Atheists Are Taking Over Buildings Now

The building is in construction. And it’s not only in Spanish, but also in Catalan, the language spoken in Cataluña. It’s great to see those kind of ads in the country that spread catholicism in its South American colonies.

Now all I we need is to see atheist ads go up in Vatican City and I’ll be a happy man.

That’s just tremendous! What a great alternative to the bus ads!

I hope someday I’ll have the “moxie” to participate in such campaigns. A big thanks to all who are strong enough to do it today!

Atheist buses are now “classical”? That didn’t take long.

Just out of curiosity, why are atheists so concerned with humans who believe in a higher authority?

Honestly??

Atheists, please respond!! i’m not trying to slight atheism in any fashion, i’m just genuinely curious.

Hi Dan.

I could ask the question of you… why are you concerned enough about what we think to visit this website and ask that question?

How about, for the simple reason that we share a planet?

Listen to what the UAL listed as its goal for this advertisement:

The objective of this campaign with UAL… is not whether God exists or not, but to discuss whether the atheists have the same rights as believers and make visible the reality of these people.

Can you see why people would want that question raised in the public consciousness?

Also, I see lots and lots of stuff by religious believers trying to advertise to change my mind. Are atheists strange for doing the same thing?

Is it so important that we preach to believers? Although I know there is no god, what do I care if someone else believes there is? I know many christians who benefit from being part of the church. Hell, I enjoyed the church when I was catholic for the first 30 years of my life. There may not be a god, but religion works for some and if it makes them happy and helps them be a good person, great for them. Too many athiests are so eager to tell the world ‘I am right and you are wrong!’. Isn’t that one of the things that bothers you about many believers? It sure bugs me on both sides. Religion is a part of our lives in some form or another and it is not necessarily a bad part just because we disagree. I have three children who I have raised to question religion as well as what I teach them. We’ve even read the bible occasionally so they know there are some positive lessons in there and it’s not an ‘evil’ book. All I’m saying is just let be… respect others beliefs. When I found out my son had teased a jewish child about his beliefs, he found himself doing two weeks volunteer work with their synagogue. My girl’s soccer team says a prayer before each game. Is this a bad thing? She doesn’t think so, what’s so bad about holding hands while some kids pray? It doesn’t bother her.

Guess that’s enough preaching from me!

Just as a matter of curiosity about the sign and how those things work in Spain.

For years now many buildings that were having work done have put up the space for advertising. They used to just be covered by green cloth and someone thought it would be a good idea not to waste the space. The advertising rent goes to the owners of the apartments whose windows are blocked. It’s a generally decent idea and can compensate neighbors for the inconvenience and bother of having no light for months. They aren’t as opaque as they look and a small amount of light does filter through.

It’s not all smiles and sunshine though. Renters often suffer eternal “reforms” that don’t ever seem to end because the longer they last, the longer the advertising (and the money that goes to their landlords) stays up. That includes sometimes suffering high power spotlights at night. Hopefully this is not one of those cases.

Heh, I can just imagine the look on the Zaragoza Catholic Church authorities faces. They thought they had gotten rid of the pesky atheists on buses….as we say here toma castaña!

Diego, it’s not in Catalan. Didn’t you notice that this is Saragossa, not Catalonia? It’s in Aragonese dialect.

I don’t like the bit in Spanish (at the top), by the way. After “probablemente”, the subjunctive (“exista”) is about twice as common as the indicative (“existe”). It makes it feel like a literal translation from the English. Ah well, it’s not actually incorrect.

Hello Omz,
My response to Dan is sincerely warm, welcoming and certainly not a rant or attack at all. He asked a respectful question, and I answered respectfully from my own viewpoint, thanking him for his asking. Nothing in my remarks to him is intended to be critical of him, or to be unfriendly, inhospitable, hostile, sarcastic or ironic in any way, with no hidden barbs or double entendres. I cannot find where anyone could reasonably interpret my above comment to Dan in such a spirit.

Please read my words exactly as they are. Perhaps you were filling in your own meaning or implications between the lines, or conflating my comment with the comments of others. Regardless of the cause of the misunderstanding, I hope I have been able to clarify to you my stance and attitude.

I look forward to further respectful, constructive and honest dialogue with Dan, and with you as well, Omz. That is what I most enjoy doing here.

OMZ said:

The man asked a simple question and the least you could do is truly be friendly about it and answer instead of persecuting his curiosity…

Well, I guess we can always benefit from sometimes getting the perspective of an outsider. I wasn’t aware of any hostility on my side of the keyboard. But if you thought I came on strong, I apologize to anyone I might have chased off.

Now, how anyone could think that of the other people’s posts is hard for me to understand.

Speaking for myself, I’m somewhat weary of typing big long welcoming posts full of warm and fuzzys so that we don’t scare off the drop-in-then-disappear posters we’ve gotten here over a number of years now. And then often we also get first-post-last-post people accusing us of all sorts of immoralities, closed-mindedness… etc.

