January 9, 2009

London Atheist Campaign Draws Complaints

I wish I could say I’m surprised… but I’m not.

The Guardian is reporting that a British religious organization known as Christian Voice has filed complaints with the Advertising Standards Authority over the Atheist Bus Advertising Campaign I reported on earlier. Their assertion is that there is no evidence to support a claim that there is no god, so therefore the bus advertising is false.


Stephen Green, spokesman for Christian Voice, states that by ASA regulation “marketers must hold documentary evidence to prove all claims.” And “There is plenty of evidence for God, from people's personal experience, to the complexity, interdependence, beauty and design of the natural world.” Therefore, the sponsor for the advertising, the British Humanist Association, is making a false claim.

So there you have it. The godless cannot prove a negative, and the godded have “personal experience.

For their part, chief executive of the association Hanne Stinson, says: "I've sought advice from some of our key people here, but I'm afraid all I've got out of them so far is peals of laughter. I am sure that Stephen Green really does think there is a great deal of evidence for a God (though presumably only the one that he believes in), but I pity the ASA if they are going to be expected to rule on the probability of God's existence."

The irony is becoming unbearable.


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4 Comments:

Rogue Medic said...

If only there were some sort of anti-blasphemy law, they could smite the heathens, or get the government to do it for them.

Mark said...

See, this is what gets right up my snot. The whole point of agnosticism and aethism is based on the absolute lack of proof of God. However, you point this out and they get The Right Arse. If ASA pulls this campaign, then it's going to turn an awful lot of people like Yours Truly - who are just sort of cheerfully godless - into militant anti-religionists.

Tom and Marsha said...

LOL. The "Godded" in this case has not figured out how to friends and influence people. There is a God. He does love us and gives us a choice. I have to go with the godless on this one. They have a right to project their agenda and beliefs. He needs to back off and relearn what a "God fearing" man is supposed to be.

Stoneraven said...

What I want to know is how a loving, all-knowing being "gives us a choice"...assuming God is real then do we really have a choice if He/She/It already knows what we will utlimately do? And as far as "God fearing" that has always sounded to me like being scared of the Boogey Man, or getting coal from Santa Claus...in other words as far as I am concerned a total crock.

The Brits should be able to write whatever they damn well please on the side of a bus and not fear being sued by some "God fearers", just like those crazy church people get to have giant billboards saying such dazzlers as "Life is short, eternity is not. Signed -GOD" or "Change your way (with a bloody crowned Jesus on the cross)". Personally I am sick an tired of religious advertisements, but here in the States it is well within their rights to put it up...just as it should be for someone to put up a sign that says "God is not real"...if God doesn't like it let him take it down himself...