Some days, it’s a little depressing to see all the ignorance running rampant in this country, so it’s a bit of a relief to see people in other countries say something brain-bogglingly stupid. In this case, it’s a reaction to the atheist bus advertising campaign in the United Kingdom — the signs that say, “There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Now someone is making a legal claim, trying to suppress the signs, and his rationale is hilarious. Stephen Green, a known religious kook, is challenging the statement on its accuracy.
Mr Green has challenged the adverts on grounds of “truthfulness” and “substantiation”, suggesting that there is not “a shred of supporting evidence” that there is probably no God.
Seriously. Stephen Green thinks “there is probably no god” is a misleading advertising claim, and he’s trying to get it eliminated in the same way one would pursue the claim that “chocolate cures cancer”. He cites parts of the marketing code that say, “No marketing communication should mislead, or be likely to mislead, by inaccuracy, ambiguity, exaggeration, omission or otherwise.”
This could get interesting.
So, if even general and mild statements about the nature of the deity are disallowed, what shall be done with the stronger statements of the Christian clique? Should something like this also be banned?
After all, there is absolutely no evidence that god will make traffic move more slowly if someone shouts “Jesus!” when they stub their toe. This sign is in violation of the truth in advertising guidelines!
(via Muse in Vivo)
He’s not the only kook to whinge about it. Eg there’s some mendacious bod at the Grauniad.
Staephen Green, sometimes known as “Dogshit” is well-known as a complete nutcase, and depressingly familiar god-botherer over this side of the Pond.
He can be relied upon to make a complete prat of himself, in public, upon any occasion that involves any sort of “disrespect” to his particularly warped form of fundamentalist christianity.
This isn’t to say that all christianity isn’t strange, but Green’s form would be well at home in, say, the Southern Baptist areas ……
If you google for “Mediawatchwatch”, you’ll find that Dogshit features regularly, making an expensive failure of himself in public.
What are the chances that this will eventually result in religion-promoting public advertisements being banned under the exact same legal standard he is trying to bludgeon his opponents with?
Any U.K. legal scholars in the house?
Don’t forget this pointless poll, Pharyngulites:
http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-science-blog/
To be frank, Green is probably one of the greatest assets UK atheists could ever hope for.
Bug-fuck nuts, creepy and an attention whore to boot.
Yeah, the atheist bus-sign people are going to hate that – by getting it mentioned in the media, it’s giving the campaign a lot more publicity than it otherwise would have received, and shown the message to thousands who mightn’t have seen it.
Nice job, dumbasses. If it goes to court and the religulous dimwits lose (as they should) then it’ll be even sweeter.
When I saw this guys criticisms of the bus slogan I thought “tens of millions of believers in England, and that’s the best they could do”? No wonder the complaint was scoffed at.
Its not an ad just because it is put on an advertising board,now is it?
And the use of the term “probably” should have been a clue as well.
And yes,if it gets all the christian billboard advertising banned because of lack of evidence, ambiguity and the potential to mislead,then lets have that discussion !
Let’s face it, it would take a lot more than us to give an all-powerful being the vapors
JESUS SAVES!
and makes incremental backups!
Christ! (another fairy dies)
The Grauniad seems to be making a late attempt to take over from the Telegraph as the God Paper . . . given it’s penchant for mistypes that may be Bog Paper.
This was the same nutcase who tried to take the makers of Jerry Springer the Opera to court over blasphemy charges, and ended up getting the blasphemy law abolished. As #5 Aj said, probably the best asset we UK atheists have.
Hey, “chocolate cures cancer”. Yeah, I read it on the internet, on a science blog even, so it must be true.
Now, what I need to do is market a brand of chocolate Jebus figures that magically transubstantiate to become the body of Jebus himself, & cure cancer. You see, Jebus saves!
Jeeeeez, it’ll be bound to outsell those goddam crackers.
I cannot think of a worse thing for religion in general and Green’s version of Christianity in particular than being associated with any form of accuracy requirements. It’s almost like he wants to find out how much sand the foundation of his castle is built on.
True. It would be embarrassing if PZed managed to fail to crash a poll with him on it.
I thought Dogshit would have learned his lesson from last time, what with him having £90k worth of legal fees levied against him.
He’s a complete loon and #12 is right – he almost single-handedly managed to get the UK blasphemy laws repealed.
