{"id":238,"date":"2009-02-11T08:14:14","date_gmt":"2009-02-11T08:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2009\/02\/the-god-bus.html"},"modified":"2009-02-11T08:14:14","modified_gmt":"2009-02-11T08:14:14","slug":"the-god-bus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/02\/the-god-bus.html","title":{"rendered":"The God Bus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/01\/07\/world\/europe\/07london.html\">An atheist group has taken out ads on buses<\/a> in the UK with catchy slogans poking some good-natured fun at believers. While these have predictably generated some anger and tension, I am entranced by the free speech and market ingenuity of it all. As I keep saying, the best answer to speech you disagree with is not to shut that speech down, but to counter with your own speech. Which is why this <a href=\"http:\/\/ruletheweb.co.uk\/b3ta\/bus\/\">virtual bus slogan generator<\/a> is so brilliant; now anyone can craft a message for the masses!<\/p>\n<p>In the spirit of free speech and healthy debate, then, <a href=\"http:\/\/ruletheweb.co.uk\/b3ta\/bus\/?s1=YOU+CAN%27T+PROVE+A+NEGATIVE&amp;s2=atheism+is+a+religion+too%2C+&amp;s3=but+believers+get+more+perks\">here<\/a> is my bus slogan response.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/abde\/3272031494\/\" title=\"The God Bus by abde, on Flickr\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3393\/3272031494_6008a0d0a7.jpg\" alt=\"The God Bus\" width=\"480\" height=\"320\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>My Beliefnet colleague Steven Waldman <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/02\/write-your-own-pro-god-bus-ad.html\">is collecting more<\/a>. Also we are having <a href=\"http:\/\/talkislam.info\/2009\/02\/07\/now-you-can-generate-your-own-bus-slogan\/\">fun with this at Talk Islam<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An atheist group has taken out ads on buses in the UK with catchy slogans poking some good-natured fun at believers. While these have predictably generated some anger and tension, I am entranced by the free speech and market ingenuity of it all. As I keep saying, the best answer to speech you disagree with&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[223,48,26,224,184],"class_list":["post-238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-pillars-of-faith","tag-atheism","tag-humor","tag-politics","tag-pro-god-ad","tag-religion"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The God Bus - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The God Bus - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An atheist group has taken out ads on buses in the UK with catchy slogans poking some good-natured fun at believers. While these have predictably generated some anger and tension, I am entranced by the free speech and market ingenuity of it all. As I keep saying, the best answer to speech you disagree with&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/02\/the-god-bus.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-02-11T08:14:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3393\/3272031494_6008a0d0a7.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Aziz Poonawalla\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The God Bus - City of Brass","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The God Bus - City of Brass","og_description":"An atheist group has taken out ads on buses in the UK with catchy slogans poking some good-natured fun at believers. While these have predictably generated some anger and tension, I am entranced by the free speech and market ingenuity of it all. 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City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}