Billboard coverage in New Plymouth
6.11.10 | helen | 
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http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/4315606/OMG-did-you-see-that-billboard
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November 6th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
it’s about time they did something like this in my side of the world, ive seen this sort of thing happen in america through youtube with the whole billboards and stuff…… ignorant religious people are always going to bash it but we just have to keep the arguement of freedom of speech in tact and there will be nothing those fundamntalists will be able to do, its about time that such information on the subject of atheism has come into the public eye of the Taranaki people….. best thing ive read in the front page of the paper in a LONG TIME!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haBLjVqrrjM – part one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd0qFSMm7oo&feature=related – part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9zuPTng2bc&feature=related – part 3
November 12th, 2010 at 1:50 pm
It’s cool that those church leaders in Taranaki embrace free speech unlike the uptight and censorious wankers who fought the atheist bus signs and the billboards.
I’m especially amused that a priest first emphasises the “positive” faith of Christianity compared to atheism and then mentions that the fear of torture might’ve been a big factor in faith in the past while avoiding the obviously question of the significance of the threat of divine torture at present.
If we keep the atheist billboard messages positive an innocuous as they are at present, I think we can expect more religious leaders to bring attention to troubling aspects of their faith.
December 16th, 2010 at 2:58 pm
All I want to say is that I grew up in an Atheist home.. Substance abuse, sexual abuse, unemployment, physical and mental abuse surrounded me. I met someone who went to church and they helped me pull my life out of a very dark place.
I understand that there are a lot of arrogant religous people out there but there are also ALOT people that genuinly want to help people on both sides…
I think we all need to take that into account
December 16th, 2010 at 8:33 pm
Hi Toni,
I can see where you are coming from here, but two things strike me about your perspective.
1 – Substance abuse, sexual abuse, unemployment, physical and mental abuse are not exclusive to an atheistic home, as there are many similar experiences from theistic households.
For example, the child sex abuse scandals that have plagued the Catholic church in particular, show how those who should embody the supposed good side of religion, can betray it again and again.
2 – Please note on this site under the “Valuable Links” heading, you can click on the link to see what both the “Humanist Society of NZ” and the “NZ Association of Rationalists & Humanists” stand for.
You may be heartened to see how many of the values you associate with religion are also highly regarded and important to them.
The obvious difference being that they do not demand a belief in a god or gods by those who also value them.
I think we all need to take that into account to.
January 24th, 2011 at 8:58 am
I appreciate such a strong stance for rational thought. But one question rationally converted me to Christianity, “what if Jesus really rose from the dead, and what would be the logical implications from such an event?”
But that’s impossible you say? Well I agree, therefore I believe in God.
January 24th, 2011 at 9:25 am
Hi Tyler,
To be honest, if you could prove as a certain fact that Jesus did rise from the dead, then I reckon that would convert me to christianity as well.
Unfortunately for you, all we have is hearsay testimonial evidence coming from the ancient superstitious past containing inconsistencies and improbabilities on behalf of the resurrection of Jesus. We do not know who wrote the gospels. We do know they were written decades and more after the alleged facts supposedly occurred.
How reliable of a testimony can that be? We also know there were many forgeries written by Christians, some of them accepted into the canonical New Testament. We cannot say all four canonical gospels are genuine. We cannot say they represent four separate testimonies since later canonical gospels borrowed from and expanded on the gospel of Mark, a gospel where the resurrected Jesus does not appear to the disciples at all? We can’t even say all the characters in them are real people. Much less we can’t claim to know what they actually said and did. We cannot interview them, or the gospel writers themselves.
And even if we were to grant that the gospel writers reported some things correctly there are things we simply cannot believe. After all we’re told that at the death of Jesus the tombs of the saints opened and they walked around Jerusalem (Matthew 27:52-53). Why should we believe anything they said at that point?
There is a reason why hearsay evidence is not admissible in court. It cannot be substantiated. This is even more exacerbated of a problem when it comes to the ancient superstitious past.
So Tyler, you’re welcome to your belief, but please don’t attempt to claim that there is anything remotely rational about it. Your stance is based on “Faith”, a belief not resting on logical proof or material evidence.
The book “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins is aptly titled and I would recommend you read it.
January 24th, 2011 at 11:04 pm
Tyler:
> “what if Jesus really rose from the dead, and what would
> be the logical implications from such an event?”