Let’s throw the question back at him – give us proof that hell, that really hot place we’ll be condemned to if we don’t convert now, has a “shred of supporting evidence.”
If they’re going to use that as their primary sales pitch, they better back it up with facts.
That is a very Godless approach, actually. I do not know whether to condemn or applaud it.
But the sign is also stupid in that it baits the zealots. Some people worry less and enjoy life more because their belief in God is psychologically soothing. And, if it works out, those are the type who are not likely bothered by such “advertisements.”
I just saw Green’s picture on wikipedia. Is it just me, or does he look disturbingly like Dubya?
Green does have a point. There’s no evidence for or against the existence of god*, so it’s hard to justify assigning it a probability. In fact, doing so allows some scope to Pascal’s wager: no matter how slight the probability of eternal damnation, faith is the safest choice.
I’m happier with the American version of the bus ad: “Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness sake.” I’ve got the bumper sticker.
* There are unfalsifiable concepts of god, so what can you do? For that matter, there are fairies at the bottom of my garden, if by fairies you mean rats.
My very, very favorite quote from the article:
When your own legal advisers laugh at a lawsuit, you know it’s a dog.
I also have to report this mental Mondegreen:
I was tired when I read this… and I read it as, “God was unavailable for comment.” I thought the author was having a little joke. Ah, well.
“truthfulness substantiation and not a shred of supporting evidence”! Nothing like the kettle calling the pot black. It will be interesting to hear Mr Green’s “Evidence” for the existence of a god and get an insight into his deluded mind.
If this ever went to court, how would they rule it? Would they really get to the nitty gritty over the evidence for god’s existence in a court of law? Cuz that would be awesome.
I have to agree with our fellow brit readers. This guy is a fantastic thing for non-believers.
I was wondering if something I read earlier today might turn up here. Instead, something related! So I’ll share this link about the same campaign here in Australia being shot down by the advertising company itself.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/atheist-message-misses-local-bus/2009/01/08/1231004199169.html
I have to say that the proposed slogans for Australia like “Sleep in on Sunday mornings” deserved to be knocked back,they are just not funny or original or thought-provoking at all.Very disappointing.
The given reason for knocking them back is,of course,rather pathetic.Well,there was no reason given actually.The article suggests that that particular company also puts religious ads on its buses.
Would it really be that great if this went to trial? What if the judge turns out to be an undercover christian kook (or fine, morally upstanding citizen who believes in freedom, as americans would call it), like Tony Blair?
Why not ‘truthfulness’ and ‘transubstantiation’?
Exactly.
@ bad Jim #20
There is evidence that a personal god does not exist, that study of whether prayer improved the chances of hospital patients for example, or inaccuracies in a supposedly inerrant holy book. At least it counts toward disproving one defintion of god. An unfalsifiable definition is not something science (or the law) should really concern itself with.
And faith is not something you can switch on like that. I cannot choose to believe in a god and take Pascal’s Wager because I do not believe, full stop. All I’d be is a hypocritical false christian. If there is a big guy upstairs (technically possible, but probably not) let’s hope he prefers an honest atheist. Anyway, go atheist bus! (I donated).
The sign… There is something very wrong about it. Very, very wrong, but what is it?
Oh! Right! I don’t think that sub-sect of Lutheranism exists anymore. I think it was part of the merger into the ELCA in 1988 (I was raised and confirmed Lutheran, blech).
Obviously you can’t hold the modern church responsible for the actions of their misguided old ways of … wait … never mind.
From what I’ve read in the “Guardian”, the “relax and enjoy life” is there for a specific reason.Namely, it’s a reply to a former bus ads campaign by a religious group saying something to the effet of “if you don’t grovel to Jesus in the next 5 minutes, you’ll end up burning in hell”.
Anyone needing more information about this loon just google stephen birdshit. Then follow the links. From the top. Good for a laugh.
Dogshit Green is one of our favourite lunatics over here in the UK, and can always be relied on as an outraged newspaper rent-a-quote.
See also: John Beyer.
Stephen Green is pretty lulsome. He has major jihad envy and also US-religious-right envy. As far as I’m aware everyone not immediately connected with his campaigns thinks he’s an embarrassment (either to their religion if they are christians or to their species otherwise).
