You suck, New Zealand
Ok, well, maybe the whole country doesn’t suck, but your bus company, NZ Bus sure does. They’ve just rejected the Atheist Bus Campaign after they received complaints about the ads.
Is it surprising that not everyone would be pleased with the simple and direct message “There’s probably no God”? It’s not as though these buses haven’t also featured religious ads that were just as offensive to non-believers. The difference, of course, is we aren’t afraid of their message, but they sure are scared shitless of ours. Do they detest the message of the ad, or are they afraid it might actually shake a few people out of their delusional bubble? I wonder.
The organizers have been refused arbitration, and are thinking of appealing to the Human Rights Commission as a result. I think it’s blatant pandering to religious bigots who can’t stand anyone with a dissenting view.
Spread the outrage
GaR
And here I was feeling all smug and superior for being a citizen of a rather secular country.
Well, I’ll be sure to complain to NZBus, and to get as many other people as I can to do the same.
GaR
Oh, here’s the reason I was feeling so smug: A poll on NZ’s most active forum: http://www.gpforums.co.nz/poll.php?s=9fd6b0a7d359d3c9499485fb405d16f7&action=showresults&pollid=9084
The majority of users are atheist, with Christians numbering about the same as agnostics and “other”
Alastair
Holy CRAP that pisses me off, being a NZer aswell thinking we are a lot more secular, thats just crazy. We do a lot of arse kissing, and are known for being overly politicaly correct so unfortunatly this doesnt suprise me.
If similar was done to any religion, the complainant would be labeled discriminator against other beliefs/religions
Alastair
Ahhhh, thats better. Had a rant to everyone in the office, and to my girlfriend, also sent an email to NZbus. Now i can work again.
Jon
Wow… this is news to me. Amazing what you miss when you deliberately avoid watching the news or reading the paper!
To be honest (as a New Zealander), when I see a bus, I’m not really concerned about what’s advertised on the side. I’m (justifiably) more concerned about whether or not the driver is going to plow into me.
The drivers here in Christchurch are some of the shittiest in the world, and the bus drivers are among the shittiest in Christchurch. Any day that I don’t have drive super-defensively to avoid getting shit-plowed by a bus driver with no grasp of road rules or basic physics is a good day, but a very rare one!
But to be fair, you’d be surprised how little pull organised Religion actually has over here.
Jon
…and not to belabour the point, but when the “Bloody Mary” episode of South Park played here, the Catholics kicked up a big stink and tried to take action against C4 (the channel playing it). The channel said “Up yours, motherfucker!” to the Catholics and all the viewers thought “Oh wow… if the Catholics are trying to get it banned, it must be AWESOME!”
That episode drew FIVE times its usual audience.
Don’t let a little bus campaign SNAFU fool you into thinking us sheep-shaggers aren’t as secular as buggery. Buggery being about as secular as things get.