LONDON — The advertisement on the bus was fairly mild, just a passage from the Bible and the address of a Christian Web site. But when Ariane Sherine, a comedy writer, looked on the Web site in June, she was startled to learn that she and her nonbelieving friends were headed straight to hell, to “spend all eternity in torment.”
That’s a bit extreme, she thought, as well as hard to prove. “If I wanted to run a bus ad saying ‘Beware — there is a giant lion from London Zoo on the loose!’ or ‘The “bits” in orange juice aren’t orange but plastic — don’t drink them or you’ll die!’ I think I might be asked to show my working and back up my claims,” Ms. Sherine wrote in a commentary on the Web site of The Guardian.
And then she thought, how about putting some atheist messages on the bus, as a corrective to the religious ones?
And so were planted the seeds of the Atheist Bus Campaign, an effort to disseminate a godless message to the greater public. When the organizers announced the effort in October, they said they hoped to raise a modest $8,000 or so.
But something seized people’s imagination. Supported by the scientist and author Richard Dawkins, the philosopher A. C. Grayling and the British Humanist Association, among others, the campaign raised nearly $150,000 in four days. Now it has more than $200,000, and on Tuesday it unveiled its advertisements on 800 buses across Britain.
“There’s probably no God,” the advertisements say. “Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”
Spotting one of the buses on display at a news conference in Kensington, passers-by were struck by the unusual message.
Not always positively. “I think it’s dreadful,” said Sandra Lafaire, 76, a tourist from Los Angeles, who said she believed in God and still enjoyed her life, thank you very much. “Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I don’t like it in my face.”
But Sarah Hall, 28, a visitor from Australia, said she was happy to see such a robust example of freedom of speech. “Whatever floats your boat,” she said.
Inspired by the London campaign, the American Humanist Association started running bus advertisements in Washington in November, with a more muted message. “Why believe in a god?” the ads read, over a picture of a man in a Santa suit. “Just be good for goodness’ sake.”
Although Australian atheists were refused permission to place advertisements on buses saying, “Atheism: Sleep in on Sunday mornings,” the British effort has been striking in the lack of outrage it has generated. The Methodist Church, for instance, said it welcomed the campaign as a way to get people to talk about God.
Although Queen Elizabeth is the head of the Church of England, Britain is a deeply secular country with a dwindling number of regular churchgoers, and with politicians who seem to go out of their way to play down their religious beliefs.
In 2003, when an interviewer asked Tony Blair, then the prime minister, about religion, his spokesman, Alastair Campbell, interjected, snapping, “We don’t do God.” After leaving office, Mr. Blair became a Roman Catholic.
More recently, Nick Clegg, a member of Parliament and the leader of the Liberal Democrats, announced that he was an atheist. (He later downgraded himself to agnostic.)
David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, alluded to a popular radio station when he joked that his religious belief was like “the reception for Magic FM in the Chilterns: it sort of comes and goes.”
Still, since Sept. 11, 2001, religion has played an ever more important role in public discussions, said Mr. Dawkins, the best-selling author of “The God Delusion,” with the government increasingly seeking religious viewpoints and Anglican bishops still having the automatic right to sit in the House of Lords.
“Across Britain, we are used to being bombarded by religious interests,” he said, “not just Christians, but other religions as well, who seem to think that they have got a God-given right to propagandize.”
Next week, the Atheist Bus Campaign plans to place 1,000 advertisements in the subway system, featuring enthusiastic quotations from Emily Dickinson, Albert Einstein, Douglas Adams and Katharine Hepburn.
An interesting element of the bus slogan is the word “probably,” which would seem to be more suited to an Agnostic Bus Campaign than to an atheist one. Mr. Dawkins, for one, argued that the word should not be there at all.
But the element of doubt was necessary to meet British advertising guidelines, said Tim Bleakley, managing director for sales and marketing at CBS Outdoor in London, which handles advertising for the bus system.
For religious people, advertisements saying there is no God “would have been misleading,” Mr. Bleakley said.
