London - Britain's first atheist advertising campaign has beaten its fundraising target in its first day, media reports said Wednesday. The campaign, which was launched by the Guardian newspaper and supported by the British Humanist Association and atheist campaigner Professor Richard Dawkins, had received pledges worth more than 28,000 pounds (46,000 dollars) by Tuesday, five times the 5,500-pound target, the Guardian and Daily Telegraph dailies reported.
The money is to be used to advertise on buses in response to a similar campaign by fundamentalist Christians in June that featured a website which said all non-Christians would burn in Hell for eternity, according to the British Humanist Association's website.
Writer Ariane Sherine suggested in a column in the Guardian in June that people pledge cash to run a counter-campaign to the Christian one, which she dubbed the Atheist Bus Campaign.
The campaign had "a fun and light-hearted message" that had a serious point, "that atheists want a secular country, ... a secular school and a secular government," Sherine said.
The ads, which will run in the London district of Westminster from January, will feature the message: "There's probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."
Dawkins, who offered to match the 5,500-pound target, said in a statement the campaign was aimed at making people think.
"Religion is accustomed to getting a free ride - automatic tax breaks, unearned are spect' and the right not to be 'offended,' the right to brainwash children," he said.
"Even on the buses, nobody thinks twice when they see a religious slogan plastered across the side.
"This campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think -and thinking is anathema to religion."
