Thursday 29 January 2009

I think the long, long silence on this blog will probably start to get broken in the coming weeks. On top of that, I am now blogging on Sola Panel for Matthias Media. My first blog is reflecting on the Atheism Bus Campaign and can be found here.

****

The British Humanist Association is running a bus campaign. I had heard about it a month or so back and was bemused. I thought the slogan they were running was a bit daft, but only a bit. But recently I saw a bus in Oxford with the advert upon it. You can see a photo of the real thing here: http://www.atheistbus.org.uk/launchphotos/DSC_0011.JPG


There’s something about seeing such a thing on a bus that helps focus the mind a bit. One sits there and actually thinks over the message and the values that produces such a sign. As a consequence of actually thinking about the humanist association’s advert for a more sustained period of time I no longer think it is a bit daft. I now think it is one of the strangest things I have seen for a long time.

To begin with, is just running the advert campaign in the first place. I think it would be hard for Aussies reading this blog to get how disinterested in God the British are. We are used, Down Under, to see ourselves as living in a very secular society. That’s true by any standard of measurement. But the average Australian doesn’t have the almost passive-aggressive indifference towards God that I sense over here. It is almost an active lack of interest, if it is possible to have an active absence. It is almost as though the British find the God question socially embarrassing, and so deal with it by ignoring the question until it shuffles shamefacedly out of the room..... (the rest is over at Sola Panel)

8 comments:

Ben said...

HE LIVES!!

Long may he live.

cynergy said...

Looking forward to more reflections...

John said...

You need to send out some more invitations. Or, you could say something incredibly naff so we Christians could point out your errors

John said...

Hey, Marcus, are you home?

Here you are, you scallywag, teasing us with an appearance, and then what? Nothing! All of us over here at SA Heretics are on tenterhooks waiting for the 'Badman" to say something inflammatory. Come on Marcus, we can take it: Kick [non-literally, that is - just in case it needed explaining!} a Creationist's teeth in and make our day!

Peter Orr said...

Hi Mark...nice to see your blog back up and running. I was wondering if I could email you a question about the Father's relationship to the Son (I thought you might be the man to answer that question!

Peter (peteremma gmail)

Peter Orr said...

Hi Mark (apologies if this is my second comment - the first one seems to have disappeared). Nice to see your blog back and running. I was wondering if I could fire a Father-Son question your way...

Peter (peteremma gmail)

John said...

Hurry up, Mark...I've already turned a deep shade of blue.

Victor Tavitian said...

I think I saw that advert over here as well Mark. I remember reading in John Pollock's - Billy Graham biography about the response of the English to their running of a crusade in Manchester. The church seemed to think that it was entirely unnecessary for such an event to take place. I think this expresses clearly the sentiment of Revelation 3:17 - Because you say, 'I'm rich; I have become wealthy, and need nothing,' and you don't know that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.

England seems to be a society dripping with such expressions of Godlessness (second only to Sydney).

God bless.