. We simply need to be aware that the outcome of any given model is a “best guess” given the original data. If that data has holes or flaws, then the outcome of the model is that much less certain. But to dismiss the use of models out of hand seems to deny a useful tool to science.

    Like

  21. Patmos Pete | July 15, 2010 at 4:34 am |

    Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.

    Like

  22. tupbebek | August 10, 2010 at 12:02 am |

    was an article I liked. Thanks for sharing.
    …

    Like

  23. beau | December 11, 2010 at 5:10 pm |

    omg patmos pete get a life lol im a very serious christian but i belive in the antichrist not god , and stop trying to preach to evry 1 they dont like it an judgment day never comes have you never read the bible to the end it clearly states that fact,

    Like

  24. Kevin | November 23, 2013 at 3:29 pm |

    You people need to open your minds and start to realize if there is no God where did we come from. Something would have still had to make the spark that created the Big Bang to happen that created the Universe which lead to where we are today. There is a higher being of some sort out there we just don’t know what it is and how it created us. We are not as smart as we think we are. We are still a far less intellectual species than we think we are. If we keep going at the rate we are going on right now, Earth Should be Extinct within 100 years.

    Like

  25. ChristopherAtkinson | November 23, 2013 at 5:33 pm |

    …but what then created god?
    an endless regression or just the silly argument you just posed Kevin…

    I think Kevin “we” may have already pondered that little conundrum

    Like

  26. Richard Christie | November 23, 2013 at 5:40 pm |

    I think Kevin “we” may have already pondered that little conundrum

    We sure have 😉

    god is an assertion

    Like

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