Calgary Bus Wars: This Time Its Theological

Now that the city of Calgary has given the go-ahead for local buses to carry posters from the "atheist bus campaign", Syed Soharwardy of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada has decided to run a counter-campaign:

"People with atheist beliefs are coming forward aggressively and with force to promote their ideas, and it's important for them to know people of faith are united."

Soharwardy is calling on believers from all religions to help craft an appropriate response to the atheist message, "There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

He's collecting ideas for a pro-God slogan at contact@islamicsupremecouncil.com, and plans to have the ads ready to run concurrently with the anti-God message.

Use this slogan generator to create pro-God poster of your own, and then send it to the Imam. Now, Mr. Soharwardy is a really sweet & holy guy, who recently finished a cross country multi-faith walk against violence, so if your poster is filthy enough, you might just be able to make him squeal.

I Am Not Alone

From the TO Star on Canadian attitudes towards evolution:

The Canadian Press-Decima Research survey suggests that 60 per cent of Canadians believe God had either a direct or indirect role in creating mankind, shattering the myth that Canadians had long ago put their faith strictly behind the scientific explanation for creation.

The poll suggests Canadians divide in essentially three groups on the issue of creation: 34 per cent of those polled said humans developed over millions of years under a process guided by God; 26 per cent said God created humans alone within the last 10,000 years or so; and 29 per cent said they believe evolution occurred with no help from God.

Interesting less for the information on the number of pure-bread nutters among us (26%), then for the fact that, if you interpret the 29% who believe "evolution occurred with no help from God" as being Atheists, then this is about twice the number usually given by Stats Canada (16.2%).

So in Canada we The Godless outnumber young Earth Creationists. I for one am comforted.

PS. I recommend reading the whole article for its detailed breakdowns. As has been generally noted in the past, B.C. is a relative hot-bed of atheism with 31% saying that God played no role in evolution. Somewhat more surprising, given earlier research on the topic (at least my understanding of it), are the Quebec numbers:

Regionally, Quebec respondents were by far the most likely to say God’s role in creation was a delusion, with 40 per cent saying the evolutionary process had no interference from an intelligent designer.

The actual survey is still not up on the Decima site. If I remember, I will post a link when it appears.

So You Think YOU'RE Oppressed?

Last week congressman Pete Stark, Democrat from San Francisco, broke maybe the last U.S. political taboo:

He became the first member of Congress to say publicly that he doesn't believe in "a supreme being." The next most powerful politician to identify himself as a "non-theist" in response to a question by the Secular Coalition for America was a school board president in Berkeley.

Some described Stark's admission as "coming out of the closet." Others rued the fact that God was not on his side. A spokesman for the Concerned Women for America unabashedly bashed him, saying that "a Christian worldview is proper for a politician to have."

Even though the non-religious make up about 16% of the Canadian population, I am unaware of any Canadian politician that has had the guts to make a similar announcement. I am sure they're out there; I once had a poli-sci teacher explain to me that we Godless tend to skew fairly heavily NDP, so everyone knows where to look.

Since we have a gay as the head of the PQ, and have already had a female PM, I guess I am a member of one of the last truly victimized groups in the country. I'll never realize my dream of falling asleep in the Senate when Harper makes it an elected body.

If anyone feels guilty and wants to buy me lunch, I'm up for it.