Atheist Bus Campaign

The Atheist Bus Campaign aims to place "peaceful and upbeat" messages about atheism on transport media in the UK, in response to evangelical Christian advertising. It was created by comedy writer Ariane Sherine and launched on 21 October 2008, with official support from the British Humanist Association and Richard Dawkins. The campaign's original goal was to raise £5,500 to run 30 buses across London for four weeks early in 2009 with the slogan: "There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."
Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, agreed to match all donations up to a maximum of £5,500, providing a total of £11,000 if the full amount were to be raised. The campaign reached that target by 10.06am on 21 October and had raised £100,000 by the evening of 24 October. The campaign closed on 11 April 2009, having raised a total of £153,516.51.
The first buses started running on 6 January 2009 - 800 are running around the whole of the UK and it is also planned to place 1,000 adverts on the London Underground featuring quotations from famous atheists. Subsequently, two large LCD screens have been placed on Oxford Street, central London.
Since the target for the buses was reached many times over, and the buses are now on the streets, visitors to the Atheist Bus website are now being encouraged to donate to the general campaigns of the British Humanist Association instead through a new, linked, campaign called The Next Stop. However any further money given to the main campaign will go to a second wave of adverts after the donation site closes on April 11.
== Initial proposal ==
The idea was originally proposed by Sherine in June 2008 in a Comment is Free blog post, Atheists - gimme five. She expressed her frustration that a Christian organisation, JesusSaid.org, was allowed to place the URL on their bus adverts of a website which said all non-Christians would burn in hell for all eternity. Sherine called on atheists to counter this kind of evangelical advertising by donating five pounds towards a positive philosophical advert. Her idea was taken up by political blogger Jon Worth, who went on to set up a PledgeBank page. The PledgeBank page closed on 31 July 2008 having received 877 of the 4,679 pledges necessary for the original target of £23,400PledgeBank Atheist Bus, PledgeBank Atheist Bus. This event attracted some limited comment in the mainstream media early in August. Sherine then wrote a follow-up Comment is free article, Dawkin 'bout a Revolution, detailing events since the original piece. In response, the British Humanist Association offered to lend the campaign its official support and undertook to administer all donations. Sherine then asked Richard Dawkins for a quote for the campaign, at which point he offered to match the first £5,500 raised.
== History of the campaign ==
The Atheist Bus Campaign's donation phase launched on Tuesday 21 October 2008 with another article by Sherine, All aboard the atheist bus campaign, on Comment is free. To the surprise of the organisers the fundraising target was broken within hours of the launch, raising almost £48,000 by the end of day one.
After four days the campaign had raised more than £100,000. There have been donations to the Justgiving page every day since the campaign's launch, and by 9 January 2009 the total had surpassed £140,000. The BHA has reported a flood of interest in its activities and the Atheist Bus Campaign Facebook group has been growing rapidly since the launch. Many atheists feel the campaign has given them a voice and represented them in a way they have long hoped for.
The story attracted widespread media attention around the world. Writing in The Times, Joan Bakewell observed that "Not since Going to Work on an Egg has an advertising initiative made such an impact, and for so little cost."
There has been some opposition to the adverts. By 21 January 2009 the ASA had received 326 complaints about the bus adverts, including a complaint from Stephen Green of Christian Voice (UK) who said "It is given as a statement of fact and that means it must be capable of substantiation if it is not to break the rules." Hanne Stinson of the BHA has suggested that if the ASA rule on this complaint, then the ASA will be ruling on whether God exists.
On 21 January the ASA ruled that the adverts were not in breach of its rules as the advert "was an expression of the advertiser’s opinion" and was incapable of substantiation. They also claimed that although the advert was contrary to many people's beliefs, it would not generate "serious or widespread offence."
The campaign has also received criticism from leading clergy including George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, and Peter Price, the current Bishop of Bath and Wells, who said "the campaign lacked both judgement and a sense of reality."
