There will be no more going to Hel on bus 666.
The town bus in Hel, Poland, a long-time popular attraction with tourists, will no longer run to that city as bus 666. The local bus operator, PKS Gdynia, received protests by some Christian conservatives who believe the number signifying the devil on a bus leading to a place that sounds like the English-language word “hell” can be spiritually damaging to its riders.
PKS Gdynia announced that it had flipped the last number of the bus and would now run under the number 669, beginning June 24, the Associated Press reported.
Local media said the bus company “acted under the pressure of Christian groups who had pushed for the change, but were already thinking of returning to the old number amid a public outcry over the change.
The AP reported that Fronda, a Catholic publication, has called for years for the number of the bus to be changed. It argued that it had satanic overtones and that “to present the reality of eternal damnation as amusing in any way is ‘just plain stupidity’.”
The Catholic publication lamented that Polish journalists, even Catholic ones, took pleasure in the joke. {eoa}
Shawn A. Akers is the online editor at Charisma Media.