That Lutheran church sign on the other hand is actually bloody fantastic. I’ve always been a sucker for the puns on evangelical billboards;they aren’t funny as such but they are marvellously kitsch.
@bad James #20,
Green might have had a point if that’s what the CAP code stated. Here’s what the ASA CAP code (the code of conduct for non-broadcast adverts) has to say about substantiation:
This is how Carling gets away with its, “Probably the best larger in the world” tag-line. If something is only “Probably” the best larger in the world, the claim is not capable of objective substantiation. And, indeed, this is precisely why they put the word in there in the first place.
Green is nothing more than a loud-mouthed moron that, had he not been so successful in bringing around its downfall, would probably have otherwise attempted to intimidate the advertising company by claiming that the ad constituted blasphemous libel. For some reason he can’t do that now….
@MichaelX
It’s not a court. The ASA is an industry regulator set up by the advertising industry; I’m not sure what avenues of appeal there are outside of the ASA appeals procedure, but it’s highly unlikely to go anywhere near a court.
Still you gotta admit; the idea of the question of god’s existence ending up in court over a sign on a bus is too damn brilliant to pass up (pretend for a moment all this legal stuff is free and isn’t a waste of anyone’s time)
SEF @1,
to be clear, the statement at the Graun isn’t from Andrew Brown, author of the blog; Brown is quoting a complaint by Clifford Longley. Brown is interested in, and writes about, religion, but does not SFAIK himself have any religious beliefs.
Indeed. As with crackergate, context is very important to a correct understanding of events.
@Muzz,
What would be funny is if the idea of the question of god’s existence ended up in court of the bus advert, and Green was ordered to pay the court costs, as he was ordered to do after bringing the private prosecution against the BBC for blasphemous libel. Now *that* would be funny :)
This is the same asshole who protested The Jerry Springer Musical.
When asked if he’d seen the show he said, ‘No,’ but, defended this by saying, ‘I don’t have to stand in dog dirt to know it’s dog dirt.’
:D Priceless. Of course the word ‘shit’ would’ve been more effective but, alas, his religion had prevented him from saying how he really thinks through constant suppression.
Good (but not surprising) thing I didn’t say it was then! I deliberately avoided making such a claim. However, I was still implicitly relying on them accurately reporting, via their quote, what the bod had said though. And that was a slight risk (cf origin of long-standing “Grauniad” joke).
Wow. Atheists finally get together to voice their view and people have the audacity to try to ban it? Stephen Green is a prick that needs to realize that if he bans our viewpoint he has essentially damned his viewpoint from being expressed.
My name is Kuba and I am the founder of the Secular Student Alliance at Diablo Valley College. Come check out my rants at thekubanana.blogspot.com
How Stephen “Birdshit” Green got his name.
Thank you, Armchair Dissident. That clarifies things a bit.
I love the cheerful theme of both bus campaigns: “Now stop worrying and enjoy your life” and “Just be good for goodness sake”. We godless are a mostly merry bunch, one reason why Pharyngula is so much fun to visit.
SEF & Mrs Tilton, re the article in the Grauniad, I could not find any of the text attributed to Hawking, quoted by Clifford Longley, after a search using relevant terms, (Creation, electron, etc.), & the book’s index. Surely, Longley would not write outright lies? But I can’t find anything that indicates he’s using quote-mining.
What Hawking actually wrote, regarding a possible unified theory, on the penultimate & last page of the Bantam Books edition of ‘A Brief History of Time’, is:
“Is the unified theory so compelling that it brings about its own existence? Or does it need a creator, and, if so, does he have any other effect on the universe? And who created him?”
This seems to be yet another case of a media-savvy god-botherer (Clifford Longley) using quote mining to support their lies.
There is PLENTY of positive evidence that Jesus couldn’t have done what he did. Almost every law of Nature that we know of rules OUT possibilities as well as ruling them in. This is especially the case for well known and well tested laws of Nature, even if they aren’t the most accurate ones known.
For example, Newton’s laws of motion and gravity, even though not as accurate as Einstein’s Relativity Theories, can be used to PROVE that no human being – not even one named Jesus – can fly up into the sky to the heavens without the aid of technology such as air planes. The known laws of gravity PROVE that you can’t jump to the Moon from the surface of the Earth, neither could Jesus. It’s just not possible no matter how much someone wishes it. This means that the story of Jesus ascending to heaven is just that, a story and not fact.
