I see very little that's positive about this campaign. It smacks of the same snide condescension with which the missionary religious accost the secular. I see signs and graffiti of that ilk every day on my way to work: "returning to God isn't shameful" and other variations thereon. At heart, both groups are saying the same thing - that they know something about the universe which the rest of us would see as self-evidently true if only we weren't being silly and blind.

The thing is, though, that at least some varieties of religious missionaries have the excuse of believing that people who don't buy what they're selling are going to hell. Why should it bother atheists that other people have faith, so long as they don't seek to impose that faith or its tenets on others? I don't see that the world would be that much better if religion were to go away. Intolerance, racism, misogyny, greed, violence - none of these are rooted in religion, and though they are often intensified through it I feel confident (and think the events of the last century bear that confidence out) that in its absence other intensifying factors would emerge.

Finally, it seems incredibly silly to me to suggest that just because a person ceases to believe in God they have nothing to worry about anymore, what with war, global warming, the erosion of democracy, and financial collapse. Addressing any one of these would probably be a better use of £73,000.