The Humanist Society have been great helping us collect donations and acting as trustees for the donations while the advertising issues are sorted out. If you’re keen to become more involved with other friendly atheists, then check them out and perhaps even join up! The Humanist Society is based in Wellington – http://www.humanist.org.nz/. If you’re based in Auckland then try the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists at http://www.nzarh.org.nz/.

Tim

We have also had a handful of companies that use other advertising media say that they’ll be happy to host our ads. These have ranged from billboards to full page advertisements in major New Zealand papers. It’s good to see that many other media companies do not think our message is controversial and divisive.

We’ve also had suggestions including t-shirts, bumper stickers, and even big magnetic signs to go on the side of cars and vans!

While we’re seriously investigating legal avenues for bus ads, we’d love your creative feedback on where you, the atheists of New Zealand, would love to see the messages. We’d even love to hear what message you think would best start discussions about the legitimacy of non-belief.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank all of you out there for your words of support, and also for putting the pressure on NZ Bus to explain their rejection of the ads. If NZ Bus makes possibly discriminatory decisions like this, they need to know how many people out there disagree with their decision. The choice to use their services and the messages we send them are the best sources of consumer power in our modern economy.

This is of course a direct result of the hundreds of generous individual donations and the thousands of supporters out there. You know who you are – thank you so much for getting this campaign on the road, literally.

We launched this campaign because there are lots of people out there who are unsure about this idea of god. Perhaps they grew up in religious homes and feel anxiety, or even fear, about threats such as hell, or choosing the wrong religious path. All of your donations will support this campaign to promote and reinforce the idea that it’s OK not to believe in a god, and that certainly one can be good without God. After all, more than 1.5 million Kiwis aren’t convinced by the claims of religion.

The campaign has also already started a healthy debate about the topics of god and religion and what role they play in our lives as individuals and as a society. No doubt this debate will continue and more people will come to think deeply about these topics.

We are currently planning when and how the ads will be rolled out onto buses across the country. News will be released here as soon as we have confirmed the details.

The donation system will remain live for the time being. Any donations beyond the $20,000 target will be put towards future atheist advertising campaigns. We have plans for future phases – possibly different slogans, different mediums. We thought this a better option than just closing donations, as to allow those who might have missed out the first time to donate still for the future.

Thank you all, you guys rock!

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!