I find the whole thing ludicrous really.  A couple atheists led by a comedian decide to show some intolerance toward religion.  So they advertise on the bus:

All aboard the atheist bus campaign

It’s real, it’s happening: you can sponsor the first atheist advert on a bus – and Richard Dawkins will match your money

The atheist bus campaign launches today thanks to Comment is free readers. Because of your enthusiastic response to the idea of a reassuring God-free advert being used to counter religious advertising, the slogan “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life” could now become an ad campaign on London buses – and leading secularists have jumped on board to help us raise the money.

Hey, being a free speech minded guy, more power to ya.  If you want to waste you money trying to diss religion, I guess you have that right.

I do think it is disappointing that people cannot just live and let live, but oh well.

I gave up waiting for that to happen.

What is humorous in this case was watching the atheists girding for a fight over the signs…which largely never came.

In fact, some religious leaders are grateful:

As atheists roll out London ads, believers unruffled

It’s the first mass marketing of atheism in Britain – and many in the community of faith say that’s just fine.

On Jan. 6 some 800 British red “bendy” buses carried the sign: “There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

The Atheist Bus Campaign organizer, a young comedienne named Ariane Sherine, took exception last June to several London buses swathed with biblical quotes, placed by Christian fundamentalists.

Her idea to fund a few challenge ads took off; donors sent in $200,000 in two days. Ms. Sherine was joined by Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins, a leading British atheist and author of “The God Delusion.”

He predicted anger from believers. “They have to take offense, it is the only weapons they’ve got,” Mr. Dawkins said as the first bus rolled through the streets of London. “They’ve got no arguments.”

Snort.  Faith needs no defense.  That’s what atheists just do not get.  At any rate, what Dawkins got was thoughtful discussions.

But the response by most faith leaders isn’t quite what was expected.

Religious institutes, church pastors, and divinity school professors have not treated the ads with Old Testament wrath, but with a relatively open mind and even embrace of so important an issue.

If Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living, they say, the ads remind that an unexamined faith is not a real faith, and people need to think, and even pray, more deeply.

Boy they sure showed those religious people….

“The campaign will be a good thing if it gets people to engage with the deepest questions of life,” says the Rev. Jenny Ellis, Spirituality and Discipleship Officer of Britain’s Methodist church.

“Many people simply never think about God or religion as a serious question, and if this prods them a little bit, then that’s great,” says the Rev. Stephen Wang, of the Westminster diocese of the Roman Catholic church.

Not only do they not mind, they are actually happy about it…

Moreover, in a secular post-cold-war world, where godless communism is said to be replaced by godless consumerism, a declaration of atheism is hardly a renegade position, some theologians say.

“The bus ads simply echo the secular premises of society,” says Gabriel Fackre, professor emeritus of the Andover-Newton Theological School in Boston. “There’s no longer a protestant orthodoxy in Great Britain or America. The churches are in a counterculture position whether they realize it or not. That puts us much closer to 1st-century Christianity, and that is an opportunity for the church.”

And see it as an opportunity. 

And good for them for not taking the bait when the atheist when trolling for a fight.

Trackposted to Hot Air, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Political Byline, third world county, Woman Honor Thyself, Adam’s Blog, The World According to Carl, DragonLady’s World, The Pink Flamingo, and Democrat=Socialist, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.