Archive for January, 2009

The ASA have ruled on the atheist bus ad issue and decided there is nothing wrong with the adverts. In their statement they said…

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has concluded that the “There’s probably no God” bus ad campaign by the British Humanist Association is not in breach of the advertising code. The ASA will therefore not launch an investigation and the case is now closed.

The ASA carefully assessed the 326 complaints it received. Some complained that the ad was offensive and denigratory to people of faith. Others challenged whether the ad was misleading because the advertiser would not be able to substantiate its claim that God “probably” does not exist.

The ASA Council concluded that the ad was an expression of the advertiser’s opinion and that the claims in it were not capable of objective substantiation. Although the ASA acknowledges that the content of the ad would be at odds with the beliefs of many, it concluded that it was unlikely to mislead or to cause serious or widespread offence.

This was to be expected given the consequences of making a different ruling but never the less a welcome decision.

Continuing our exam time film screenings, yesterday’s Atheist Society meeting saw us show the documentary film Baby Bible Bashers, charting the activities of three young preachers as they attempt to spread the word of the Bible despite their small stature.

Afterwards we headed down to The Terrace for some much needed refreshments especially given the union still have a sale on which means pints of coke are currently going for £0.60! May the good times roll.

The nature of writing for the media these days means you need to be sensational and controversial. This is true whether you’re writing for the Daily Star or the Telegraph. And so I suspect when Gerald Warner wrote “Atheists will need martyrs if they are to compete with Christians” he doesn’t actually believe most of what we writes, or at least not with the conviction to which he writes it.

Never the less I feel it is important to address the issues raised in his blog entry.

Most of what he writes is (or at least should be) laughable. Comments such as “it is good to see a Christian making difficulties for aggressive secularists” hold no real standing. I have yet to hear of a case of an atheist bus driving refusing to drive a bus with an Alpha advert on it nor has Ariane Sherine filed an official complaint with the ASA against them.

In reality of course the secular community is constantly under attack from the religious community. If they aren’t trying to indoctrinate our children with religious ideas at faith schools they’re trying to prevent our freedom of expression.

Quite frankly some of his writing his embarassing and would be far better placed within the pages of The Sun and The Daily Mail. Unrelevant comments with obvious connotations such as “Mr Heather, who served in the Royal Navy for 25 years”, “congratulations to this British sea dog for fighting back” are of the cheap tacky ilk you would expect to find on American news reporting.

From here the comments move to simple ignorance. “Is this not, in fact, an agnostic, rather an atheist, advertisement?” It is interesting that he later lists Dawkins in his post and yet seems to show no knowledge of Dawkins writings surrounding the subject. If Mr Warner had read The God Delusion he would in fact understand that these terms are essentially interchangable and it’s perfectly possible to be an atheist and accept there is a chance there is a god (indeed I don’t know a single atheist who completely rules out the idea).

This is followed by a good deal of very Christian thinking such as “since when was the message that there is no one in charge, nobody to protect us or lend succour, thought reassuring?” Not withstanding the fact that such a statement shows why many religious people would allow themselves to believe such an obvious falsehood, I find it hard to believe why some people can’t understand why some of us would actually be more comforted by the fact that we have free will as opposed to our destiny being controlled by a being with a rather genocidal past record.

Further more I almost laughed out loud when I read the claim that “many of the people who most zestfully enjoy life are Christians.” Mr Warner is clearly working on a very different sample set than I am.

To answer the underlying point though, atheist martyrs are already here. Not withstanding the treats we have received at A-Soc (and according to Alex at the BHA, they receive their fair share too), Salman Rushdie is only alive today because they couldn’t find him and Theo van Gogh has already died for his convictions.

Another Sunday night having rolled around we headed down to Birstall for a meal at Chiquito which the sign outside reliably informs me is the “original Mexican grill & bar.”

While I was a little disappointed by the food, that was mainly due to the size of the portions which as much as I complain is probably a good thing for me in the end. I feel it’s important my meal comes with as much vegetables as possible though as it’s like my one source of vegetables during the week lol.

Afterwards we headed back home via Hunslet to pick up dessert as Craig was on the close. I can highly recommend buying a McFlurry and a brownie and mixing them together, it’s a winning combination.

So, turns out Christianity isn’t at the heart of Christmas after all 😉 .

Saturday saw the first Leeds Skeptics in the Pub which went rather well at least for an initial meeting. We got around twenty people turning up in total with a mix of ages and backgrounds which is exactly what we were aiming for really.

I kept my actual talk fairly short as I wasn’t too sure what people were expecting for a first meeting, in future they will be a bit more well-rounded talks but for the moment I was more interested in people getting to know each other and having a good drink and a chat.

Hopefully we can build on the success of Saturday and build attenance even more in the future. We’ve booked up speakers as far as May so there is plenty going on.

Last night saw the first Wendy House of 2009 arrive and so having filled up on some always delicious Nando’s take-out we headed down for the traditional evening events of Liz getting really drunk before having to go to work at 8am. Good times.

Still still hates us!

I said hi to Claire at Wendy yesterday and enquired if we officially still hated each other. Turns out we do.

You guys have really f-ing screwed my life up, why the f would I want to talk to you?

Interestingly enough, I haven’t sensored that, that’s just how it was said.

Seriously though it’s been going on two years now. I can barely remember what happened anymore. I put the issue to bed a long time ago but I thought for the two minutes it’s going to take me I might as well see what happens. Maybe I’ll try again in another two years.

We took down the lettering we have in the office on the back wall to make way for a fresh coat of paint and the new logo to be put up there. Gaz then decided to have a play around with the leters, no a rather nice result I think.

There are a lot of people who I haven’t spoken to in a long time. Many of these I haven’t spoken to intentionally but there are still a good view I simply haven’t had chance to see recently. And so having fired off a few texts, Facebook wall posts and the odd email or two I ended up with a few more appointments for my diary, one of which was meeting up with Sophie tonight.

So, myself, Sarann and Sophie headed to Browns for a much needed drink with us all havinf arrived straight from work. Not that any of us were actually drinking alcohol but you just can’t beat a metaphorical pint. With their crazy pricing structure, I ordered 3 bottles of Pepsi and it cost £5.50. Do the maths, that is 183.3p each. Strange, strange people.