Rising from the dead – it can’t be done once a human being passed the point of no return – cell death, organ death, brain death, heart death. I’m sure the biologists here can specify it with more precise technical language but the point is that a dead human being can’t rise from the dead. Even paddles and electroshock and drugs in most emergency rooms can’t revive heart attack victims that often just moments after the heart stops, let alone the alleged three days that jesus was rotting (ok maybe jesus was embalmed? did they do that then?). Sorry no zombie jesus for all you christians. Dead bodies don’t come back to life no matter how much you wish them to be your mythical figures. That goes for that Lazarus dude as well and all the other zombie christians reported in the bible and other mythologies. Dead is dead once past the point of no return.
Of course, Jesus might not have actually died, or someone pretended to be him, at least that’s more plausible since he wasn’t seen to actually rise, he was seen to be gone and the women turned and saw “him” (or someone who looked like him like a twin)… objective reality really is a harsh mistress…
The list goes on and on and on. Prove positive against every single “miracle” story ever told can be found in the simple laws of Nature that you can test in your own home. No need to believe a scientist. You can be the scientist and re-prove the theories yourself!
Here’s another one that you test every time you step into your bath tub when it has water of more than a minimal depth in it. Of course there’s no cheating by holding onto anything or stepping on a board or a box or such. Fill the tub with water. Step into it. Can you walk on top of the water’s surface? No? Didn’t think so. Neither could any human being named Jesus in all of the past history, now or in the future. Not unless you cheat.
So you christians listen up and be humiliated and accept the facts of life like an adult. Jesus – if he existed – was just a normal man like anyone else. No magical son of mythical gods. No walking on water. No rising from the dead. No zombie jesus (ah too bad, I like that one as much as his pastafarian yummieness, if not more so since I’m a fan of zombie movies). No ascending up to the heavens.
Oh right darn Einstein and Newton and other scientists. No wonder they are feared and ignored by the simple minded – clarity of objective reality is really too much for some as some need to cling to fantasies of myths for the facts of life are too much to handle. Our permanent death is too much to handle for those that fear death so much that they make up fantasies of utopian puffy clouds with boring harpy tunes. (Well they’d be boring after the first day or two that’s for sure).
So sorry to break the facts of life out oh deluded ones. Mother Nature (just a way of speaking no being intended or implied) is a bitch. Each of us awaits a cold hard death that we won’t know anything about after our neuro-bio-chemical-electro-informational brain processes cease firing. Gone forever. Which is why we need to live life to the fullest now and why we need to treat people with care and respect. While I respect your right to believe whatever nonsense you want I don’t need to respect the crap that you believe.
Now I don’t need to believe nor disbelieve the knowledge that we each can gain from science. We can test most of the scientific theories ourselves at home or at school.
I call upon all scientists every where to devise tests that anyone can carry out to prove each theory of science that it’s possible to do that for at home or at school. I call upon scientists to create a repository of said tests. You can use WikiPedia for it or some site like that.
Science is used to prove by ruling possibilities in with various theories and to rule possibilities OUT as well. Newton PROVES that YOU or anyone named Jesus can’t jump from the Earth to the Moon without using technology.
In much the same way the speed of “c”, light, can be used to demonstrate that gods can’t be omnipresent, omnipotent, nor omniscient. Since it takes time for information to travel in the universe due to the speed of “c”, these qualities of any god simply can’t exist.
These are all reasonable hypothesis utilizing clear statements of various laws of Nature that are well known and well tested to demonstrate and PROVE that the specific claims in the the various mythologies are just stories.
May you find a way to live in peace with your fellow human beings in the enlightenment of objective reality and what mother nature has to tell us about life and what’s really possible in our lives. Leave fantasy for the movie theater. Embrace real life without faith based beliefs. Test reality and it can show you the path to the real enlightenment. Smile. Live life connected to Nature and be real while you’re at it.
May you go in peace.
Green does have a point. There’s no evidence for or against the existence of god, so it’s hard to justify assigning it a probability. In fact, doing so allows some scope to Pascal’s wager: no matter how slight the probability of eternal damnation, faith is the safest choice.
