One of the things I most admired about the US in my first visit there, in particular in Washington, was how people – everyone – expressed their opinions in the form of t-shirts, flags, tattoos and bumper stickers. And it doesn’t matter that the majority of the opinions expressed were mundane or lame or idiotic[1], the fact that people so willingly blurt out their opinion is a good thing™.

My favourite bumper sticker from that trip was this one, sold by a hairy bunch of anti-war protesters on the lawn outside the Smithsonian.

During a previous trip to Atlanta I also noticed quite a few humanist[1]/animist/atheist/fringe bumper stickers that suggests that while the vast majority of the US is solidly moderate they are tolerant of both very liberal and very conservative groups. To be honest, I’ve never encountered even a vague trace of political correctness in the good ol’ US of fuckin’A. These are all good things.

I’ve recently been reading several atheist blogs[4] and while I am rapidly tiring of them[5] there have been some funny stuff. One of these is a post of a bunch of atheist aphorisms via the Friendly Atheist – many are dull but some of are actually quite funny. But there is one in particular that I liked and thought that if it were slightly toned down it would make a good bumper sticker.

Naturally my first stop was MakeStickers.com and after trawling through their templates I got it to spit out a sample.

I’m not really sure whether the bible works, but that is the closest to relevant graphic that they have on offer. So I took it upon myself to unleash my Powerpoint skillz and produce my own. First I had to locate a suitable graphic based on proposals for atheist symbols from No Ghosts. These symbols produced prototypes [1], [2] and [3] but in the end I settled on my own.

The question is whether, if I were to be the owner of a car in the US, I would stick it on my bumper. I wouldn’t – but not because I would feel nervous about offending others[6] but I because just don’t feel that strongly about atheism – I’d rather say something about individuality and opinion – ‘Get a bumper sticker! Blurt out your opinion! We’ll all feel so much better.’