“So as not to fall foul of the code, you have to acknowledge that there is a gray area,” he said.
He said that potential ads were rejected all the time. “We wouldn’t, for example, run an ad for an action movie where the gun was pointing toward the commuter,” he said.
But Mr. Bleakley said he had no problem with the atheist bus ads. “We do have religious organizations that promote themselves,” he said. “If somebody doesn’t believe in religion, why wouldn’t we carry an ad that promotes the opposite view? To coin a phrase, it’s not for us to play God.”
Originally posted Thursday, January 8, 2009 (3 years ago)
Quoted from "Just Jesse"
Although Australian atheists were refused permission to place advertisements on buses saying, Atheism: Sleep in on Sunday mornings, the British effort has been striking in the lack of outrage it has generated. The Methodist Church, for instance, said it welcomed the campaign as a way to get people to talk about God.
You think that when we have billboards advertising "Want Longer Lasting Sex" it wouldn't be a problem. But this was the advertiser that refused.
I knew it, advertisers are ultra right wing religious extremeists, no matter how hip they appear to be on The Gruen Transfer.
Besides, Lindy Hop is a degenerate dance, so if there is a God, we're all going to hell anyway.
Originally posted Thursday, January 8, 2009 (3 years ago)
"Probably" no god? Like it's a question of statistics? :roll:
There's "probably" no pink unicorn running through my front yard.
There's "probably" no goblin haunting my car.
There's "probably" no merit in the claims of Master Cleanse.
Originally posted Thursday, January 8, 2009 (3 years ago)
Yes, but do you know how many times I've been told the opposite, Cesar? Or how many times I've been told that morality = religion? Or how many times I've had others' viewpoints "rubbed in my face?"
I've learned to agree to disagree.
I'm not on any mission to convert others to atheism. I believe that religion gives many people comfort, direction, and strength. Personally, the notion of there being no God brings me comfort, direction, and strength. It does not matter where those things come from.
It bothers me, though, when people follow blindly; when they do not question their faith or the things they've been told. So many people misinterpret to the point of creating violence in the name of a god who would never support such a thing. That works both ways... so many people make assumptions about other religions that create unnecessary violence. And so many people go through life not thinking for themselves, not raising their voice, not standing up for what they believe is right. Group think.
I like that there are groups out there who are willing to stir the pot a litlte. As the Methodist Church said, get people talking about God. Let people make whatever choices bring them peace, but let them do so from a point of knowledge and careful consideration.
Oh, and Claudia... you can bite me too. But only because I know you like it. (See, atheists can be generous too).
Originally posted Thursday, January 8, 2009 (3 years ago)
Quoted from "bryn" Yes, but do you know how many times I've been told the opposite, Cesar? Or how many times I've been told that morality = religion? Or how many times I've had others' viewpoints "rubbed in my face?"
See Bryn, there are God-believers and God-believers. There are atheists and atheists. Although it is a simple yes/no binary question (does God exists?), the way both sides of the issue is presented and defended varies greatly. As with anything else, the question needs to be answered objectively.
The truth of any matter stands on its own, regardless of how or by whom it is presented. The truth that gravity will make things fall exists, even if somebody "rubs it in my face." Truth is truth even if a notorious liar proclaims it. It is not the person or the delivery that makes something true or false. Person or delivery may spur emotions on you one way or the other, but that's about it.
Quote
I'm not on any mission to convert others to atheism. I believe that religion gives many people comfort, direction, and strength. Personally, the notion of there being no God brings me comfort, direction, and strength. It does not matter where those things come from.
You may not be on a mission, but notorious atheists of our times are. They rub stuff on our faces too.
And to a point, it does matter where your comfort, direction, and strenght come from. Comfort is happiness where you are, direction tells you where you're going, and strength gives you power. If one believes in slavery, owns slaves, and is prosperous because of it, he/she is comfortable, has direction and is full of strength.