In Southampton, a bus driver refused to drive a bus displaying the advert. His employers, First Bus, undertook to find him another bus to drive.
Canadian author, Margaret Atwood, has said of the campaign: "That’s religion! Once you’re paying money to put slogans on things, well it’s either a product you’re selling, a political party or religion."McKay, Sinclair (2009-08-20) Margaret Atwood interview The Daily Telegraph
== Notable donors ==
Television critic Charlie Brooker was the fourth person to donate to the campaign, giving £100 with the comment "I hope to God this helps." The poet and musician Labi Siffre donated £1000 on 22 October 2008 with the verse, "As God knew / What Judas would do / In the final accounting / Who betrayed who?". Philosopher AC Grayling donated £500, while writer Zoe Margolis donated with the comment "About time the rational voices were heard too". Richard Dawkins donated the most of any celebrity with £5,500, but even his donation has been eclipsed by that of an unknown donor called Simon Bishop, who has given £20,000 to the campaign. The campaign is also supported by Matthew Parris. Additionally, Paul Woolley, the director of Christian think tank Theos, and a close associate of the Archbishop of Canterbury, has donated £50 as he thinks the campaign is a "great way to get people thinking about God. The posters will encourage people to consider the most important question we will ever face in our lives."
The Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association is a supporter of the Campaign.
== The word 'probably' ==
The wording of the proposed advert has caused considerable debate amongst atheists and Christians alike, and Sherine discussed it in a post-launch article, Probably the best atheist bus campaign ever, on her blog Comment Is Free. Dawkins stated that he preferred the wording "There is almost certainly no God". Ariane Sherine claims it is necessary to be factually accurate, and that as it is impossible to disprove the existence of God it is only possible to say one 'probably' doesn't exist. Critic D. J. Taylor felt that this qualification let the campaign down, but admired it for introducing some tentativeness into an often polarised debate, while atheists including A. C. Grayling think that they can be certain there is no God and therefore the word 'probably' should not be used. It was also suggested that inserting the word would avoid a breach of the Advertising Standards Authority's rules.
==Follow up works==
In addition, Atheist Bus Campaign donors have raised over £23,000 for the British Humanist Association's Inclusive Schools campaign.
Following publicity from the campaign, the BBC has agreed to allow a special version of Thought for the Day. It will be presented as Thought for the Afternoon, and will be the first programme of the series not presented by a figure from an established faith.
Partly in response to the campaign three different Christian groups have launched advertising campaigns. Slogans include, "There definitely is a God; so join the Christian Party and enjoy your life."; "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.", a quote from Psalm 14; and "There IS a God, BELIEVE. Don't worry and enjoy your life."
===Bus adverts in other countries===
Inspired by the Atheist Bus Campaign, the American Humanist Association launched a bus campaign in Washington DC in November 2008 with the slogan "Why believe in a God? Just be good for goodness' sake." The Freedom From Religion Foundation has also launched a bus campaign in the United States, with buses featuring various quotations to appear in February and March 2009. 1
The Atheist Foundation of Australia also attempted to run a bus campaign with the slogan "Atheism - celebrate reason", but were prevented from doing so by advertising company APN Outdoor, Australia's largest outdoor advertiser, which refused to run the adverts.
In the state of Tasmania the government-owned bus company, Metro Tasmania, also rejected the ads, citing their precedent of blocking any controversial material. However, after conciliation before the office of the Anti-Discrimination Commissioner the ads are scheduled to appear in 2010.Atheist signs to go on Tasmanian buses!, August 5, 2009
An atheist bus campaign promoted by the Italian Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics (UAAR) was due to start on 4 February 2009 in Genoa. The city was chosen on the occasion of the nomination of its archbishop, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, as president of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI). The slogan of the Italian campaign reads "La cattiva notizia è che Dio non esiste. Quella buona è che non ne hai bisogno", meaning "The bad news is that God does not exist. The good news is that you don't need him". On 16 January 2009 IGPDecaux, the company holding licenses for ads on public transport in Genoa, refused to give authorization to the atheist bus campaign on the grounds that it may "offend the moral, civic and religious convictions of the public". Antonio Catricalà, the head of the Italian National Authority for Fair Trading and Competition, announced that the Authority filed a case against the Atheist Bus initiative because of the potentially "dangerous and mendacious nature" of the ads. As a reaction, the UAAR launched a new campaign in Genoa with a different slogan to comply with the advertising authority's rules: "The good news is there are millions of atheists in Italy. The excellent news is they believe in freedom of expression".
