Haydain Neale, 1970–2009
The Making of a Medley
Transit City and Transit Cities
The Daily Photoist: November 23, 2009
Photo courtesy of Flex PR
If you haven’t heard yet, there’s a life stance war a’ brewing within Toronto’s ad spaces. In about two weeks, TTC buses will be adorned with a pro-atheist message that reads, “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”
But last weekend, in a crafty attempt to steal the campaign’s march, the United Church of Canada bought full-page national newspaper ads recasting the heathen message as a multiple choice question with a second option: “There’s probably a God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”
The counter-ads invite readers to vote for their preferred outlook on the Church’s online ministry, Wondercafe.ca. “They’re meant to get people to think about and talk about God in a manner that has kind of a respect and a sense of playfulness,” says Reverend Keith Howard, who heads Emerging Spirit—a project that aims to lure Sabbath-day-skipping Canadians to the Church through eyebrow-raising promos (see also: Bobblehead Jesus and the money-grabbing manger).
While the ads have definitely garnered a fair bit of attention, it may not be the kind the Church was hoping for. The latest Wondercafe poll results show the atheist position bringing down the house, with 53 per cent of voters agreeing there’s probably not a God, compared to 47 per cent insisting there probably is a God.
“It’s just kind of funny,” says Katie Kish, vice-president of the Freethought Association of Canada, the organization spearheading the Canadian Atheist Bus Campaign. “They’ve put this huge ad in the Globe and Mail that links to Wondercafe. Then you go to their discussion and we’re winning, so that gives us more press and more people coming to find us.”
Kish says the campaign, which was inspired by similar transit ads in the U.K., seeks to cajole atheist freethinkers “out of the closet” and inform the public that many of them exist. The org, which plans on plastering the same ad on buses in other Canadian cities, also wants to reassure non-believers that they won’t catch hell for being Doubting Thomases.
Still, Kish hopes the FAC and UCC can be friends. “I think this opens up a lot of good opportunities to work with the United Church of Canada—if they’ll work with us—in holding discussion panels and creating a really big campaign that will have atheists understanding those with beliefs and those with beliefs understanding those without beliefs.”
Would the Church consider accepting this olive branch?
“I think that’s a possibility,” says Howard. “I think those kinds of events, as long as they’re done in a good manner, are kind of interesting events.” He adds: “Given the issues people are facing today, the old way of having polarized discussions about almost anything just doesn’t seem to be working for us... I think we’re trying to reach for a new way for people to have a respectful, civilized discourse.”
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I really like this as a response.
53% is "bringing down the house"? What is this, American politics?
Ditto. But it seems fair to say it since atheists historically are a minority; jumping to a little more half anywhere is rare. Most people still regard themselves as belonging to some religion, even if it's only as an identity rather than an active practise.
No. We're in Toronto where 43% is a resounding vote against the Island airport so sure, 53% is a slam dunk.
I understand why people who believe in God want to advertise that fact. I never understood why people who don't believe in God feel the need.
I'm not sure why atheists would be any different than theists or deists in this regard. Anyone who has given the subject serious attention, regardless of the outcome of their thought process, likely views the existence (or not) of god to be of importance, and also to take their belief in god (or not) to be a significant fact about their own identity. This is as true of atheists as it is of anybody else. The inclination to "advertise" on this matter has more to do, I think, with the desire to discuss the issue at all rather than with any particular conclusion someone may have reached.
I still think it's weird to advertise your non-belief in something. I am someone who has given it a lot of serious consideration and would say I'm agnostic but lean towards atheism. Yet I don't feel a need to take out ads to convince other people that God doesn't exist.
Religious people want to save your soul - that is why they advertise/preach. I don't understand why an atheist cares.
There are some atheists who don't believe in god in the sense that you describe - they fail to have religious experiences, or generally have an absence of whatever sentiment/emotion/phenomenology/thought underlies what deists/theists might have. But there are many atheists who don't experience their position as a lack, as something missing, but as a positive belief in a certain world view or principles of rationality or what have you, and to those atheists that belief matters a great deal. They aren't trying to save your soul for god - they are trying to save it from what they perceive to be irrationality.
There are also people who, regardless of how they came by their atheism, experience religion - even in our rather secular world - as an underlying structural feature of society, and insofar as it is alien to them, this feels like an imposition. (The best example I can think of right now, though it clearly doesn't directly apply, is the often repeated claim that you can't public declare yourself an atheist and get elected president of the U.S. When Obama included "non-believers" in his inauguration speech, it got some attention - it wasn't something people were used to hearing from their elected officials.)
I'm not making any claims about this group in particular - I don't know what their reasons were. I just think that atheism can be a substantive position rather than a simple lack of belief, and thus the sort of thing that people are motivated to defend.
Online polls don't mean anything, but it's kind of crappy that the church felt it was appropriate to step on this campaign this way. Are there no copyrights or trademarks associated with the Atheist Bus campaign? Maybe the church's next ads can use the Nike swoosh and McDonald's arches.
I don't think it is stepping on at all. If anything it works in favour of both groups to enhance the discussion.
In other news the campaign aslo led me to this
http://www.wondercafe.ca/webisodes/ez-answer-squirrel
something about squirrels man
The Atheist Bus people didn't create it to work in favour of religious groups. The point of the campaign was to counter religious messages in public with a reminder that there are a lot of people who don't believe in gods and spirits, not to further discussion about gods and spirits.
Fair enough but this campaign from the United Church wants to create dialogue and they appear to be pretty sucessful at it - depending on how you look at the web survey, commenting etc. Much the same way groups like Peta, adbusters or others use logo-like versions of popular companies that they want to target, so has this campaign utilised the look of the one they are repsonding to. I agree with panko, it is smart.
It's cheeky. Although the use of "probable" in the second statement is a stretch, at minimum. And Rek - this is just Marketing 101, answering a campaign with another; the church moved in quickly and smartly, like it or.
Actually the use of "probably" is a bit specious either way. It's not like a roulette wheel where you can just keep spinning it to find out what the long-term odds are. I think Pascal had something to say about betting on something that wins you nothing.
Pascal also conveniently ignored all the other colours (gods) that could go on his roulette wheel.
I'm quite aware of marketing techniques, most of which can be described as crappy for one reason or another.
if you're aware of them and you hold them in low esteem, why get so worked up about them? :)
Hey, someone up there must have been listening to me!
This is actually quite a clever response when you think about it.
Still needs a third option to make me happy.
Fence-sitter!
I wonder if there's any data to show whether believers feel more a) threatened by god or b) reassured by god. Because I sort of suspect the latter. In which case the atheist campaign isn't really targeting its target.
Anyway I think the atheist campaign comes off rather snarky and inflammatory, whereas the church campaign just presents both viewpoints and lets you choose, coming off strangely as more lenient and open-ended.
Who do you think the atheist campaign's target is? What do you think they're trying to achieve?