Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone from the NZ Atheist Bus Campaign! Below are some reflections on the season from Tim, another person involved in the campaign…

I just got wished a merry Dawkins-Mass from a Christian friend. This got me thinking – what do atheists actually celebrate at Christmas. We do not celebrate the birth of Christ. We also certainly don’t celebrate the birth of Richard Dawkins (or Charles Darwin for that matter).

Looking at the history of the festival, Christmas is actually not the date where most Christian scholars believe Jesus was born. The date for Christmas was originally based on an ancient festival – the winter solstice. This is a celebration of the days stopping getting shorter and starting to get longer. An indication of the coming of summer, the ending of winter, or the light at the end of the tunnel. Many cultures use the solstice to mark the life and death rebirth cycle of their deities.

Given we’re in New Zealand, and are at the summer solstice, this makes Christmas for Kiwi atheists doubly strange – neither of the two traditional reasons for the holiday are meaningful. So what do we celebrate?

Christmas has always been a time for family and friends to get together, eat good food, and drink good wine. It’s a defined time where everyone has time off work. Time to make the effort to come to a shared place. Do we need a reason beyond that?

*tag* back to Simon…

I don’t think we do need a reason beyond that. Certainly coming together as family and friends to share, celebrate and strengthen relationship bonds is a great reason. Just as Christianity has redefined the festival to meet its needs, the increasingly secular population has done, and is continuing to do, the same. Christmas is just as much, if not more, a secular holiday/festival in 2009.

I’d like to end with the wise words of the talented Derren Brown, as he reflects on ‘being good for goodness’ sake’…

As ever, the journey is the thing, and should be enjoyed accordingly. To forgive purely because it is nicer to forgive, and to do so when it’s a tough call; to try to speak only kindly of those we know because it is preferable to do so; to enjoy the successes of others because living thus is more enjoyable than the stress of living resentfully: such kind things make us better, lovelier people. And to try to live this way for its own merits, without invoking a supernatural reason for doing so, is to celebrate our humanity and to give kindness back its teeth.

I wish all readers out there a very merry Christmas and, since we are in the southern hemisphere, hope that you can all enjoy drinking white wine or orange juice in the sun with family and friends.

Due to questioning of the use of ‘probably’ in the slogan, we thought it wise to write a blog post to explain the idea further. The use of ‘probably’ is a strength of the campaign. No one can say for certain that any gods exist or don’t exist – that would require blind faith.

You can’t disprove unicorns, the tooth fairy, Zeus, or any gods but what you can say is that there is no solid evidence to think they exist. This campaign uses ‘probably’ to say that although you can’t disprove things like unicorns and fairies, you can say there’s not a shred of evidence for the thousands of gods that humans have ever worshipped.

Atheism is a positive statement about the limits of knowledge. Rather than taking a religious-like leap of faith and saying that there definitely is a god or definitely isn’t a god, atheists just say that there’s as much evidence for the Christian God as there is for Zeus or any other supernatural thing. That is, zilch.

Theists on the other hand think they know the one true god out of the literally thousands that have ‘existed’. And, in fact, they often refer to this god as their Personal God – one personal god for everyone. This is interesting as a recent study has shown that peoples’ own personal beliefs tend to align very well with what they think God thinks.  Of course there’s no reason to think that God exists in anything more than a person’s imagination.

The NZ Atheist Bus Campaign is one step closer to placing atheist ads on buses, with their fund raising target of $20,000 having been easily reached in less than a week.

Launched just last week, hundreds of Kiwis have supported the campaign by donating to promote the idea that it’s OK to not believe in a god, and that one can certainly be good without god through advertisements on buses reading: “There’s probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

The original target of $10,000 was met in less than 36 hours, and so the decision was made to double this to the revised target of $20,000.

“The tremendous support in donations and positive messages has really reinforced the worth and importance of a positive atheist campaign like this” said campaign spokesperson Simon Fisher.

The Campaign was launched in part to reach out to the significant number of New Zealanders who are unsure about the idea of god. For example, those who grew up in religious homes and feel anxiety, or even fear about threats such as hell, or choosing the wrong religious path.

