You may remember that last December the Dallas-Forth Worth (Texas) Coalition of Reason put up messages on four Fort Worth buses proclaiming, truthfully, “Millions of American can be good without God.” And you may also remember that a group of peeved Christians hired another truck, emblazoned with a counter-message (“I still love you—God”), to follow the bus around for a month. Here is the pair:
Reader Sigmund, who posts hilarious parodies of faith and accommodationism at his Sneer Review website, had a Bright idea for the accommodationists: make your own chase truck! And he even designed one:
If you’re not a visitor to Sigmund’s website, stop by from time to time (he posts sporadically). Among his brilliant creations are Rock Stars of Accommodationism, The Not Very Nicean Creed, Bohemian Rosenau, and, of course, his masterpiece video, The Downfall Chris Mooney’s Unscientific America.
The accomobus is pure win!
1 month. I wonder how many poor people could have been fed for a month with that money?
It just gies to show that the religion’s primary purpose is to spread itself.
What we need is an atheist poster on the chase bus saying something like, “except that I don’t exist. — God”, which would force the church to hire another chase truck to negate that poster with a “I do too exist! — God” message.
Another atheist poster on that chase truck would lead to another Christian chase vehicle to rebut that one. And so on.
Soon, the entire transport system of the US will be nothing but atheist posters and Christian chase trucks.
Sounds like the David Attenborough Life of Mammals I saw last night with a train of baby shrews biting each other’s tails to keep up with their mother. My faux-naïve husband wanted to know how they knew they should do that. I said “because the ones that don’t, DIE” but I don’t think he was convinced. Now that I think about it, if any of them lets go, all the ones behind die, so I suppose the meme (?) is pretty strong.
It now occurs to me that a prior stage could have been if they followed the scent from their siblings’ bums, and then biting their tails proved more secure.
I no more begrudge them from spending the money on something like this than on the fact that they also spent money on toothpaste for themselves rather than vaccines for impoverished children.
What does get me is that these trucks are used for nothing but advertisement.
A bus serves a most useful porpoise. Plastering its sides with advertisements is an eyesore, but it’s going to be driving around anyways and it doesn’t really harm anything other than the public aesthetic to wallpaper it with spam.
These advertising vans carry no cargo. All they do is burn petroleum, spew waste into the air, clog traffic, and tear up the roads. Other vehicles do all those things, yes, but only as an inevitable byproduct of serving a useful purpose of delivering goods and / or people from one location to another. An advertising van does all of the harm of any other oversized vehicle without providing any benefit to society in return.
Think of how many loads of groceries this van could have delivered to shut-ins while still driving around town. Think of how many jobless people it could have delivered to interviews. Think of how much construction materials it could have transported to a Habitat for Humanity worksite.
That’s where the true waste lies.
Cheers,
b&
“What does get me is that these trucks are used for nothing but advertisement.”
This is what gets me, too. What a waste.
are you sure it’s not a blog?
He is sure!
*subscribes to Sigmund’s blo-… Ahem. Website.*
Some seriously funny stuff there. Thanks for showcasing it.
One day, someone will inform them that their god is supposedly against people putting words in his mouth…
“2.1 billion are good with god”
Does this mean that Muslims/Jews/other religions are good without god or not good with god?
Where are the Muslim chase trucks?! The Jew chase trucks?!
Iz funny 🙂
The thing that strikes me about the real chaser bus is that these Good Christians just make stuff up and have no qualms about representing it as The Truth. They might even be shocked to hear one suggest that it’s dishonest to put words in the mouth of someone they haven’t had any waiver, disclaimer or written approval from.
Love it.
Their god sounds like a stalker.
A COSMIC stalker!
“FORT WORTH, Texas – An anonymous group . . . a group of pastors and businessmen who don’t wish to be identified . . . .”
Why don’t they wish to be identified? Surely not because they would deny the sentiments expressed on the “chase vehicle.” Is it because they would be embarrassed to be publicly associated with such a fatuous enterprise? Or, do they fear that the IRS would not consider it to be primarily and sufficiently an evangelizing activity? Or, do they wish to somehow bury the expense as a tax-deductible item in the income tax return of one of the businessmen, and he reimburse his co-conspirators?
We gnu atheists mean business1 Why, we demand non-scriptural evidence for God, Heaven, Hell, contra-causal -causeless- free will and the future state! We deny theists the right to pull the fast punch!WEIT and Pharyngula dismiss directed evolution, agreeing thereby in spirit with Lamberth’s the teleonomic argument that teleonomy rules, eviscerating divine teleology and thereby directed evolution, that obfuscatory scam.
Religion is the emotional, intellectual and at times, the scam of the ages,along with its twin, the paranormal, which Dr.Paul Kurtz calls ” The Transcendental Temptation,’ a must read book.
Sorry for the punctuation typos!