Bus Stop Bible Claptrap
Friday, April 11, 2008
The weather this morning was crappy - cold, wet and windy. I took the streetcar in to work and everyone onboard was in a foul mood, including the driver. The car was packed and there was barely enough room for people to get on at each stop. The driver kept asking everyone to keep moving to the back, but he wasn't getting much response because I guess the car was just too full and people couldn't move along.Anywho, all this to say that there I was, standing there like a sardine in a tin, and all I had to look at was this stupid, sucky ad by some bible-thumping organization calling themselves Bus Stop Bible Studies. The ad featured a baby with sappy words going on about how 'you' nurtured 'me' and grew 'me', blah blah, apparently quoted from that font of all contradictions, the Bible. In a sick way, my gaze kept returning to the ad, it was so bad.
I shouldn't buy into this claptrap by supplying the URL, but it's just so cheesy that I had to: http://www.busstopbiblestudies.com/
Of particular interest, if you're strong enough to enter the site, are the PhotoThoughts ads these people use for places which don't allow religious advertising. The pictures and wording are incredibly inane and I can't for the life of me imagine how these ads could be construed as being non-religious; I'll have to do some research into the advertising standards with respect to this.
So, in an attempt to redress the balance, I think it's time for me to re-read Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion when travelling on the TTC.
Labels: bible, marketing, richard dawkins, the god delusion, ttc
5 Comments:
You can find out about religious advertising at http://www.busstopbiblestudies.com/new/about/advertising.php
I wouldn't give Mr. Dawkins to much credence. He is after all in a very small minority (see latest StatsCan results).
Thanks for the link, David. I checked the StatsCan site and the only info I could find was from the decennial census (1991 - 2001), in which respondents chose 'No religion' as an option when asked for their denomination. According to the stats, the percentage of people choosing this option is up 43.9% from 1991, which puts them in second place overall, beneath Roman Catholicism.
Garry: You are correct concerning the percentage increase in those indicating 'No religion', unfortunately they don't break that down between atheists, agnostics, no organized religion, etc., and the largest segment in this group are those <24 years old and recent immigrants (see page 24). http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/products/analytic/companion/rel/pdf/96F0030XIE2001015.pdf
The following is from a Decima Research poll conducted in 2003 (this poll has been conducted every two years for the past 50-years or so):
"According to a recent study conducted by Ipsos-Reid on behalf of Reader’s Digest of Canada on the religious and spiritual beliefs of Canadians, Canada is fundamentally a nation that believes in God. In fact, eight in ten (78%) Canadians say they believe in God. Two-thirds (64%) definitely believe in God, while a further 14% say they sometimes believe in God, but at other times don’t. Just one in ten (10%) Canadians indicate they do not believe in God, while 12% say they are unsure or don’t know believe in God."
In addition the report indicates that while church attendance (weekly or very regular) has dropped from the low 70%'s to the mid 20%'s since the 1950's, those who believe in God has only dropped 2%.
Living in Toronto we also tend to get a distorted demographic view, e.g. Muslims comprise 2% of the population nationally but (I think) 16% in Toronto.
Like the Bible, statistics must be read carefully and in context ;>)
David
I stand corrected in terms of research. Let's just say I believe in data!
;-)
And just as an interesting follow up: another more recent survey conducted in 2007 by The Canadian Press and Decima Research, which addressed the question of God's essential role in creation, suggests that while "60 per cent of Canadians believe God had either a direct or indirect role in creating mankind...29 per cent said they believe evolution occurred with no help from God."
Source (excerpt): Globe and Mail
Full article: RichardDawkins.net
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