Back in March, Freethinkers of Finland launched a campaign to raise funds for a bus campaign with the message: 'There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life'. This was modelled after the famous UK campaign.
The campaign was intended to run in three major cities in Finland: Helsinki, Turku and Tampere. However, already in March the officials at Tampere were getting ready to reject the whole campaign. "Personally I believe that this type of advertising is offensive to Lutheran world view ", said the head of Tampere City Transport Office Pekka Pirhonen. (link is machine translated)
Well, sure enough, not only Tampere but also Turku, the former capital, have decided that the slogan "There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life" violates good manners and won't be allowed. (link is machine translated)
The amusing part is that the two cities did approve a watered down version of the ad, which says "Enjoy your life like it is your only one. Because it is", which somehow doesn't offend their fragile beliefs.
Ironically, the buses in all major Finnish cities are currently carrying an ad for a raspberry flavoured alcoholic beverage, with slogans making not-so-subtle puns about genitalia. (The word for raspberry sounds in Finnish almost the same as the word for female reproductive organs.) Apparently, low-brow sexual innuendo is OK, but heaven forbid if the children are exposed to differing philosophical viewpoints about the transcendent. Won't somebody please think of the children!
Finland is sometimes used as an example of "a nation of non-believers" in international media. As the opposition to this bus campaign demonstrates, it is still very far from it.
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Do you not think that it is possible that Finnish sentiments on public messages differ from those of your country? Specifically, it was said that the slogan was "impolite." I took this to mean that regardless of whether it was true or not, it was not the place of the city to condone someone stirring negative sentiments by creating a text-based shoutmatch.
ReplyDeleteWithout any sort of persuasive argument, a campaign like this can only be inflammatory as it annoys individuals who cannot respond back without taking likewise costly steps. By which, I mean that this campaign is akin to convincing the city to place a glib bumper-sticker on their motor fleets that will only incite those who disagree to likewise seek public outlet for a decision that should be a citizen's private right.
Simply put, if one is annoyed by a fundamentalist christian meddling in that person's affairs, then why is that person responding by indiscriminately meddling in the affairs of every christian?
Would it not be better if a dialog was generated between civilized individuals?
That's why the First Amendment in the U.S. constitution is a good idea. Maybe the E.U. should add something to the federal constitution?
ReplyDeleteOf course, the idea of separation of church and state is a good one, too.
But the campaign is silly.. Soon people will understand that they all ARE gods, in very absolute and literal way. In the future there are no atheist or religious people.
ReplyDeleteThe campaign is in NO way 'silly' but and impolite - well, who decides? The key message of this campaign is directed at atheists who have been subjected to religious advertising. It offers a specific worldview that you can reject or consider. That is not silly and if you find it impolite - tough. I'm sure if you had strong socialist or capitalist views which were criticised - you may find it impolite. Again, tough. In every country, this campaign has provoked debate. Just check out Facebook! Its fantastic.
ReplyDeleteIt's never used as an example of a nation of non-believers.That's probably sweden you're thinking of, Finland is 80% lutheran and church and state are still in eace others pockets
ReplyDelete"There's probably no God." In Finland propositions are impolite? When we start considering propositions improper then that's where human knowledge comes to an end and dogma becomes the rule.
ReplyDeleteI live in Turku. I'd say the 'impolite' claim is pretty silly. It's no more impolite than the 'Jesus saves' messages that are all over the place. The Helsinki parishes themselves had an ad campaign in Helsinki a few years ago (although it was so generic that one had a hard time connecting the ads to Christianity). That said, I think the wording of the campaign in Finnish is not very good. 'Stop worrying and enjoy life' seems pretty pointless, since the Lutheran Church has never had the sort of emphasis on guilt and 'state of grace' as the Catholich Church does, and nowadays the Finnish Lutheran priests practically never try to scare people with hell etc. 'God' is simply not connected with 'worrying'. Actually a plain statement 'There is probably no god.' alone might have been more interesting. It would have left people to ponder it on their own and it would have been quite interesting, if someone had claimed that to be 'impolite'.
ReplyDelete