Anyway, I’m growing weary of all the typing it takes to back people off their preconceptions when arriving. Should we just go to a cut-and-paste boilerplate welcome?

@Omz

Wow…um lets calm down shall we?

Seriously, the only one here getting bent out of shape or hostile is you. The responses to Dan were not only civil, but by internet standards, extremely mild and welcoming. Yours is really the only rant I have seen. Either your perceptions are out of whack, or you are for some reason trying to make it look worse than it is. Think about it.

I’m loving seeing these signs in parts of Europe. I haven’t been keeping close track, but aren’t most of them in predominantly Catholic countries? Well, except for England…

For the record, I’m female and I totally caught that the building was under construction. 😉

And I have to agree, he asked. Aren’t answers… kind of what he was expecting? Sometimes people just want to know. Best of luck to all =)

You never hear about atheists strapping bombs to their bodies and running into the most populated place they can find to kill everyone including themselves, now do ya?

Perhaps Dan could speak for himself – Do you feel insulted Dan? Do you? [Smiley emoticon]

For myself I am very preoccupied by religion, probably more so than the religious, because belief in a higher power tends to bring with it an undemocratic mandate and a disregard for empirical facts. That concerns me.

My version would be of the poster: The idea of God doesn’t work but Condoms most definitely do [most of the time :-].

Great post…again the point being that atheists need to get their opinion out there. We are at least 16% of society – that is more of a majority than Jews, gays and many others who have major bargaining rights in congress.

As another example of why Atheists should care what other people believe, here in England shops are only allowed to open for 6 hours on a Sunday.

This is fine for people who wouldn’t go shopping on a Sunday anyway for religious reasons but is inconvenient for those who don’t observe a day of rest on Sunday. This includes religions whose sabbath is on another day as well as Atheists who simply don’t have one.

I don’t mind people having a religion, I just don’t want their religion to affect my life.

This is an example of the annoying similarities between christians and atheists. If this were a pro-christian add covering the entire side of a building….atheist everywhere would be up in arms claiming that someone’s beliefs were being pushed upon them. Just as christians would surely be upset about something like this.

Other similarities: *Both christians and atheists constantly quote the bible to prove or disprove their beliefs(or non-beliefs)
*Both christians and atheists get all pissed off when someone tries to push their beliefs(or non-beliefs) on them. Or teach something contradictory to their beliefs(or non-beliefs in their childrens school.
*both athiests and christians both are constanly trying to convert people and convince them that their beleifs( and non’beliefs) are the true path and you are wrong if you can’t see light.

When I see this, it is, to me the same thing as putting up a bilboard claiming “Jesus is Lord”….same effing thing…..christians and atheists; please leave us alone…..let us use our hearts and our minds to find balance and peace, and if we want..our own personal, scripture-less, logically deficient, relationship with God.

Hi Dan.

“Just out of curiosity, why are atheists so concerned with humans who believe in a higher authority?”

When many people see something in the world that is harmful, negative, or could be improved, they try to do something to change it, counter-act it, mobilise opposition, or counter claims it makes they disagree with. I guess the best word for all this is activism. Some people do this on environmental issues; some to help the handicapped, youth, or the elderly. Some want to spread an idea they care about. Often activism translates into political action; but sometimes it transcends politics.

Atheist activists are united by a concern for all the harm caused by religion, and a desire to reduce that harm: sexism to women, opposition to stem-cell research, gay-bashing, religious terrorism, disinformation about science – you name it. Sometimes this means resistance to violence, the threat of violence, or censorship used by religion. Sometimes this means trying to lower the bigotry and intolerance that most religions and many religionists display towards both rival religions, and the non-religious. Sometimes, as in this case, it means getting the word out to non-religious people that they are not alone.

Now that religion in many countries has lost the power to coerce and persecute non-believers, we are, for the first time, seeing non-religious people openly organising, openly supporting each other, and openly talking with like-minded people without the fear of being punished for doing so. So these are the things that motivate atheist information campaigns, like this one. And that’s the main point, I think, of the “bus” campaign; to let closet atheists know that others share their views, and can give them a social network if they are currently afraid of telling religious family and friends that they don’t share religious belief.

To Kane: of course your daughter isn’t bothered by team prayer, if it is enforced upon her and you don’t have the balls (spine?) to speak up against such indoctrination of children. Would you be as blase if your child were socially coerced into reciting a Muslim prayer? People like yourself are part of the problem – meekly being bullied to the point where you leap to the defence of the bully, rather than standing up for yourself. Pathetic, really. You are the type of person who is converting to Islam in urban European cities out of fear, rather than standing up for yourself. You criticise the strength that other atheists display rather than adopt it for yourself.

Maybe somebody has not understood the question, because this building is being restored. So, the Spanish atheists have taken the opportunity to put their cannvas with the agreement of tenants. When finish the work (about 2 months) the canvas will be removed.