What if Mithras, a man who was born of a virgin, preached, performed many miracles, died and reputedly rose three days later and flew to heaven 400 years before Jesus, turned out to be more than merely a bit of midrash?
There’s nothing particularly unique about Jesus. There were a plague of Jesuses in Jesus’s time. (“Jesus” is a title, not a personal name, just as “Christ” is just a by-name. Even John the Baptist wasn’t too sure he identified the correct Jesus.)
Apart from the lack of evidence for any deity and plenty of evidence against some specific deities (mainly through internal inconsistency), there is a something really odd about the desire to worship a supremely evil being or indeed any being so defective as to require worship. (As QualiaSoup points out, the desire for worship is contradictory to the notion of a perfect being.)
I can find evidence that Hitler existed in corporeal form. That doesn’t mean I would want to worship him, even if he has cool mutant powers as Cyborg Zombie Hitler.. Nor would I encourage other people to worship him,
March 2nd, 2011 at 10:24 pm
the problem is people over time have put god in this religious little box based on negative experiences with religious churches, religious figures & or religious people. god is not a god of religion, of all the do & donts. He is not a building, He is not a priest. He is a God of grace & freedom, who is real & alive & its time people stopped letting their perspective of church or other religious christians or figures define their picture of God & actually find out for themselves who He is & what He is really like. You dont just call yourself an athiest straight up. You explore it, consider other possibilites, beliefs, ideas & make a decision from your experiences of those things. But God is who you should be experiencing, not church, not priests & othe church leaders. Because they will let you down, put you off, they are not perfect, they are not God. To experience God you have to outside the four walls of the church in to your world, you bedroom, your home, your life. Challenge God, explore God, seek God. Then decide if He is real & if athiesm or evolution is the truth. But dont let Churches & religion paint a distorted picture of God. Because half of those churches dont even know God, not intimatley, not on a real, relevant, today God. They’re still living in history, praying to a statue thats sits in their church. Confessing to a man in a dress when God is sitting there hearing every word, knowing it already just waiting to forgive you & help you move on. Sorry if i offend any people by this comment. But people need to wake up & see who God really is & let him paint the picture.
March 2nd, 2011 at 10:33 pm
& person above me. you are right. there was absolutley nothing out of the ordinary bout Jesus. He was just a normal man but He had the spirit of God moving with in Him. He was lead by God. It was Gods power that raised people to life, healed people who were sick & hurting. It was Gods power that raised Jesus from death & its his power that heals people today. The only thing that set Jesus aside from anybody else was that he was chosen by God, the creator of all things, the giver of life to die & rise again, to conquer sin & make a way for us to be forgiven, cleansed & live forever in a perfect heaven. God used lots of other people to perform miracles, befriend people, heal people, comfort people & He does everyday, through anybody who lets him. God sent his spirit to dwell among people on earth. So we dont have go through life on our own. So we have somebody to lead us when we get lost & confused. Someone to pick us up when we fall & rejoice with us when we succeed & find happiness. God does not require worship but when you come to understand His greatness, his love, His heart & His grace, worship is the only act you can come close to being enough to thank him for who He is & all that He provides those who believe in Him & know Him.
March 3rd, 2011 at 12:25 am
Crystal:
> Sorry if i offend any people by this comment.
You needn’t be sorry. There is no offence in your describing you view of your deity (unless doing so makes statements about stuff like notions of racial inferiority or condones injustices). Anyone who would take offence are themselves offensive. (Again, the idea is that people are to be protected but ideas are not and ideas are to be freely tested and subject to criticism.)
Hehe. I’ve had to leap to the defence of religious friends who are my theological enemies. I get annoyed when someone slurs them with F.U.D. or attempts to discourage them from discussing their beliefs. Subjecting their beliefs to (analytical) criticism is perfectly kosher, though.)
> But people need to wake up & see who God really
> is & let him paint the picture.
But that is what atheists do perfectly well.
(Of course, I’m excluding the sort of atheists who rather illogically deny all imaginable gods, but I’m not aware of any atheists like that.)
March 4th, 2011 at 7:01 pm
Hi Crystal,
Good to see you engage in the debate and discussion.
So, I have some questions for you:
You said: “It was Gods power that raised people to life, healed people who were sick & hurting.”
Can you prove that?
Next you said: “It was Gods power that raised Jesus from death.”
Can you also really prove that?
Then you said: It was Gods power that heals people today.”
