Two TV Ads for a Ban on All Religion

There’s an Australian series called “The Gruen Transfer”. It’s kind of a comedy show with political context. I can’t really claim to have seen it, as it’s an Australian show and I only get to see snippets on YouTube. However, One of these snippets is what I’d like to share with you today: It’s a segment called “The Pitch”, in which they apparently ask different advertisement agencies to produce TV ads advertising completely unsellable ideas, such as “bring back child labour” or “Let’s Invade New Zealand”. In the end they vote for the best of the submitted ads.
In the following segment, the chosen theme is “Ban All Religion”. Two Agencies took up the challenge, and here is what they came up with. Enjoy!

 

 

Personally, I’d vote for the first ad because the second one is based on an argument that has been shown to fail repeatedly. That wars are waged and people are killed in the name of religion is nothing new, it has been pointed out millions of times. The only reaction it gets is “well, that’s just the extremists.” It’s the old and tired the-center-vs-the-fringe-debate, and it’s unlikely to be won by posing the same argument yet another time. The subversive argumentation of the first clip is way more likely to actually change minds, plus it’s not as negative as the second one.
“Religion is bad, let’s do away with it!” puts most people instantly on defense, even if they are not themselves religious. “Religion is outdated, we can do way better than that!” is a message much more likely to open people up to reconsider their views.

A Ban On Atheist Advertisement?

I’m all for it. In fact, ban all  public advertisement. I want the right to walk out the door and not being told by giant billboards everywhere what I have to buy, whom I have to vote for, and what I have to think.

It is one thing to be offering “product information” on the airwaves, where it is my free decision to access or ignore it. Nobody is forcing me to watch TV – and if I do, I’ll accept the commercials as a collateral, knowing stations have to finance their programme somehow.

It is a different matter altogether to shove your ads in my fucking face, every single day, on my way to work.

Your Own Personal Jesus… for only €95,00.

As we all know, Google collects data. They do that to characterize your individual interests, in order to more effectively display advertisement which suits those interests. If you’re familiar with my blog, you may have noticed that some of my main interests are alternative medicine, mythology and religion – unfortunately, the Google-ad-machinery does not distinguish between those who are interested in mythology in order to practice it, and those who are interested in it in order to debunk it. As a result of this insufficiently discriminatory process, people who are as ferociously anti-religious as me get to see ads like “Holy Land Pilgrimage – explore the origins of your faith”, “ChristianDating – Find true happiness with a partner who shares your faith” and so on.

Today, I one of these ads actually managed to catch my attention. Behold “FreeJee – the snuggle cross”:

The product statement from the company’s homepage (My translation from the German original) is pure comedy gold: