The Theist Bus 22/02/09
I previously blogged about the atheist bus in my post titled They’re Probably Right, but the Christians have fought back with an advertising campaign of their own. As I was walking down Gower Street at about 8:30 yesterday evening I spotted this advertisement on a number 73 bus. I tried my best to take a snapshot, but spur of the moment photography isn’t my strong point.
THERE DEFINITELY IS A GOD. SO JOIN THE CHRISTIAN PARTY AND ENJOY YOUR LIFE.
The atheist campaign received around 150 complaints, but was ruled unlikely to cause offense. Probably—as it was made clear that it would need to be present in the advertisement in order to not break guidelines—the word ‘probably’ saved their asses. Like I said before, I’m all for free speech, but at least the Atheist campaign had the good grace to not make far-fetched and improvable remarks by not telling the world that God definitely doesn’t exist, which makes it more like an agnostic atheist campaign. ;) If I’m not mistaken the Christian Party’s advertisements clearly break clause 3 of the ASA code – substantiation:
3.1 Before distributing or submitting a marketing communication for publication, marketers must hold documentary evidence to prove all claims, whether direct or implied, that are capable of objective substantiation.
…
3.2 If there is a significant division of informed opinion about any claims made in a marketing communication they should not be portrayed as generally agreed.
So I, like others, am going to invite you to complain to the ASA by reading the How To Complain guidelines and submitting the on-line complaints form which can be reached by following the previous link. As a matter of principle, I am going to go ahead and do this. I wouldn’t have worried about the comeback if it followed the same rules that the atheist campaign was forced to adhere to. Of course, they probably tried to hide behind clause 3.4:
3.4 Obvious untruths or exaggerations that are unlikely to mislead and incidental minor errors and unorthodox spellings are all allowed provided they do not affect the accuracy or perception of the marketing communication in any material way.
But that makes me think; wouldn’t that defeat the point of the advertisement, which clearly aims to promote an unprovable statement as an absolute truth, with an intention to (mis)lead people into joining their cause? Why would the Christian Party settle to admit that it’s an obvious untruth? If you would like to learn about what the Christian party—a minor UK political party started in 2004—stand for, Wikipedia has a nice list. I’ll leave you to form your own opinions on that. :|
LOL, I like it. Maybe it’ll turn into a Twitter-like Lily Allen argument.
TBH I don’t see why you think that this is breaking the ASA code if the other isn’t – even if you don’t, then I think more people in the world collectively believe in a God or gods (or there is a fairly even split), so all the theists in the world would take the atheist campaign as an “obvious untruth”, no?
If the atheist campaign is allowed to remain, then why shouldn’t this? If you don’t like it, don’t look.
The atheist bus campaign is trying to come to my city, but they banned it D: The decision might be reversed soon, though… I don’t see how anyone would find the Atheist message offensive or prejudicial; like you said, probably because of the probably :P
[...] was going to leave this as a comment on this post, but it got to be pretty long so I thought I’d blog about it [...]
It seems that religions can get away with anything. Meh.
[...] ASA sent me a letter explaining why they cannot persue complaints againt the Christian Party’s advertisement. So it turns out that clause 12 of the ASA code makes political parties exemt from the rules. [...]