We have approval!
Campaign Updates January 28th, 2009We got word this morning that the TTC has approved our message:
Canadian Atheist Bus Campaign Advert
Yay! This means that we’ll be able to start the logistics of getting this on out and should have your atheist buses rolling out soon! Thanks again for your contributions!
January 28th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Great News!
Can we try and get Richard Dawkins to Toronto to kick off the ads?
January 28th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
He’ll be in Michigan (at MSU) on March 2nd…
January 28th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Yay! my only regret is that I won’t see them in Durham Region….
January 28th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Yes, I know he is in Michigan on March 2. I will be there. Got my ticket and I bought the atheistbus.ca T shirt!
It would be nice if a side trip to Toronto could be scheduled with the bus campaign kickoff!
January 28th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Great news. I’m not sure what the TTC will be able to confirm for you in terms of where the ads will appear, but it would be great if they give you information on which lines, etc., they’ll show up on. That way some of us can be at the ready with our cameras.
January 28th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Hi,
That is great news! I have just one suggestion. I think this was first suggested by Richard Dawkins himself and that is to make the message a little less hedonistic than it sounds. How about :”There is probably no god, now stop worrying and get on with you life”.
What do rest of the people think about this?
Best Of Luck,
Ameya
Mumbai, India
January 28th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
Get Ariane Sherine to kick the ads off!
She started the whole ball rolling, is a great spokesperson, media savy, experienced giving interviews and represents a nice tie in to the whole international campaign.
January 28th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
congratulations!
Can we invite Maryam Namazi who is runnign a campaign in UK against Sharia Law? she coordinated a disscussion panel last December in London in this regard. She invited Richard Dawkins to this event and he went. Don’t wory about the cost, she might come to Toronto for International Women’s Day. Please check her website if you are interested. Just google Maryam Namazie.
January 28th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Can you put some in the subway cars (atheistsubway.ca?!) too?
January 28th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
Great news, when can we hope to see them in Calgary? Both the Herald and Sun newspapers have carried articals and editorials. The local Catholic Bishop suggested april fools as a good day to start and says this is all about the coninued assult on christianity. Anyhow I hope to see pictures soon.
PS I like this
“There almost certianly is no god, now stop worrying and get on with you life” Slightly more edgy than “probubly” and less hedonistic.
January 29th, 2009 at 12:06 am
YAY!!!!!!
January 29th, 2009 at 12:53 am
This is excellent. As promised, now that we have approval, I just sent in my donation.
January 29th, 2009 at 2:17 am
You people are funny.
January 29th, 2009 at 2:23 am
This is excellent news!
Will you use the same colours and formats as the U.K. campaign? I hope so, because I suspect that this would help ‘brand recognition’ and give a sense of community with Ariane’s supporters? You’d be able to put up pictures of both campaigns with the same branding, which would give a sense of the worldwide campaign growing by leaps and bounds.
January 29th, 2009 at 2:45 am
“That is great news! I have just one suggestion. I think this was first suggested by Richard Dawkins himself and that is to make the message a little less hedonistic than it sounds. How about :”There is probably no god, now stop worrying and get on with you life”.”
Sounds good, I also am not a fan of the hedonistic implications of the last bit either. The original is still good though, especially with the “brand recognition” it will likely generate. I would change the first bit too, and combine it with yours, like this.
“There almost certainly is no god, now stop worrying and get on with your life”
January 29th, 2009 at 3:03 am
If theists want to believe that “enjoying life” is a negative thing, then let them. It is quite alright to enjoy life. What is the alternative?
January 29th, 2009 at 3:58 am
This is great news. Before it’s finalized, could we fix the grammar? How about something like “There’s probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life” or “There’s probably no god, so stop worrying and enjoy your life”? In any case, congrats on this wonderful initiative.
January 29th, 2009 at 5:58 am
I think having “this advert was paid for by public donations” printed on there as well is a brilliant idea.
January 29th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
… probably?
January 29th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
I think the ad campaing is awesome!! I love it!!! Have the churches and others who are so upset over the ad caampaign ever thought that the churches who have signs outside of them with religious saying on them are offensive to people????
January 29th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
As a Christian who believes in everyone’s right to their own opinion, I have no problem with your ads on the TTC. I do have a question, though. Why do you assume that people who believe in God worry and don’t enjoy life? Personally, my life became much better and worry free when I became a Christian. Just wondering.
January 29th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
What a great day! I am celebrating Thomas Paine’s birthday and now this fabulous Ad gets TTC approval. Can’t wait to see the ads in my downtown Toronto streets.
January 29th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
This is brilliant, really. Everyone involved with this campaign is a hero.
January 29th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Your success has already made it to Toronto’s most popular transit blog: http://SteveMunro.ca/?p=1779
January 29th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
You could use “This ad paid by public donation” if you need to shorten it. This should maximise the bang for your buck with the rest of the text.
I agree that adding a period after “god” would help the message (maybe with the addition of a comma after “Now”). Oh, wait, you already did the first part.
January 29th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Sorry Chad #10, somehow I missed that you wrote the same thing!
January 29th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Great news. Perhaps “closet skeptics and atheists” will realize there are more like them - no shame in bowing to the alter of science.
January 29th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Allow me to preface my comments by stating I do not ‘believe’ in God, but have ‘experienced’ what many spiritual/religious practiconers call ‘God’. Experience is much different than belief.
