Atheist bus advert

I shared this the other day, and I was going to write something about it at the time, but you know how it is, busy, busy, busy, lazy, etc; anyway I've still been thinking about it and wondering what it is about this that particularly made me pause. I suspect that it's because although I'm a Christian, I absolutely sympathize with Ariane Sherine: I think that bus adverts that threaten eternal damnation are bad news, not Good News. I was initially all for starting a campaign to have bus adverts saying "There is a God: he wants you to stop worrying and enjoy your life (Luke 12:22, John 16:24) - actually I still think that this might be a good idea - but more importantly I think that we Christians need to think carefully about the way that we present Jesus to the world. Despite Richard Dawkins - whose work I used to quite like - saying idiotic things like "thinking is anathema to religion" (ah yes, Professor Dawkins, the complete lack of Christian and other religious writers and academics for the last 1000 years is convincing evidence for this statement), I'm sure that there is a good case for engaging people with the Good News that Jesus makes a positive difference, here and now in this life, rather than suggesting that he's waiting around until the end of time to get you back for every little thing you ever did wrong. The British Humanist Association wants people to ask questions, to think for themselves and to enjoy life. If the Church doesn't want the same things, we're all in trouble.

Hema

If I ever go to Holland, I am going to shop in Hema, purely on the strength of this advert. Wait for a while after the page loads.

Conversation trailer

I have been playing on the computer this evening, but I haven't been blogging because I've been doing this:

Colgate

A news story about something that has annoyed me for ages. Colgate have been advertising their toothpaste as "recommended by 8 out of 10 dentists" on a series of billboard posters. I often walk past one of these posters, and noticed that there was small print at the bottom of the picture saying "data on file". This really bugged me. What data? On file where? This sounds as though they're saying "This is all totally genuine, we're not just making it up", but "data on file" is not anything I can check to see if it's true. Anyway, there's a story on the BBC today that they have been forbidden from making this claim in future. It turns out that they conducted a phone survey, asking dentists what toothpaste they would recommend. Sure enough, 80% said they would recommend Colgate, BUT about the same number also recommended a rival toothpaste: they were not restricted to one choice of brand. In a fairly small market, it's pretty likely that if you ask someone to name several brands they would consider using, it wouldn't be surprising if they named one of the top brands in most cases. I think Colgate should be worried about the fact that even though they had plenty of opportunity, 20% of dentists wouldn't recommend Colgate at all!