Wellington, Dec 11 NZPA - A campaign for displaying atheist messages on buses is unlikely to win converts, says a spokeswoman for the Catholic Church.
The New Zealand Atheist Bus Campaign was launched yesterday with the aim of raising $10,000 in public donations to fund bus ads.
The ads, which read "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life", created a storm when they ran on the London Underground and British buses earlier this year. Similar ads have run in the United States, Canada, Italy, Spain, Australia, Finland and Germany.
Catholic church spokeswoman Lyndsay Freer said the ads would be a source of "amazement" to Christian, Jewish and Islamic people.
"It's actually saying that all of these three great traditions of billions of people worldwide are all mistaken."
However, she was not worried about the ads.
"I think the majority of people of faith ... would regard it as an outrageous statement, but it's not going to make any difference and really I would just consider it to be a waste of money," she told NZPA.
Mrs Freer did not think anyone would be converted to atheism and a lot of people would just shrug their shoulders.
It was likely some religious people would protest the campaign, but the Catholic church would not be taking any action to her knowledge, she said.
Mrs Freer said the atheist campaigners were perfectly free to takes ads on buses. "But none of us ... are going to feel fazed by it because it's not going to change anything.
"It's not going to change the fact that the majority of people in the world actually believe in and understand about God and their relationship with God."
Campaign spokesman Simon Fisher said this morning the ads would provoke discussion on religion and take away the stigma of atheism.
Bus operators here had provisionally approved the ads but still had final right of refusal before running them, he said.
Yesterday's launch prompted mixed reactions with donations and abusive emails rolling in, he said.
However, messages threatening that Mr Fisher would "go to hell" did not really bother the committed atheist.
He expected the campaign to be "a bit" controversial.
"It's completely understandable," he told Radio New Zealand.
"Religion is a very powerful influence. We are brought up from children to believe in certain things. Indoctrination is a strong thing."
Mr Fisher said he thought it was as much a statement of faith to say that there was definitely no God, as it was to say there was a God.
"The chances of there being a God - it's not really worth putting any weight on it in day-to-day life."
In the 2006 census, 34.7 per cent of New Zealanders said they had no religion.
