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There's nothing like the MTA to make you question your faith! So maybe the new advertisements for Atheism on city buses are appropriate. The campaign will take over 20 Manhattan buses for about one month, and president of New York City Atheists, Ken Bronstein, says the test run could be reaching other boroughs later this year (the group's website is taking donations for the next roll out). The ads read: "You don’t have to believe in God to be a moral and ethical person."
Joseph Zwilling, the director of communications for the Archdiocese of New York, told CityRoom the ads were "not offensive in the Catholic Church’s view, given their wording. They’re not attacking or disparaging the Church as far as I can see." While the message isn't a rebuttal to that of another religious group's, the site reports that the inspiration came from a similar campaign in London last year, which was in response to a Christian group's whose message told nonbelievers that they would “spend all eternity in torment.”
The goal of the $10,000 NYC ad campaign is to increase membership—Bronstein says there has been an "atheism awakening" lately, and the practice was made more acceptable when President Obama included a reference to “nonbelievers” in his inaugural address. Previously, the MTA explained that the Jews for Jesus ads in the Times Square subway station were protected under the First Amendment.
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Interesting. I woulda said "moral, ethical or spiritual."
Well, atheists aren't spiritual - because spirituality implies a belief in the supernatural, and atheists don't believe in that!
Interesting. I woulda said "moral, ethical or spiritual."
How long before the Jesus and Jew people start decrying this while trying to suffocate free speech?
Well Hallelujah, or, er, whatever we atheists are supposed to say . . .
HIGH FIVE?
YEAH, BABY?
DYNO-MITE?
"booyah"
"booyah"
Thank goodness!
Oh, the London bus ads are so much better.
"There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/06/religion-atheism
This isn't England. We don't know what would happen to a bus with that ad here.
Sure we do. It would get tagged in the Bronx, cheered in Manhattan, and ignored in Brooklyn. And all 3 would happen in Queens.
Ain't that the truth :)
That is a great line!
Out of curiosity: Do New Yorkers even care?
New Yorkers won't care but the rest if the country will and the response quill be depressing and outrageous.
LOL... Self-ascribed "atheists" proselytizing. The irony is deafening.
First off, they're technically not proselytizing, they're just arguing that atheists are moral and ethical people too.
Second, even if they were proselytizing, how would that be ironic? Trying to get people to agree with your position isn't an inherently religious thing.
But athiests do believe in something, there is no god and religion is just music and magic dressed up.
Amen to that.
"In the name of...nothing, I'm believing in a miracle of...nothing!"
I got worried when I saw the name Bronstein then.
But this is good, there should be more of this (common sense). We should send this bus on a roadtrip through the midwest.
You guys are asking the wrong question. The question shouldn't be "is there a god?" but "Does god give a shit?". and to that point. No. He doesn't. Cuase morality is a human construct. What's good to one person is different than another person. Read Nietzche's Beyond good and Evil.
Right, people with brains take reading recommendations and lessons in philosophy from bumptious babies . . .
as opposed to bumptious clerics? Politicians? anonymous bloggers? I can tell you with absolute certainty that you are gonna die. You will die alone and you will die painfully. Whether you want to believe that you will go to a netherworld where old men with beards play chess all day with harps if you go to church occasionally is up to you.
how do you play chess with harps?
but i was looking forward to playing chess with harps...
how do you play chess with harps?
Whoa I wait a day to check back on this thread and now I see that you somehow thought my calling you bumptious implies that I believe in a a bunch of supernatural crap? I am a lifelong atheist. And I don't have any issues whatsoever with Nietzsche. I just think it's absurd that you think you are somehow an effective advertisement for his view or for any serious views at all, really, given your name and your tone.
The fact that Nietzche went insane was no surprise.
Moral constructs are the basis of the society that gives thought free will. Try Hegel.
FESTIVUS FOR THE REST OF US!
In caps where applicable.
I think this is great. I get tired of the BS view put forth by many that you need organized religion in order to have a moral compass.
Some people need organized religion in order to be scared into living as if they have a moral compass.
Or Machiavelli. Or even frame the question in an individualist interpretation of realpolitik. The question is not "does God give a shit" but rather, "does Man give a shit". Know thyself!
But what if God was one of us
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on that bus?
I guess he would have to pay full fare.
Half fare. Senior discount, certainly.
Who does an Atheist thank at awards shows, sports events, etc?
:/
their parents.
@Wza His noodly appendage, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, of course!
As a fairly religious (though cynical) person myself, I've always argued that "moral" Athiests were actually better people that moral religious, since they don't expect any ultimate reward or approval. For this reason, they'll go to heaven, whether they want to or not.
I appreciate you seeing that side of it, FJF, but we will not go to heaven because there is no heaven.
If you can say there is no heaven then you have obviously never seen a sunset over the Hudson River!
The governor of South Carolina knows heaven is here on earth.
How does a sunset prove there's a heaven? All it proves is that orbital and light wave physics work.
I believe what it proves is that "heaven" does not need to be something wished for in an afterlife, but experienced in the here and now. The definition of what is heaven is part of the debate between believers and nonbelievers. Fundamentalist believers would most likely say "orbital and light wave physics" are proof of the existence of an Almighty who created those forces of physics. I say: if the Universe is all-inclusive, it couldn't have been created by a deity who somehow stood outside of it and waved his magic wand (or whatever) and willed it into being. If no deity, then no heaven to aspire to in an "afterlife". So, heaven exists, not in some other place, but here along the Hudson River, the Appalachian Trail, the Grand Canyon, in the Alps or wherever you find it.
What he means is that beautiful things give him existential crisis.
I saw a bus with this ad on the side this morning. Loved it!! It's nice, simple, to the point. I hope it brings in more members to the organization and that it encourages more atheists to speak up about what they profess.
(dork alert) But doesn't the fact that "moral" and "ethical" are synonymous, thereby creating a redundancy, take away from your enjoyment of the ad? It does me. Okay, I'll go away now.
GRAMMAR NAZI ALERT
Yes, please go away - only a nerdy proofreader or English teacher would notice something so petty!
Morals and ethics are not necessarily synonymous. Morals define personal character and actions, while ethics are a set of standards of behavior used among a group of people. A person's morals will stay the same despite being subjected to different ethics, like societal, familial, or commercial ethics. I suppose a person's morals could be defined as the ethics of a "group of one."
"Heaven is a place...where nothing ever happens."
Heaven is a ballroom
With high celings
Filled with white balloons
And smoke machines
Love it, and love the intelligent responses above!
Consider that during a time of worldwide recession atheists are collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations not in order to actually help anyone in real need but in order to attempt to demonstrate just how clever they think themselves to be—need anymore be said?
Huh?
Which organization is receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in donation?
If such an atheist organization exists, they certainly aren't using the money to demonstrate their cleverness but to remove the intellectual, emotional and moral poison that is religion from politics and from peoples' lives.
A Pew Forum on Religion and American Life reveals that 41% of the general voting population would not vote for a proclaimed Atheist. It's going to a take public awareness campaign such as this to start down the long path of removing religion from politics.
Stanford and his group of hypocrites need to be stoppped.