$10,000 and growing fast
11.12.09 | Duncan | 
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We have been overwhelmed with the incredible response from New Zealand, and have sailed past our original target of $10,000 in less than 48 hours. More importantly, we have started the discussion around the web, and hopefully at dining tables and in living rooms all over our beautiful country.
Of course we now doubled our target, so we need your help to continue spreading the message. Post on Facebook, tweet about it, get involved in the huge number of discussions going on around the web, and talk to your friends and family about it. Remember this campaign is about positivity, and we need to respect peoples alternative points of view, just as we hope they will respect ours. It is easy to get caught up in what can understandably be a very personal and emotional issue for some people.
Simon will be appearing on Close Up tonight, TV1 at 7pm to discuss the campaign. It should also be posted up on the TVNZ website later tonight.
Thanks to everyone who has sent us positive messages, and offered their support. We are trying really hard to answer all your questions, hopefully we will have more time over the weekend to do that!
127 Responses to “$10,000 and growing fast”
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Pages: « 1 [2] 3 4 5 » Show All
December 11th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
Why won’t God heal amputees?
December 11th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
How does the God argument get weaker and weaker ? I have not provided any evidence yet.
December 11th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
and No – I dont believe that believing in anything is better than believing in nothing – just in case… so the insurance policy idea does not really apply here
December 11th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Your appearance on Close up did nothing to help the cause. If your are going to become a target for the unthinking then prepare yourself properly.
Eg. The allegation that aetheism is faith based can be countered by ‘Faith is the suspension of rational thought. Aetheism is rational thought.’
The existense of a God is countered by the fact that christians deny the existense of all gods except their own. The Flying spagetti monster argument. The proof of gods non existence is simply argued as; It is not possible to prove a negative. The inference from Close Up was that the bus campaign is against Christianity only. You make it more obvous that aetheist are against all religions/non rational thought.
Have you read Richard Dawkins’ God Delusion
December 11th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
no evidence you say !? what evidence would you expect ? – or am I repeating myself ???
December 11th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Thomas- Faith is no reason
December 11th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
Perhaps you’ve just answered your own question.
December 11th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Thomas, I’m hearing a lot of protestations about your evidence but none has yet been presented.
It is you that says there is some so its not up to us to specify what it is. It just has to be convincing, like a repeatable experiment or measurable observation.
December 11th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
and why would only a repeatable experiment in a science lab convince you ? can you prove the theory of evolution that way ? arent there many other things that are true and yet cannot be proven scientifically/ mathematically ?
December 11th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
I am sure that you are all familiar with the traditional lines of evidence for God`s existence and going into them here would take months so you surely do not expect me to do that. Whole volumes have been written on the topic and as I said before it all comes down to what you decide to do with all that evidence and argumentation. you can always say ” Ah yes, but look here …”.
December 11th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
Thomas, you insipient you are really showing your ignorance by not understanding the meaning of ‘Theory’
December 11th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
I’m not familiar with any evidence. Could you offer a brief list?
December 11th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
@Thomas- Science comes up with a hypothesis and then sets out to prove it wrong. Religion doesnt challange itself in this way and works on faith
Lets face it Thomas, you have your faith and thats great for you, but other people like me think there probably is no God.
Science exists outside the lab as well…
December 11th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
and if you have nothing positive and certain to say, then isn’t it better to just be quiet ? After all, you`re not spending thousands of dollars on campaigns aimed at convincing people that Santa Claus doesnt exist, are you, although you dont believe in him any more than you do in God ? And by the way, all it takes to prove that Santa Claus doesnt exist is to go to the North Pole and see that there is no sign of him so the analogy between S.C. and God is weak.
December 11th, 2009 at 10:58 pm
I`ll be repeating myself again if I say that my faith (and that of countless other Christians) does not go against scientific evidence and there is no contardiction betwen faith and evidence.
December 11th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
Faith and evidence are completely incompatible. Faith is believe without evidence.
December 11th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Further, evidence precludes the need for faith.
December 11th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
Ah, but we do have something positive and certain to say: religion is based on a fiction.