The simple fact that this advertisement states the word ‘probably’ is indicative of the fact that even Atheists cannot be sure of the presence of the super-natural, and at best, can only hazard an educated guess. The sad thing about these ads is that they use the word ‘God’ very loosely. What is God ? It seems to be an ambiguous, subjective word used to describe the phenomena of life itself.
If I had money to spend on advertisements on the TTC…this is what I’d put up:
“Enjoying one’s life all comes down to creating happiness in the world and being kind to other beings. We are all ‘God’, we all have ‘God’ nature, because we are the creators of our worlds. Go out into the world and create the paradise you wish to live in.”
Where these ads truly fail, is that they do nothing to unite people, and in a place like the TTC where people come and go, keep to themselves, hardly ever reach out to the brothers and sisters beside them out of fear and isolation and perceived difference, the kind of advertisements our culture needs to see are messages of unity, peace, love and yes, the celebration of God…of life…of our ability to ‘experience’ the magic of living. The stupidity of these ads alone is enough for the TTC to veto them.
January 29th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Thank you!
They have already adopted this campaign in the U.K. and I’m glad to see it being done here!
January 29th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Thank you!
I have seen a similar campaign carried out in the U.K. and I am glad to see us follow suit!
January 29th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
The story was all over the local Calgary TV news last night. They said it’s a done deal with Calgary Transit and the signs will appear in two months. Is this correct?
January 29th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Now stop worrying and donate!!
January 29th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
any chance these ads will show up in the GTA suburbs like York Region, Mississauga or Brampton?
January 29th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
The campaign was all over Breakfast Television this morning, they also had a call in segment for it.
http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_31470.aspx Article
http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_31483.aspx
Viewer comments
January 29th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Oh, and you can vote on their online poll today….
on there front page, http://www.bttoronto.ca/
January 29th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
The article does say
“The Freethought Association now plans to use the tens of thousands of dollars in donations it raised through a site called http://www.atheistbus.ca to post similar ads in Calgary and Halifax.”
January 29th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Everybody go vote on the poll that Devon (above me) posted!
January 29th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
“As a Christian who believes in everyone’s right to their own opinion, I have no problem with your ads on the TTC. I do have a question, though. Why do you assume that people who believe in God worry and don’t enjoy life? Personally, my life became much better and worry free when I became a Christian. Just wondering.”
Patrick: This campaign started in the UK as a direct response to a series of bus ads referring to a website which stated that non-Christians would burn forever in eternal hell fire.
If belief in a supernatural deity brings comfort to you, you’re more than welcome to it. What we oppose is making statements that have absolutely no evidence to support them, and insisting that those who do not believe it are sinners who will be tortured and burned for all eternity.
This is simply nonsense.
January 29th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
I have mixed feelings on this.
On one hand it’s a great message and words to live by.
On the other hand I fear that now we’ve opened a flood gate for religious propaganda of all sorts to be put in our public transport system.
If I start seeing bible quotes and messages from jebus on TTC ads I’m blaming you guys.
January 29th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
i think this is wrong…you should be putting this stuff on public transit…my dad is a pastor and a bus driver…and he cannot drive the bus with this kind of stuff on it…
i’ll be fine with these adds….if you can prove it!
prove that there is no God…i dare you…if you can do this then i will gladly support you…but not until you give me cold hard facts that there is no God what so ever.
but until then…you guys need to stop with this …because you dont even know if it’s true…like seriously…this is rediculous!
all i want for you to do is to PROVE IT!
January 29th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
RE: Alex
I see that kind of thing all the time on the TTC.
January 29th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Heather: The principle is that “He (or she) who asserts must prove.” YOU cannot prove to me, for example, that there are no Leprechauns in Ireland. You would have to be able to see all or Ireland at once, behind every leaf and under every rock, before you could prove the little people do not exist. Even then I could say “Ah, but the wee people can make themselves invisible”.
Luckily, it is not up to people who disbelieve in the existence of Leprechauns to prove that they do NOT exist. It is up to those who tell you that Leprechauns exist to prove that they DO.
Otherwise, you would have to believe everything anyone says until you could disprove it. You would have to believe there are invisible dragons on the moon, or whatever else people want to allege. We would all go crazy.
You Christians have had 2000 years to come up with proof that God DOES exist, btw.
As to your father the Pastor, I assume he is a Protestant and a Christian? Would he object to an ad for the Muslim Koran on his bus? The Koran says clearly that Jesus is NOT the son of God. Would your father refuse to drive that bus?
January 29th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
If believing in God makes someone happy, fine. But it does not prove the belief is correct, does it? Millions of children are made happy by believing in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, but that does not make them real.
As George Bernard Shaw said, “The fact that a believer may be happier than a non-believer is no more to the point than the fact that a drunk may be happier than a sober man.” Shaw was an atheist, of course.
January 30th, 2009 at 1:53 am
What, no Leprechauns in Ireland! Next thing your going to tell me is that there is no Teapot orbiting in space around Mars or the Flying Spaghetti Monster is real…..
What am I going to dream about tonight?
January 30th, 2009 at 2:23 am
oops, meant isn’t real.
January 30th, 2009 at 3:21 am
Long live the bus ride
January 30th, 2009 at 4:06 am
I don’t think the add means to say that theists worry,
I think it means that even though there isn’t a god you don’t need to worry its not the end of the world if this is news to you…
January 31st, 2009 at 8:15 am
“do you mean!! there is no allah” ?
If that’s your case, then, WORRY,
is now!! yours
BEST of luck with YOUR cam-pain
January 31st, 2009 at 12:52 pm
This is great!
I hope the campaign spreads all over the world one day.