Have to disagree with this. Pascals Wager is presented as a binary proposition, and perhaps in Catholic 17th Century Europe it may have made some kind of sense. However, today, with 30K versions of Christianity and counting, many of them rabidly mutually exclusive, it is utterly meaningless. Not to mention Islam, Hinduism etc., and all of their mutually exclusive variants.
Basically anything any random person makes up, as long as some severe eternal penalty applies has to be considered, just for safety. For example my personal God will torture believers regardless of affiliation*, for eternity, atheists being the kind of rationalists God likes, go straight to heaven. He finds their forthright skepticism refreshing, and honest. All that worship, was getting on his nerves. Those fucking caterwauling angels! Try putting up with that kind of sycophancy for eternity. Satan was actually a massive, relentless suck up, thats why he was banished to hell.
Agnostics will have to endure purgatory for a few hundred years, but you can get them off with a reduced sentence by praying for them … ok thats a contradiction … but it’s a faith thing.
*with the exception of Jehovahs Witnesses, there actually is a special place reserved in hell for JW’s.
Last I heard ‘Birdshit’ Green was facing bankruptcy after loosing his case against the BBC. He had costs awarded against him but was demanding that the people he had defamed, whose home addresses he had released, should pay the costs for him.
Does anyone know how the sanctimonious toss-pot has got on with this? I can’t find any info anywhere.
Jesus saves!
Everyone else in your party takes full damage.
[/nerdery]
Arachnophilia:
Sensible bloke, Jesus – unlike my parents (who are practising Catholics) who don’t. And now they’re looking at >£500 to recover their photos from a hard drive with a head failure.
Speaking of head failure:
Hi Stephen! Keep up the good work! roffle! :-D
Nature saves!
Nature enlightens endarkened belief stricken delusional faith based minds.
Nature saves you from faith based delusions. Test Objective Reality Now and join the enlightenment!
Actually, in the story itself, it was someone who didn’t look quite like him, since his closest friends didn’t recognise the replacement version! The Mysterons are clearly more talented at resurrection in the stories about them.
Brown claims to “accept the Christian account of the problem but not their account of the solution” (quoted from memory). I think that means he’s a pretentious arse.
JESUS SAVES!
…but Kevin Keegan scores on the rebound.
GOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLL!
On the other side of the coin, Luigi Cascioli brought the lawsuit in Italy:
“Cascioli filed a lawsuit against the Catholic Church…for promoting fraud by observing that the existence of Christ is historically factual.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Cascioli
In other words, this approach has been taken before.
I don’t know how it ended (or even if it has). I certainly don’t trust the BBC not to just quietly drop the matter. However, this was funny:
I’m sure that the advertisers of Carlsberg beer will have something to say about this…or at least be wetting themselves laughing.
“Jesus saves!”
At the moment, in the UK, savers are being penalised (as per the prodigal sone story but even more so). The profligate wastrels and more directly evil people are being bailed out and, as usual, the only place the resources to do that can come from is the good and careful savers, who are having their savings plundered and most of the ongoing earning potential of the remainder slashed too (via deliberate government policies).
I really hate those stupid church signs. Of course, one thing that can really make my day is when I see one that’s been, uh, tampered with by some smart ass kid. The one I can remember off the top of my head said, “There came a man from Judah,” then underneath it had things like the pastor’s name, and info about hootneanys. Anyway, some smart ass grabbed other letters from below, and change it to “There came a man from Judas Priest.” That one nearly caused a few accidents from drivers laughing so hard.
Of course the all-time best sign changes have been at the vet’s office across from our local high school. Some kid changed “Can your pet’s breath stop a train?” to “Can your penis breath stop a rat?” Only a few weeks later, the same sign got vandalized to read “Two Black Cockers for Free,” to (of course) “Two Black Cocks For Free.” I think the perpetrator must have graduated, because, for about 4 years, if there were a way to molest the message on that sign, it happened, no matter how hard the staff tried to keep things “clean.” And then it stopped.
Odd. :-/ I think that’s the first time I’ve gained an e on the end of a word (ie as a sort of mutation during typing). Normally I’m more likely to be missing an e which hasn’t quite come out hard enough when typing. I expect it’s a relatively neutral mutation though, since most people would still know to read it as “prodigal son” (because the first word of that pair is the significant one).
pwl@#46:
Exactly what I’ve always said.
