Seattle Atheists bus ads in Seattle Weekly

Thanks to Seattle Weekly and Neil Estep for a very nice story on the signs.

In contrast to the holiday hubbub caused by those signs in the state Capitol building last December (“Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds”)—which were put up by an out-of-town group and arguably backfired—Seattle Atheists is trying an approach that’s more nuanced and less confrontational.

The Olympia sign “was a shit storm for us,” says Paul Case, a representative of the group. “Someone drops a sign and takes off, and we ended up getting a lot of complaints, even though it wasn’t us. That sign wasn’t pro-critical thinking and it wasn’t pro-questioning the status quo. That’s not who we are.”

Case wants these new signs to have an opposite effect. “We’re not trying to draw any lines,” he says. “We want to have a positive impact on the community.” The ironic choice of April Fool’s day as the launch date is a throwback to a running joke about it being the “atheist’s holiday.”

Because the signs will be displayed on the interior rather than exterior, passengers will have more time to read and contemplate the messages.