An atheist advertising campaign claiming ‘there’s probably no God’ has been reported to the regulator.
Hundreds of buses are due to carry the slogan in a four-week £140,000 campaign, backed by the British Humanist Association.
But Christian Voice has complained the ads break the Advertising Standards Authority’s codes on substantiation and truthfulness.
Stephen Green, national director of Christian Voice, complained to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) saying the adverts break the ASA’s codes on substantiation and truthfulness.
‘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.’
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Well first off there is a “probably” in the statement – “There’s probably no God…..” (no doubt this is how Carling Black Label got away with their adverts!) so it is not a statement of fact it is a statement of probably!
Secondly I am amazed at the gall of the Christian Voice man making the complaint – saying it goes against “substantiation and truthfulness”…..where exactly is the substance and truth for any religion? It amazes me that we aetheists are expected to accept others beliefs but that our non belief (which is much more believable!) is not allowed to be aired as an opinion. I think the bus campaign is fantastic, long may it continue.
OK I am not a true aetheist, all hail the Flying Spaghetti Monster!
‘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.’
Shazzypoos is totally right. It’s already been mentioned on pink news and richarddawkins.net, but let’s just underline this… Stephen Green is insisting on empirical proof in advertising an atheist point of view. I think my ironymeter just exploded.
Perhaps Stephen Green would like to present the concrete scientific proof behind any religious poster campaign you can think of.
It’s a loose loose proposition from Mr. Green. If he wins then church posters will be hamstrung by the same principle. If he looses he just looks like the flailing idiot he is.
Here’s an example of how his proposal would backfire in practice…
http://richarddawkins.net/article,3506,God-Versus-The-Advertising-Standards-Authority,Tim-Clague
In any case, the word ‘probably’ was included in the campaign for just this reason… you can’t prove a negative. See Bertrand Russell’s teapot for why…
Basically, exactly what the other person said. Mr Christianity says ‘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.’ but fails to note the word “probably” within the advert. There’s no way to substantiate “probably”.
Oh give MrGreen a break, he probably read the advert a little bit selectively….we all make that mistake sometimes right …
And of course the Christian ads telling us we’ll go to hell for not believing have a massive amount of concrete substantiation that has been thoroughly and scientifically researched and not taken from a book that is somewhere in the region of 1700-1800 years old.
I doubt anyone is remotely surprised by the fact that there are complaints being lodged already by Christian faculty.
I knew this would be a fun story to watch the first time I heard about it. Where’s my popcorn? This is great!
Think we should pick a Christian advert and all lodge complaints against it. Would be very interesting to see the reaction.
ReliegiousMarie – I would be far more inclined to give Stephen Green a break if he didn’t go round foisting his strident evangelical opinions on everybody and mass boycotting anything he didn’t personally agree with along with his Christian Voice groupies. He was also on the streets of Cardiff last year handing out rabidly homophobic pamphlets during their gay pride event.
As it stands I’m more than happy to see that he’s currently been made to pay substantial damages to the makers of “Jerry Springer the Opera” for loss of revenue due to his sustained boycott of the production. He still hasn’t coughed up mind… where’s a bailiff when you need one?
The man’s an odius creep.
They do have a point about the substantiation claim but
it breaks the rules on grounds of truthfulness? I suppose that means that we should take down all the McDonald’s adverts. Happy Meals don’t really make you happy.
LOL …. what?! They theirselves polute the world constantly with their sayings about GOD and now that there’s one slogan with the opposite they want to get rid of it? Scared bastards. Weak, very weak, they are. So they are against freedom of speech? I did not know you could not say or write something if there is no proof … BURN THE BIBLE then please as well as none of it has or can be proven ever.
They almost sound like getting into the commercial war of companies fighting over their potential new clients.
Barf ..
I did expect some complaints over this matter. But I had hoped the ASA not to take it to seriously considering the wording was a direct quote from Katharine Hepburn and a carefully orchestrated ‘PROBABLY’ inserted within the caption.
What happened to exercising the right of freedom of speech. To propose such an idea as to promote a single argument for Christianity only, is just ridiculous.
NOW STOP WORRYING AND ENJOY YOUR LIFE!
One would hope that a Christian group would just forgive them & leave it at that.
re: “Carling Black Label”, I think you mean Carlsberg, which is probably the best lager in the world.
Hey at least it got as far as it has. If they tried to do that here(SLC, UT, USA) rioters would surely burn the busses to the ground. Sometimes I wish I lived in the UK, just cause there are open minds enough that they were able to pull this off.
Wait, don’t Christian groups advertise with slogans like ‘God loves you’ or ‘Christ is the way’ over there? Because they do here in Holland. And those are far more unsubstantiated, if anything.
And if they’re going to be like that, I think somebody should write a report on the evidence for the existence of a God.
If they find (as they inevitably will) that the evidence is rather shaky, and mostly based on an ancient text, they can safely say that there’s a high probability that the theory of there being a God is unfounded.
See? ‘There probably is no God’. Claim substantiated.
Doesn’t mean you can’t BELIEVE there is one, just that there’s a high probability that you’re wrong. Of course, you may be right — it’s possible. Maybe the non-believers WILL go to hell when they die. I’m quite willing to take that chance, though.
Ahhhhh yes, Carlsberg, not Carling Black Label, see the advert was wasted on me! !!
Not truthful, my arse.
I’d love to be a fly on the wallin the meeting where they have to decide whether a claim about the probability of god’s existence. Really hope the results are published in full, otherwise might have to try a FOIA request so I can get me jollies…
As angry and frustrated i am by this, and the amount of control it is taking me not to go off on a tangent and rant about the whole thing. heh
i will say this..
re: a comment further up..
If you/we/all go and make complaints about pray trade advertising then we/you are simply as bad as they are.
quote:- “an eye for an eye would make the whole world blind”
it will take a long time to slowly chip away and the very strong hold religion has around the world, so at least the ball is rolling now!
I am really getting sick to death of all you internet athiests and your uppity uneducated regurgitated hyperbole.
half of you can not even spell or put a sentence together.
I come to Derren`s site to enjoy a great entertainer, not to be bombarded by militant atheists with an inferiority complex.
dont think im gonna come here anymore , its just post and post of the same garbage.
@ #20
I am going to be as civil as possible here…
If you have nothing constructive to say other than insults to our views then i would prefer you wouldnt say anything at all, this post is about the blaitent hypocracy shown by your “pray trade” (taken from 19, <3 ya) and not a shun on your belief system.
The simple fact you cant think of a retort to this apart from throwing insults just proves everything we are saying to be true
With thanks
Chris
Haha, I love this. The most amusing part of this is that those who proclaim a belief based on purely faith, devoid of practical reason, are now relying on the rationality and reason of law in order to defend their claim that the atiest bus slogan is wrong. Excellent.
jim: What, exactly, do you think you’ll accomplish by telling us you’ll never come back? I’m curious. Though, if you are indeed never coming back, I’m probably typing to thin air here. Oh well.
I haven’t seen militant atheits with an inferiority complex around here, though. Just a bunch of people who believe that there’s (probably) no God, and who think that advertising to inform others of this point of view is a good idea.
As I’ve said before, if you’re secure in your belief that there IS, in fact, a God, why not just say ‘how silly of them’ and leave it at that?
).
That’s what I’d do if people went around claiming that, say, there is no such thing as the Big Ben (just as an example of something I firmly believe is real
Argument from Derren Brown
If Derren Brown does real magic, then God exists.
It looked real on his TV show last night.
Therefore, God exists.
“If Derren Brown does real magic, then God exists.
It looked real on his TV show last night.
Therefore, God exists.”
are you high? hehe