The funda-mentalists, however, really don’t seem to get that “you can be the scientist”. I mean, really really.
alanWCan@#54: Was using Keegan’s name part of the gag? Meta-humour based on the fact it is an old joke?
Stephen Green commented: ‘Apparently, the comedy writer had a sense of humour failure when told she would burn in hell, but if she does not believe in a final judgment, what is her problem? And if she does believe in an afterlife, where does think she is going to spend it? She won’t like heaven, because God is there.’
A sense of humour failure?!?!
The phrase “hoist on his own petard” comes to mind…
Aaargh! That’s not what the anthropic principle states. The anthropic principle states that if you have a million planets inhospitable to life and one hospitable, we shouldn’t be surprised that our planet is the hospitable one. It’s the counterpart to the assumption of mediocrity; it says that something rare or improbable doesn’t necessarily need much explanation if its absence wouldn’t leave us here to comment on it.
The anthropic principle says that “why isn’t Earth in a region with more star formation going on?” is a stupid question; if Earth were, it’d be sterilized by supernovas and we wouldn’t be asking the question (but intelligent life on some other planet would possibly be asking it about their own, remarkably unsterilized region of space).
What it doesn’t say is that a) the question of how star formation is distributed and what causes that, or b) the question of why stars exist at all, are stupid.
And it’s entirely pointless to apply it to the existence of the universe in the first place. Obviously the universe has to be the sort of place that will support life, given that we’re in it. But we don’t know how the parameters of the universe could have been tweaked and still allow intelligent life which, of course, would find that it existed in a universe that allowed exactly its type of life. Nor do we know if this is the “only” universe or if there are other, sterile versions out there; the multiverse allows the anthropic principle in full force and with no need for a deity.
Essentially this confusion is a puddle making the leap from “I seem to be in a low point in the landscape. But of course that makes sense, because wherever the low point was I’d flow to it” to “The landscape has low points. Thus, it was made to allow puddles.”
On a side note about taking the lords name in vain: In Sweden we usually swear with words related to the devil. (If you stub a toe your more likely to say “devils”, “satan” or “hell” than “jesus”.)
This truly is great news. We are fortunate in the UK to have, essentially, only one religious/campaigning/political fuckwit, and Stephen Green is his name (and Christian Voice his altar). It makes things so much easier for us.
So what were the chances that he would attack this eminently reasonable ad? Well, like life evolving on earth, exactly 100%. “Leave it Stephen, it’s not worth it!”
Does he really not understand how stupid, humourless, and petty this makes him sound? It is simply the most effective way he could have devised to draw attention to the atheist message. Or have his prayer antennae simply gone over to digital while his brain is still on analogue?
Ha, ha fucking ha!
Please, Stephen, carry on. Over here at “God doesn’t exist, and if he did, he’d be a c***” central, we love you very deeply. Kissy kissy.
The same Stephen Green of Christian Voice is featured in the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary, In God’s Name, available at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8326751378465566104
On a small note of pendantry, there is a specific Act that criminalises any advertisement claiming that “chocolate cures cancer” and suchlike, namely the Cancer Act 1939:
“4. Prohibition of certain advertisements.
— (1) No person shall take any part in the publication of any advertisement–
(a) containing an offer to treat any person for cancer, or to prescribe any remedy therefor, or to give any advice in connection with the treatment thereof;”
other than for bring such treatments to the attention of Members of Parliament, Members of the House of Lords, or medical professionals.
More prosaic complaints would be made to the Advertising Standards Authority, of which there are plenty made each week: http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/adjudications/public/
On a broader note, Mr Green certainly does seem to be his own worst enemy. Long may that continue!
I don’t see why this would not simply be thrown out of court.
Marketing, traditionally refers to the promotion of products and services. Truth in advertising laws are there to protect consumers of products and services, if there is no product or service being promoted then you are not violating the law.
You’re ignoring the many comic contributions of the clergy. One can usually rely on an archbishop, bishop or vicar to say something outstandingly stupid. Eg the potato excuse given to A&E staff by an unnamed religious leader, stuff by Patrick O’Donoghue, the Bishop of Southwark and almost anything said by the Archbishop of Canterbury (who most fully fits the political and campaigning categories).
#49 Romana Twelve:
Ouch!