So comfort, direction, and strength, in and of themselves are not inherently good. They come from and take you somewhere, and it's the somewheres that validate your comfort, direction, and strength.
Quote
It bothers me, though, when people follow blindly; when they do not question their faith or the things they've been told. So many people misinterpret to the point of creating violence in the name of a god who would never support such a thing. That works both ways... so many people make assumptions about other religions that create unnecessary violence. And so many people go through life not thinking for themselves, not raising their voice, not standing up for what they believe is right. Group think.
Oh it bothers me when people follow blindly too. It was because I didn't follow blindly and question the faith I grew up in and looked for answers that I am the believer I am today.
I stand up for what I believe. I hope you respect that ;)
Quote
I like that there are groups out there who are willing to stir the pot a litlte. As the Methodist Church said, get people talking about God. Let people make whatever choices bring them peace, but let them do so from a point of knowledge and careful consideration.
I personally don't mind terribly the atheists ads. Does it annoy me? Yes, probably not more than a "Keep Christ in Christmas" bumper sticker would annoy an atheist. They promote something I believe is wrong. It is only natural to oppose it.
Originally posted Thursday, January 8, 2009 (3 years ago)
Quoted from "bryn" I've learned to agree to disagree.
I just agree and claim I am god. It's such an inconceivable response the conversation on the subject ceases. It works when being harassed by Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses. Their reaction is usually quite amusing, sort of like entertainment at the expense of a telemarketer.
Originally posted Thursday, January 8, 2009 (3 years ago)
Quoted from "Beckto"
Quoted from "Phlurg"
Quoted from "Sloth"
You may not be on a mission, but notorious atheists of our times are. They rub stuff on our faces too.
Theists have been playing offense for thousands of years. Can't say I feel any sympathy.
Yeah, I can't really name any famous/notorious atheists at this moment. (Maybe in the UK Jonathan Miller is famous. But not here.)
The list of famous/infamous theists goes on and on and on and on...
Originally posted Thursday, January 8, 2009 (3 years ago)
Quoted from "mity"
Quoted from "Beckto"
Quoted from "Phlurg"
Quoted from "Sloth"
You may not be on a mission, but notorious atheists of our times are. They rub stuff on our faces too.
Theists have been playing offense for thousands of years. Can't say I feel any sympathy.
Yeah, I can't really name any famous/notorious atheists at this moment. (Maybe in the UK Jonathan Miller is famous. But not here.)
The list of famous/infamous theists goes on and on and on and on...
i think that says more about you.
Please list your atheists without a google search, then.
(Defensively, I could name a lot of DEAD atheists, but that's not what we're talking about.)
Originally posted Thursday, January 8, 2009 (3 years ago)
Michael Shermer, Christopher Hitchens, and Bertrand Russell (even though he's dead) also come to mind.
Beckto's point is sound though. You can name all the famous atheist "evangelists" on one hand, but I bet people can name 5 times as many famous people who talk nonstop about God. You can name maybe one or two books about atheism but a bajillion books about how awesome God is, from the Bible to the entire Left Behind series (and another ton of books dealing with nondescript spiritual mumbo jumbo like The Secret or The Celestine Prophecy). Atheists tend to be loud and their message so countercultural, mainly because people balk whenever you even hint about criticizing reliigon, that it sticks out. All the better to get the message out, I suppose.
And seriously, a few books by three or four people pales in comparison to the avalanche of religious warriors we atheists have to filter out day in, day out, both in the media and our personal lives. I still remember the first one I ever encountered. I was 9 and in summer camp, and the kid sitting next to me freaked out hysterically when he found out I didn't pray ever, and implored that I had to or I was going to die. He literally screamed it in my face and started ranting and raving in a high pitched voice about how I was going to die if I didn't pray. The counselor told him to stop screaming and to calm down, calmly laying a hand on the kid's shoulder. He was so startled he dropped his fork, then screamed again, demanding that the counselor trade forks with him because he had caused the initial drop. Good times.
