We should have a chat about it some time, maybe I could interview you for this ‘ere blog

Sounds to me like a fine plan

Spector – indeed. If you read my post again, I’m not even remotely defending the God-bothering stuff on buses. Both are utterly pointless. The trigger for this, I guess, is that I expect over-zealous churches to put up stupid signs on buses and billboards, and have got good at shutting them out. My sadness is that the intelligent response was deemed to be ‘fight fire with fire’ or ‘fight dumb-ass posters with more dumb-ass posters’. That seems tragic to me.

Your last sentence sums up the utter futility of it. If someone truly believes their religion (or their conviction that religion is BS), then they aren’t about to be changed by a poster. And if they aren’t, I’m sure 15 word slogans pointing them in either direction aren’t about to do justice to the depth and magnitude of the topic, and just present them with the idea that the alternatives are ‘believe in our version of God or go to hell’ or ‘anyone with any kind of theistic faith is clearly as nuts as the people who put up the ‘jesus says’ posters, therefor they should all be patronised with our expensive stoopid poster.’

Both are wasteful, divisive and ultimately anti-dialogue, as far as I can see. I’d rather see neither, TBH.

BILLIONS spent on religious ones that should have gone to helping people in order to promote there own religion and gain more followers or is it customers…..

If you truely believe in your religion, than what does it matter what a bus says.

Ooh, what a lovely thing to hear!

Well I do have a few things slowly developing for the return of SB in the fullness of time. So unless I accidentally die first, there will be something at some point. Just not sure how soon. But you will certainly be one of the first to know when things start happening again

In fact whenever you post about music on the web I’m usually pondering “now would that work for me, and if so how?”

So yes I think the signs are great.

not equating atheism with giving a shit at all, in the grand scheme of things, just that for some people, ‘non faith’ is a default because ‘theistic faith’ does seem like it’s even worth considering. In that case, not giving a shit is just the non-response to a non-considerable alternative.

I don’t think it’s the usual position for atheism, and is highly unlikely to be the position for those who are willing to spend money on bus-signs. They clearly give a shit, lots of shit

BTW, I’m so glad you take the time to comment here – what are you up to musically these days? I get asked about you more than almost any other solo bassist!

Hmm… did you really mean to equate atheism with “Not giving a shit”? In what sense? Seems a bit dodgy to me.

Maybe I should blog about more spiritual stuff, just so they don’t need to waste the money and clutter up buses next time

And why not

B.t.w., only tangentially relevant, but I was pointed at a fascinating article the other day: Jesus & Alinsky. Gives a perspective on Jesus’ teachings that I’d never heard anyone explain before!

I liked that bit too – all the prayer ‘n’ politics stuff makes me uneasy – seems like a fairly divisive thing to do, but the old Yoda-dude at the end said some fantastic stuff in his prayer. Top quality.

Obama def. seems like someone who is willing to acknowledge the validity of a multiplicity of religious and philosophical view points. Getting away from the idea of a ‘christian’ country seems like a fairly major step forward for dialogue-over-polemic.

And I loved Obama’s shout out to “Unbelievers” in his inaugural address. Nice to be recognized in the midst of the religion drenched pageant that is the presidential inauguration.

(via a tweet)