The campaign organisers have been inundated with hundreds of personal stories about the effect religion has upon New Zealanders, from being labeled “sinners” to family pressures of conformity. One message read “It got me thinking that I might not be as crazy as I first believed.”

“I am pleased with the majority of the responses from religious groups, even if I disagree with their arguments against the message and intent of the campaign. They have mostly been positive and supportive of the campaign due to its ability to raise discussion of the issues of belief in god and religion’s role in society” continued Fisher.

The campaign has 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. This debate will no doubt continue once the advertisements go live, and people will be encourage to think deeply about these topics.

Organisers of the campaign are currently planning when and how the ads will be rolled out onto buses across the country. Donations beyond the $20,000 target will still be accepted and will be put towards future atheist advertising campaigns.

“We have plans for future phases – possibly different slogans, and different mediums. We thought this a better option than just closing donations, allowing those who might have missed out the first time to still have the chance to donate” explained Mr Fisher.

More information about the campaign is available at the website: http://www.nogod.org.nz/

Today we have reached our target of $20,000 to put atheist messages on buses in the main centres of our fine country!

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!

This morning (a little surprisingly early) I had an interview about the campaign on Kiwi FM…

Following this I also had a chat about the campaign on the Breakfast Show with Spanky on Christchurch’s RDU station…

Breakfast With Spanky – Atheist Simon Fisher

RDU 98.5 FM

Yesterday was a huge day for the campaign in media coverage, donations, and discussion online and on the radio. I’d like to throw out a big thank you to all those who donated and all those who emailed in positive messages of support, or suggestions for improving and expanding the campaign. Much appreciated!

Just to reiterate, our new target is $20,000. We’re nearly three quarters of the way there and still climbing!

Please continue to support/share the campaign on Facebook, on Twitter, and just by talking to friends and family about it. That is one of the main points after all – to raise awareness of atheism and humanism in NZ. To show that it’s perfectly fine to not believe in a deity and that you can be good without one.

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!

Due to the amazing response so far, we have decided to double our initial target to $20,000 NZD and also place a cap on this new target. We intend to raise $20,000 or very near to this amount, and we will close off donations once we have reached this target.

This will of course double the original number of ads on buses in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch! This works out to approximately 12 buses in Auckland, 8 in Wellington and 4 in Christchurch. The ads will stay on the buses for 4 weeks.

We decided this was the best way of dealing with an excess of donations, as opposed to using them for some other purpose. You all have donated to put atheist ads on buses, and that is what we will use the money for. As before, literally all donation money will be used for advertising – there are no administrative overheads. The Humanist Society of NZ has kindly offered to administrate and oversee the donation collection to ensure it conforms to financial standards.

I see at this point we are well over quarter of the way to the new target, and rapidly growing! Thank you again to all the donations. They will make a significant impact in promoting atheism, humanism and rational enquiry in NZ.

First off, thank you everyone for your generous donations and the emails of support. We appreciate them very much – you guys rock.

Here’s a list of some of the recent media reports about the campaign:

• TV3 Sunrise show, with video
• Radio NZ – Morning Report show [direct link to audio]
• Stuff.co.nz article
• There is a discussion going on on the RadioLive website
• TVNZ.co.nz article
• StopPress article
• Others? let me know in the comments please…

I’ll be talking on RadioLive at sometime just after 12:30pm today. Also, I’ll be on TVNZ Close Up tonight talking about the campaign.

Thanks again for all the support!

I’d like to thank everyone today for their donations. It’s been a steady stream of donations rolling in all day. Thanks heaps guys!

We’re over 5% of the way there, which is not bad at all for the first day. There are a number of media opportunities coming up over the next week or so that should spread the campaign to a wider audience. I’ll be sure to outline them here or on Twitter as and when they occur.

Our target is $10,000 for the initial ad run. That works out at approximately $900 per ad-on-a-bus, so we’ve nearly got one ad sorted…let’s go!