Canadian atheists propose to publish advertisements with this message on the sides of Toronto buses: “There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”
Nobody will be surprised to learn that the pious are annoyed but, as elsewhere, they contemplate seeking government intervention to stop the advertisements.
The Toronto-based Freethought Association of Canada won approval yesterday from the Toronto Transit Commission to place ads on buses and inside subway cars that read: “There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”
Charles McVety, president of the Canada Family Action Coalition, which fought against the legalization of same-sex marriages, said his group has not decided whether it will formally complain about the ads once they appear.
“On the surface, I’m all for free speech. … However, though, these are attack ads,” Dr. McVety, president of Canada Christian College in Toronto, said in an interview yesterday.
“These ads are not saying what the atheists believe, they are attacking what other people believe,” he said. “And if you look at the dictionary definition for … bigot, that’s exactly what it is, to be intolerant of someone else’s belief system.”
But, of course, it’s a friendly message that skirts an attack upon anyone — unless an expression of any view that anybody can disagree with may be construed as an attack.
The important thing to notice here is how quickly there is talk of recourse to force. This is why free speech guarantees are so important, and a glimpse into the sort of world we’ll live in if the theocratic ambitions of the contemporary Republican party are fulfilled.
Notice, too, the gross hypocrisy of the complaint — or did I miss something? Is he agitating also for the removal of those billboards promising eternal hellfire to those who don’t cravenly grovel in church each Sunday morning?
Either everybody gets to speak his mind freely or, inevitably, nobody does.
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