Atheist bus campaign

The Atheist Bus Campaign aimed to place "peaceful and upbeat" messages about atheism on transport media in Britain, in response to evangelical Christian advertising.

It was created by comedy writer Ariane Sherine and launched on October 21, 2008, with official support from the British Humanist Association and Richard Dawkins. The campaign's original goal was to raise £5,500 to run 30 buses across London for four weeks early in 2009 with the slogan: "There's probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, agreed to match all donations up to a maximum of £5,500, providing a total of £11,000 if the full amount were to be raised. The campaign reached that target by 10:06AM on 21 October and had raised £100,000 by the evening of 24 October. The campaign closed on 11 April 2009, having raised a total of £153,523.51.

The first buses started running on 6 January 2009 – 800 are running around the UK and it is also planned to place 1,000 adverts on the London Underground featuring quotations from famous atheists. Subsequently, two large LCD screens were placed on Oxford Street, central London.

Sherine first proposed the campaign in June 2008 in a guardian.co.uk Comment is Free blog post,Atheists – gimme five in the Guardian. She expressed her frustration that the Christian organisation JesusSaid.org was allowed to use bus advertising to promote the web address of a website that said that all non-Christians would burn in hell for all eternity. Sherine called on atheists to counter this kind of evangelical advertising by donating five pounds towards a positive philosophical advert. Her idea was taken up by political blogger Jon Worth, who went on to set up a PledgeBank page. The PledgeBank page closed on 31 July 2008, having received 877 of the 4,679 pledges necessary for the original target of £23,400. This event attracted some limited comment in the mainstream media early in August. Sherine then wrote a follow-up Comment is free article, Dawkin 'bout a Revolution, detailing events since the original piece. In response, the British Humanist Association offered to lend the campaign its official support and undertook to administer all donations. Sherine then asked Richard Dawkins for a quote for the campaign, at which point he offered to match the first £5,500 raised.

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Wikipedia