In Spain an advertising campaign has been launched with the slogan "Probablemente Dios no existe. Deja de preocuparte y goza de la vida.", a direct translation of the British advert, on buses in Barcelona which started on 12 January. Madrid and Valencia will follow up at the end of January. This campaign has received criticism from Catholics.
The Toronto Transit Commission in Canada approved the advertisements on the commission's buses, trams, and metro and rapid transit trains, with the same message as the British adverts, and debuted in mid-February.
Following a request by the Association humaniste du Québec, the Société des transports de Montréal, Canada, accepted the proposed message "Dieu n'existe probablement pas, alors cessez de vous inquiéter et profitez de la vie" (a translation of the original UK advert) and the bus should take the road during March 2009. Secular Humanists and Free Thinkers in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and London have had their adverts refused. In Canada's capital city, Ottawa, the ads were initially refused, but the decision was ultimately overturned by Ottawa City Council and the ads will be permitted. In British Columbia, Vancouver, Victoria and Kelowna adverts were barred on the ground that no religious advertisement is allowed on buses.
In February, a campaign formed in Bloomington, Indiana to run ads saying "You Can Be Good Without God" in various cities in the state of Indiana.
In Finland a similar campaign was announced on 16 March 2009 to run on buses in Finland in two of the country's largest cities, Helsinki and Tampere.
The German Atheist Bus Campaign had problems finding a bus company which would run their ads and the official website states that they were rejected by seventeen companies from all over Germany. Instead they decided to drive the bus themselves on a tour which will cover twenty major German cities. On each stop the bus will take people from the city on a sightseeing roundtrip with an emphasis on scientific and religious historical developments in respect to secularisation and atheism. This decision was met with mixed reactions from the supporters of the campaign who had originally hoped for a conventional advertising campaign which had succeeded in other countries.
The Humanist Association of Ireland ran a series of advertisements on Dublin commuter trains which they called the Unbelievable Campaign. The campaign was to highlight that judges and the president have to take a religious oath, which effectively stops 250,000 people from taking these posts.Humanism Ireland page on Unbelievable campaign
In New Zealand, fund-raising was started in December 2009 for the NZ Atheist Bus Campaign, administered by the Humanist Society of New Zealand.
In just a couple of days, the original target of NZ$10000 was reached. 
A new doubled target of $20000 was reached in under a week.
The organisers say this will provide signs for 12 buses in Auckland, eight in Wellington and four in Christchurch. 
The signs will bear the same message as the original UK campaign and will be on the buses for a period of four weeks.
===Don't Label Me campaign===
The final phase of the campaign challenged the idea that children should be labelled with their parents' religion. In November 2009, an ad appeared on billboards, not buses, in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, displaying a young girl's picture with the caption "Please don't label me" followed by "Let me grow up and choose for myself". The background displays phrases ascribing various labels to the child—"Libertarian child", "Catholic child", "Sikh child", "Capitalist child", "Atheist child", "Protestant child", and so forth.
== References ==
== External links ==
*Official site
*Atheist Bus donation page
*The Next Stop donation page
*Canadian Atheist Bus Campaign
*Bus Locations — British Humanist Association
*German Atheist Bus Campaign
*New Zealand Atheist Bus Campaign
Category:Atheism in popular culture