Doesn’t modern medical science have more to do with this than god?
Finally you said: “God, the creator of all things, the giver of life to die & rise again, to conquer sin & make a way for us to be forgiven, cleansed & live forever in a perfect heaven. God used lots of other people to perform miracles”
Really? Can you prove any of this as well?
I can see you obviously have “Faith”, but please recognise it for what it is, namely a belief not resting on logical proof or material evidence.
The book “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins is aptly titled and I would recommend you read it.
March 5th, 2011 at 1:34 pm
Paul to Crystal:
> The book “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins is
> aptly titled and I would recommend you read it.
The value of a book in presenting a solid case for some proposition should be indicated by the ability of the reader to successfully apply the knowledge or arguments presented in the book. Else there is a risk of the person to whom the book was recommended finding the book unconvincing and feeling cheated into paying money for the opponent’s cause.
Instead, I recommend the series of YouTube videos by QualiaSoup because they are free, presented in convenient chunks in a pleasant manner similar to the electronic book in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and being on the web, easily linked to from Internet forums.
March 5th, 2011 at 2:02 pm
Hi Daniel
I completely agree with you about “QualiaSoup”, especially the fact that they are free and so easy to access on YouTube.
Personally, I like the depth that a book format allows and since reading the “The God Delusion” I lend my copy to as many people as I can, although those of a theistic leaning tend to be rather less open to the offer than others.
For the love of god, I can’t think why? – LOL!!!
May 6th, 2011 at 9:24 am
Note that I’m a different Daniel to the one above. Small point.
Anyway, just wanted to check in. Hasn’t been an update in a while?
Is this still ticking along, or has it fallen by the wayside?
May 6th, 2011 at 11:06 am
G’day, different Daniel! I’m the author of the posts signed as “Daniel”.
At least here in Christchurch, we’ve been distracted with earthquake stuff. Anyway, I’m keen to learn the progress of the Atheist Bus Billboard thing with the Human Rights Tribunal.
May 6th, 2011 at 1:33 pm
Hi Daniel & Daniel
Lats I heard from Simon Fisher, who is one of the campaign organisers, the Human Rights Commission was still working through the process.
Unfortunately, as with all things legal, this may take some time.
I know it’s frustrating, but at some point it will be resolved.
May 30th, 2011 at 2:31 am
Mr Bennett, you may reassure your theistic acquaintances they have nothing to fear from Dick Dawkins’ ponderings. He may be a great evolutionary biologist but he is an embarrassment as a philosopher.
You say theism is a belief not resting on logical proof or material evidence. (Since Mrs Authier died with a nose perhaps you are not right.)
I hope you do realise that the same can be said for atheism. There is no scientific proof that the universe can exist WITHOUT a creator. That is not to say there is a creator but that we are yet to prove that one is not needed (now don’t bring up Hawking or are you going to idolise every scientist that has made a philosophical blunder). Put another way; there is no material evidence for atheism.
As for logic … bless my soul if I don’t just love the catch phrase of this campaign.
May 30th, 2011 at 12:46 pm
Welcome back Vera,
I see you have decided to comment once again, but your tune hasn’t changed since we last “Spoke” in late January. So, no surprises there really!
To be honest, as you’re offering the same argument as last time, I wont bother engaging with you, but if people are interested they can see what we said to each other last time by looking at the comments (5 To 90) on the “What city should billboards be in next?” Thread on this site.
As far as your comment regarding Stephen Hawking is concerned, considering his expertise, intellect and insight concerning theoretical physics and cosmology, I’ll take his opinion over yours every time!
May 30th, 2011 at 5:34 pm
Heavens no, I just couldn’t help being amused by your ongoing endorsement of Dawkins. You are too emotionally invested to be honest.
(Indeed don’t take my word on Hawking’s Grand Design. Even supportive cosmologists concede that he did not acheive all he claimed)
May 31st, 2011 at 12:09 am
Vera to Paul:
> You are too emotionally invested to be honest.
That’s a pretty clear case of the pot calling the kettle blacker. Especially since you appear to pretending to love a being who’s threatening you with torture if he even suspects you don’t love him dearly. He might just torture you anyway in a divine form of Maintenance Spanking: http://www.christiandomesticdiscipline.com/
Such appears the case for many monotheists, evidenced by the very frequent and utterly brainless appeals to Pascal’s wager, even _after_ the flaws in Pascal’s wager is pointed out to them.