How liberating is that? No hellfire and damnation, you can support charities just because you like to help people, you can assimilate scientific data without contorting it so it fits through the faith-filter.
There is a downside, no 17 virgins when you blow yourself up but hey, no pain no gain.
I may have assumed the wrong brand here but there is no reason to elevate one fiction over another. Some just got through the bronze age a bit sooner than others, thanks largely to science.
December 11th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
what I am saying is that as a Christian I am not taking everything related to my relationship with God on blind faith, and I think BLIND is the key word here. My faith is anything but ‘blind’. It is’ reasonable’ and supported by arguments that work for me and are convincing enough. You reject these arguments and that is your choice.
December 11th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
Haha “insurance policy”.
Pascal’s Wager strikes again. It never makes any more sense than it originally did. Which is none.
December 11th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
I am being unkind. Many of my friends are christian, I respect them, just not all their beliefs. As a mind-virus christianity is now relatively benign. This hasn’t always been the case, I would have been burned alive a few centuries ago for not towing the party line. I don’t seriously think I’m going to change your mind Thomas, it would be arrogant of me to think I could. Just know, you and your christian mates, that the atheists are here and we are not going to let irrational beliefs go unchallenged. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…
December 11th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
honestly, I fail to see how the thought of being an accident of nature can fill anyone with joy, hope etc .how positive is the idea that human existence is ultimately meaningless and that`s because the universe and everything in it is slowly but surely heading towards annihilation in a heat death. whatever you or anyone else does is ultimately meaningless so you might just as well end it all now. charities ?? what for ? there will be no one and nothing left in the end. no one to remember your generosity and kindness. and by the way … I am not claiming that this proves God`s existence. what it does prove is that without God everything is ultimately meaningless.
December 11th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
I dont know if your Christian friends are of the sort that when challenged about their beliefs invariably reply ”the Bible tells me so” but let me assure you that that is not me and you are welcome to challenge my beliefs without referring to them as irrational.
December 11th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
Thomas,
What is wrong with making your own meaning, rather than pretending it is somehow imposed by something else?
You should learn to think clearly, and not argue for the existence of something based on the (assumed) consequences of what would happen it it did not.
The burden of proof remains squarely on religious people to provide evidence for the existence of their deity before anything can be claimed or done in the name of this deity – and this includes moral claims!
For those who say that a god started the Universe but has since left it alone, or is otherwise undetectable today, this can be dismissed using the principle of Occam’s Razor.
Claims of a ‘personal’ god lack objectivity and falsifiability, as do claims that a god is somehow “outside” of time and space.
Intelligent Design, the purportedly scientific face of creationism, has no impartially peer reviewed scientific papers to its name. It is also not a scientific theory as it makes no testable predictions.
Consequently, in the absence of any sensible evidence, by default we can take it that no gods exist. There is no reason to think otherwise.
December 11th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
Thomas. How about awe and fascination? Meaning is whatever you want it to be. We do lots of things that dont last forever, and enjoy them none the less. No need to go all doom and gloom.
You should take encouragement from the revelation that someone who thinks this is all there is does find joy and meaning (and fascination and awe). The operative words you use here are “I fail to see”.
December 11th, 2009 at 11:41 pm
and the argument about the Holy Inquisition and the atrocities committed by them in God`s name is, as far as I`m concerned, irrelevant. I find God in Christ and He would certainly have nothing to do with what the Catholic Church did in the Mediaeval times. Neither would Christ have been a guard at Auschwitz, where so many church-going German Lutherans murdered innocent civilians. I look at Christ and not at people. In Christ I find the fullest revelation of God.
December 11th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
been nice chatting with you
December 11th, 2009 at 11:59 pm
Each time I see one of those buses I’m gonna
Whip my slave,
Burn a heretic,
Stone someone for Blasphemy
Push a brick wall onto a homosexual
& send $20 each to Benny Hinn & Charles Stanley
Praise Buddha
December 12th, 2009 at 12:05 am
Glad you enjoyed it. Sorry if it got a bit robust. I suppose you expected it.
“We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.”
H. L. Mencken
December 12th, 2009 at 12:25 am
wow now this is bull.. all this money should be spent elsewhere