About time too. There's nothing worse than atheist fundies and I speak as an atheist myself.

"And Mrs Justice Lang mentioned in the judgment that advertisements by the Trust, Stonewall, and the BHA could all have breached TfL's equality duties."

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013...&utm_hp_ref=uk

[ ] Cwococ is an atheist
[ ] Judge ruled BHA advert illegal
[ ] Thread title reflects content of article

Make an effort. You don't know what I don't know and I highlighted the relevant judge's remarks. He was judging on something different but that's what he said.

[ ] He
[x] Mrs Justice Lang
[ ] Cwococ read the article

You've got the quote. Stop bickering like a fool.

Right. So we agree that everything you have said is nonsense. That's progress.

As to the quoted section, I'm not sure what we're supposed to care about.

Mmmm, I'm not so sure.

Man, I'm so tired of people 'taking offence' and expecting me to care. And that goes as much for the silly ex-gay ad as the others. It's promoting an arguably harmful service so I don't shed a tear if it's banned, but surely people have better stuff to worry about than bus ads.

Personally I am offended to see ads for opposing sports teams I don't like. Or politicians I don't like.n

This comment is ridiculous, making statements that people might disagree with should not be considered sufficiently offensive.

Your meat probably has horse meat in it. Stop worrying and enjoy your life.

-Signed,

Meat Fundamentalists

The response

http://humanism.org.uk/2013/03/22/bh...-adverts-case/

Im pretty offended by these comments. Please ban him.

You're seriously comparing political leanings or sports loyalties to sexuality, with all the bigotry, ugliness, hatred and persecution that is attached to that? (Particularly in the context of religion, the group running the Ad are fundamentalist Christians)

It's not a question of people 'disagreeing' with the statement, if that's all you think it is perhaps you need to re-evaluate.

I have avoided RGT in general, but there is one point that has nagged at me a little. I wish to make this comment from a non-committal point of view. I am a theist but I think this comment is independent of that fact.

Doesn't this statement basically fail. If you said "There's Definitely No God etc. then you have a useful although probably untenable point. But "Probably"? Most of the things that I worry about probably will not happen, but my precautions are not irrational.

My house will probably not catch fire, but I have fire insurance.

I will probably not get in a car accident, but I have car insurance.

Again, not trying to debate theism but the ad campaign is underwhelming imo. Also, as an aside, not offensive at all. I think it should be protected under any concept of freedom of speech. I am not at all clear on its status in England of course.

Yeah it should have said "There is no interventionist God so get people back whilst you can in case there isn't one at all".

It turned out to be surprisingly difficult to quickly explain to Mrs Beer why I suddenly burst out laughing.

"So there's this guy called Cwoc who is always wrong and pretends to be an atheist..."

"Wait, what does this have to do with poker?"

And so on.

This confuses me because you agree that

which sounds like a good reason to worry about these ads to me.

What a ridiculously bad title for a thread

I think it is fairly well known that Dawkins was disappointed with the "probably" part of the bus ads, and that it wasn't his choice (I remember seeing some YouTube clip some time ago).

cwoc, what exactly is an 'atheist fundie'? Also, what problems do you have with each of these bus ads (all three of them)?

The ad campaign was not, IIRC, aimed at persuading dyed-in-the-wool theists to cast aside their crutches and, etc. It was aimed at MOR people or those who 'believe in believing'. Closeted atheists, basically.

Or maybe that just makes so much more sense than seriously trying to convert people via bus ads that it turns up in my memory that way.

I disagree with the aim of the anti-gay ads and am at least prepared to countenance an argument that they should be banned.

But I don't find them offensive and won't have much sympathy for an argument that they should be banned which has as its basis the fact that someone finds them offensive.

Bigoted adverts that are illegal should not be mentioned in the same sentence as those 'no god' adverts, at all. Has anyone ever called those stupid 'Jesus is alive' or 'Come worship the lord with us' adverts you see outside of churches 'offensive'? No. In the same way, an atheist group professing the perspective that 'there is no god' is not offensive, both statements are advertising that brand. What a dumb decision.

Also OP, how is this a good statement? You seem to be anti-atheist, seriously.

Not comparable. When the ad said "probably" it meant several magnitudes lower than car accidents or house fires.

Well I do find the ads offensive (the whole message that gay is bad and is a disease that can/should be cured is offensive), but I don't think they should be banned (I don't see why the government should ban things just because people find them offensive), so I think we're mostly in agreement? The part of your posts I didn't get was when you said "but surely people have better stuff to worry about than bus ads" since I think we should be speaking out against these ads given their potential harm to others, even if you aren't personally offended by them.

I mean that cigarettes are legal but harmful and yet it's illegal to advertise them, certainly in that way at least, and I'm fine with that. But not because anyone would find ads for cigarettes 'offensive', even though I'm sure many would claim to.

Similarly I don't care if people find the anti-gay ads offensive, even though I disagree with their aim and think 'cures' etc are silly at best and very dangerous at worst. If the advertisements should be banned, they should be banned because the product they advertise is potentially harmful, not because the ads themselves are 'offensive'.

I basically don't have much truck with whatever theoretical 'right to not be offended' people are implicitly invoking when they call for things to be banned because they find them offensive.

On the better stuff to worry about, I just mean in terms of being offended by things. I can't imagine being offended by an ad on a bus. I've no idea what that feels like.

So I should be allowed to create an advert on any subject I care to or are their limits to how offensive I can be? If so, what are they and how did you determine them? What threshold am I not allowed to exceed?

The 'gay' Ads exceeded the existing threshold for what's considered unacceptable and offensive.

Besides, I don't think the Ads were actually banned so much as that the bus company didn't want to run them on their buses, Boris Johnson upheld that and the the High court upheld that.