It’s also, of course, hilarious that the Advertising Standards Agency is being asked to rule on the existence of God. I mean, exactly which God are we supposed to be denying?
I hate that bastard anyway – He killed my mum.
Actually, Jesus (en)slaves!
PWL @ 46:
There was a program once upon a time,watch Mr. Wizard, that showed “the magic and mystery of every day science”. T’was a less hip version of Bill Nye the Science Guy. There are publications that dothe kind of expt’s you advocate. Check String and Sticky Tape on line and at the American Association of Physics Teachers site.
JESUS SAVES! Moses invests.
I sometimes think Boris Johnson missed his calling: he’d be an ideal successor to Rowan Williams.
Jesus does save, but I hear he lost a lot of his savings when WaMu went bust.
In a hedge fund, presumably.
Onan withdraws.
I did read somewhere (although I can’t find any reference to it now) that he came to an agreement with the BBC, probably because some money is better than nothing and they could have extracted a promise from him to fuck off and never bother them again.
Also, the irony is strong in Dogshit, he’s had his own problems with the ASA very recently and was reprimanded for claiming that the HPV vaccine could cause infertility. Of course, this is an infringement on his freedom of speech:
Mr Green has challenged the adverts on grounds of “truthfulness” and “substantiation”, suggesting that there is not “a shred of supporting evidence” that there is probably no God.
I’m 100% certain there is no Easter Bunny, but I don’t have a shred of evidence for it’s non-existence.
I’m 100% certain there is no magic god fairy, but I don’t have a shred of evidence for it’s non-existence.
I say these two things most certainly don’t exist because both ideas are equally insane and equally childish.
Stephen Green led a protest of a production of Corpus Christi (a play in which Jesus was portrayed as gay) when I was in back in college. The director finally got Green to come and actually watch the play on the last night. I don’t know why we let him, but he took it upon himself to lecture the cast on blasphemy afterwards – some of the cast members considered themselves Christian, and actually bothered to discuss it with him. God, what an odious little man he was.
In the end, he dragged up some archaic Scottish law and reported us for blasphemy, naming the actors in the complaint. I never heard anything about it from the police. Hopefully this will go the same way.
#81: I meant its, not it’s.
completely off topic but can anyone tell me where to get one of those “jesus saves but the rest of your party takes full damage” t-shirt. Those crack me up. Only religious shirt I want to own.
Back on topic – does the fact that I saw a magazine (Christianity today?) with the cover article something about “marketing jesus” mean that I am going to have to deal with more mass marketing of this crap. Has anyone proved the accuracy of all those “Got Jesus” billboards. I have yet to get a jesus moustache after drinking his blood. And if I see one more “former embryo” shirt I am going to explode.
Damn… *boom*
Oh! This is great news! We should help them get the ad banned and then use the same logic to get all their signs banned. Then I can stop daydreaming about cutting them all down with my chainsaw every time I pass one. ;)
“Your Honor, may it please the court,
My witness–Jesus–will support
My claim, and clear up all the fuss,
And get those posters off the bus.”
“The court now calls one ‘Jesus Christ’!”
But even He was not enticed
To take the stand for Dogshit Green,
So God remains unheard, unseen.
Is there a god? There is no proof
If yes, the creature’s quite aloof;
So like the poster says–Don’t worry.
(The bus is pulling out… best hurry.)
Is there a pun in this one…?
I think what’s meant is a sense-of-humour failure = a failure of the sense of humour. Have you smitten a hyphen-dropper today yet? <wielding baseball club>
Sure he does. The thing is, he believes God wants him to sound stupid, humourless, and petty.
In other words: Thou shalt […] give false witness unto thy neighbour.
SEF @41,
Good (but not surprising) thing I didn’t say it was then!
And equally a good thing that I didn’t say you’d said that. But what you did say (“there’s some mendacious bod at the Grauniad”) was not as clear as it might have been; clarifying the identity of the mendacious bod was the point of my comment.
Matt @53,
perhaps Brown’s formulation, quoted upthread, does make him a pretentious ass. I really couldn’t say, though I’m happy to defer to your superior familiarity. What it doesn’t make him — indeed, what it more or less by definition means he is not — is a Christian.
Be that as it may, yours @79 is very damn good.
Mrs. Tilton@#88. Oh he definitely isn’t a Christian; I quoted it specifically to give some material support to the claim about him having no religious beliefs that you marked as “SFAIK”.