Seriously, it boggles my mind how when atheists raise 150,000 dollars to put some ads on buses it's this crazy "in your face" inappropriate persecution of Christians, but the billions upon billions of dollars raised over centuries to do things like build ginormous cathedrals, publish all sorts of books, get people on TV (christians have their own damn TV channel, for crying out loud!), and pass things like prop 8 to deny people rights on religious grounds, that's all just the free exercise of religion by individuals, and there's nothing in your face about it. The persecution complex runs rampant. At the point that people would rather elect a gay muslim felon to the Presidency than an atheist, I don't think religious people should be complaining about atheism being rubbed in their faces.
Originally posted Thursday, January 8, 2009 (3 years ago)
Oh, you can totally add Isaac Asimov and Douglas Adams to the list. They were big atheist proponents in their day. I knew kids who weren't allowed to read Asimov because he was atheist, even though most of his books were about fictional robots and population forecasting with math.
Adams in particular had a great passage that I quoted in another thread, but it's so apropos. The main problem that these billboards are causing is that they're breaking the cardinal rule of religion: You must never criticize religious belief; on the contrary, you must respect, accept, and understand other's beliefs as their own and thus you can't say anything bad about it. All other beliefs - politics, what movies you like, how you dress and do your hair, what you think about black people, all these beliefs are fair game, but religion somehow holds a special respect and significance that makes it inappropriate to criticize. The exception, of course, is if your religious belief is a lack thereof, then that's fair game.
Quoted from "Douglas Adams" Religion doesn't seem to work like that; it has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. That's an idea we're so familiar with, whether we subscribe to it or not, that it's kind of odd to think what it actually means, because really what it means is 'Here is an idea or a notion that you're not allowed to say anything bad about; you're just not. Why not? - because you're not!' If somebody votes for a party that you don't agree with, you're free to argue about it as much as you like; everybody will have an argument but nobody feels aggrieved by it. If somebody thinks taxes should go up or down you are free to have an argument about it, but on the other hand if somebody says 'I mustn't move a light switch on a Saturday', you say, 'Fine, I respect that'. The odd thing is, even as I am saying that I am thinking 'Is there an Orthodox Jew here who is going to be offended by the fact that I just said that?' but I wouldn't have thought 'Maybe there's somebody from the left wing or somebody from the right wing or somebody who subscribes to this view or the other in economics' when I was making the other points. I just think 'Fine, we have different opinions'. But, the moment I say something that has something to do with somebody's (I'm going to stick my neck out here and say irrational) beliefs, then we all become terribly protective and terribly defensive and say 'No, we don't attack that; that's an irrational belief but no, we respect it'.
...
Why should it be that it's perfectly legitimate to support the Labour party or the Conservative party, Republicans or Democrats, this model of economics versus that, Macintosh instead of Windows, but to have an opinion about how the Universe began, about who created the Universe, no, that's holy? What does that mean? Why do we ring-fence that for any other reason other than that we've just got used to doing so? There's no other reason at all, it's just one of those things that crept into being and once that loop gets going it's very, very powerful. So, we are used to not challenging religious ideas but it's very interesting how much of a furore Richard creates when he does it! Everybody gets absolutely frantic about it because you're not allowed to say these things. Yet when you look at it rationally there is no reason why those ideas shouldn't be as open to debate as any other, except that we have agreed somehow between us that they shouldn't be.
This has become so ingrained in our culture that well-meaning people who don't believe in God still insist on respecting otherwise completely irrational beliefs held by others, and furthermore, they've been told by the culture that "atheism" is such an intolerant abusive "in your face" belief system that people who would otherwise be proud atheists shrink from the label, preferring to hedge their bets and call themselves "agnostics" or whatever. No one wants to be associated with intolerance, but personally I think if you're going to be intolerant of things like racism or sexism, you ought to be at least as intolerant of religion, a worldview which is just as irrational and disconnected from reality as anything else. In fact, I would argue that racist beliefs are MORE connected with reality - they're shaped by our experiences growing up and observing the world (however incorrectly), they're based on deeply-held tribal allegiances that manifest themselves in skin color or language or music or what kind of food you eat. At least I can sorta see how racists come about, but the belief that there's an all powerful magical sorcerer who can conjure up entire universes and create life on a whim and make a woman give birth as a virgin (and who is able to focus on each and every one of us and favor our side in wars and help us win football games to boot) seems to me to be completely OUT THERE.