@Joel #70: That’s what I was thinking, too. It’s not marketing if you’re not trying to sell someone a product or service, is it? It’s not like the campaign is “There is probably no God, so call us to arrange that trip you’ve been wanting to take” or something.
I think the god botherers have really shot themselves in the foot complaining about these ads. Whichever way this goes down I think we win!
But does Jesus shave?
Probably not.
You’re telling me the people Jesus hangs out with don’t have evasion? Given their rhetorical tactics I find that hard to believe.
Well, I didn’t like the use of the term ‘probably’ in the ad. I thought something like , ‘There is almost certainly…’ or ‘In all probability…’ would be better phrasing. But, given this lawsuit, I can now see the wisdom is using the more weaselly worded ‘There probably is no God.’.
For much more on Green, read The Freethinker – they really spotlight him a lot. http://freethinker.co.uk/
In fact, their adorable nickname for him is Stephen “Birdshit” Green, due to The Almighty causing birds to poop on him while being filmed.
Jesus saves…you the trouble of thinking for yourself.
Jesus saves…the GOP from having to address real issues.
Mr Green certainly does seem to be his own worst enemy. – Parmesan
Ah! Another chance to use one of my favourite quotes:
“Not while I’m alive ‘e ain’t!”
(Attributed to British Labour politician Ernie Bevin, when someone said of his colleague Herbert Morrison what Parmesan says of Green.)
Jesus Saves…
…by shopping wisely and using coupons
David Marjanović: You’re right of course. The joke such as it is, is not a pun. In my mind I file all these things as “Jesus puns”.
waitaminute…
Wow. That’s a first.
Incidentally, I think he’s misgrokking the ASA Code when he says:
Since it says:
This is from section 3.1, which is what section 8 (matters of opinion) refers to for “assertions that go beyond subjective opinions”.
So when he says that the publishers can’t rely on the “opinion” clause, if he’s correct about that, he’s just let them off the hook by asserting that the statement is not subject to objective substantiation.
Still reliably stupid… if he didn’t exist, we’d have to invent him.
By master Green’s analysis of the ASA rules..methinks he has condemned religion and it’s penchant for subjective claims…
cos what is good for the gander is also cool for the goose!…
“It is given as a statement of fact and that means it must be capable of substantiation if it is not to break the rules.”
The bible must be cooked well and truly then?
The catchy little line…’jesus saves’ must also up for similar treatment surely!
Stupid git has shot himself and the rest of moron’s united in the head not just the foot!
Love to be a fruit fly on the wall when…or indeed if… …sanctions were ever applied to such claims…they would burn him alive for insuring religious claims are illegal…
So McCain is back to the earmarks,and again demonstrates a total lack of understanding for science.
What else is new??
Interesting tho that Palin’s “Paris,France” comments seem to have been authorized or generated by McCain people as well.
Oops,wrong thread….
AnthonyK @ 92 – your comment gave me a great idea for an offensive t-shirt:
Your standard whitebread Jesus bible picture with him clean-shaven and a few nicks, cuts & band-aids to make it obvious, with the line “Jesus Shaves”.
Jesus Saves
Moses Invests
Mohammed makes a Prophet
;^}
“Onan withdraws”.
Now that is good.
“Jesus Saves
Moses Invests
Mohammed makes a Prophet” – Caz Fans
…and Bahu’allah Bahais cheap, sells dear
Speaking of which, I notice this demand for the bus campaign to support its claims comes right on the heel of Birdshit’s rebellion against a similar requirement on his claims.
http://freethinker.co.uk/2009/01/08/green-has-infertile-grounds-for-complaint/
We can all be thankful that there is not a shred of supporting evidence that Stephen Green is probably not mentally ill.
@1,
Pharyngulites may be amused at the current developments with respect to the other complaint to the ASA, made by a pompous Catholic windbag called Clifford Longley – a fixture on BBC Radio 4. Turns out Longley plagiarised most of the text of his complaint – a claim that the “anthropic principle” means that “There is probably no God” is misleading – from a creationist website; that plagiarised text contained errors, quote-mining and at least one downright false quote; and that the equally pompous Grauniad “journalist” and alleged “atheist” Andrew Brown posted this contribution from his friend Longley without making any checks.