Originally posted Thursday, January 8, 2009 (3 years ago)
I would have said Asimov, but he's DEAD.
Anyway, Mity, my point is, you snarly butt plug, that naming Osama Bin Laden all the way to Al Sharpton would qualify as theist leaders. That's a huge and very (in)famous list.
Dawkins is not near as famous. Bill Maher is, but his whole platform is not about being an atheist.
Originally posted Thursday, January 8, 2009 (3 years ago)
Quoted from "mity" (wow, a touchy subject for marcelo)
Not really, it's just something I'm really interested in. If a Christian said their Christian ideas with the same amount of enthusiasm they probably wouldn't be called "touchy."
Originally posted Thursday, January 8, 2009 (3 years ago)
Good topic, good posts.
As a Catholic, my experience is mostly with Christianity and not with Islam and other faiths.
In the past, religion (or lack thereof) was more openly discussed. Even in the Bible, the apostles were allowed to go and preach in the sinagogues and pagan temples. Some agreed with them, others didn't. Some followed them, others didn't. But nobody was like "whoa buddy, shut up, you need to respect our beliefs and talking about it is bad."
All of the apostles and many prominent Christians for the first 300 years AD were martyred and eaten by lions, not particularly for offending anybody, but for their refusal to worship the emperor and his pagan deities. That refusal was tied to treason, so it was a political issue, not so much a religious issue. Even in the more recent past (say 150 years ago or so) religious debates were much more common.
I think part of the problem of "intolerance of criticism" is that a lot of people don't really know how to defend their beliefs, so they shy away and hide under the protection of political correctness whenever they're challenged on them. And this goes for both theists and atheists.
In our culture of shallowness and sound-bites, it doesn't take much to influence a lot of people. Fashion fads are a good example of that. That's why, I think, messages that go against what you're trying to live/promote are so frowned upon. I think people are afraid that, no matter how dumb or silly, these messages will certainly get to a lot of people who, not being firm in their beliefs, may start to move away from them.
See, part of Christianity's message is to preach it. Christ's main thing was to call people to turn away from their earthly things, to repent, to learn the true way. While many Christians do a poor job at spreading the message (by rubbing stuff on people's faces, or by bad example, or whatever), they're probably doing it how they know how. It's counter productive a lot of the times, I agree. While many atheists are just indifferent to whether he/she is influencing people on atheism, a true Christian can't be. I think that explain how Christian bumper stickers don't cause the comotion that these atheist ads have caused.
Having said that, there were times and places when atheism was violently promoted, and it was even against the law to talk about God(take the Soviet union and North Korea for example).
I don't aim this at any particular person on this board, but in general, I think if theists were better theists in the sense of knowing why they're theists, and atheists were better atheists in the sense of knowing why they're atheists, dialogue would be much more productive and respectful.
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There’s probably no God. Stop worrying and enjoy life.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/world/europe/07london.html?_r=1
LONDON — The advertisement on the bus was fairly mild, just a passage from the Bible and the address of a Christian Web site. But when Ariane Sherine, a comedy writer, looked on the Web site in June, she was startled to learn that she and her nonbelieving friends were headed straight to hell, to “spend all eternity in torment.”
That’s a bit extreme, she thought, as well as hard to prove. “If I wanted to run a bus ad saying ‘Beware — there is a giant lion from London Zoo on the loose!’ or ‘The “bits” in orange juice aren’t orange but plastic — don’t drink them or you’ll die!’ I think I might be asked to show my working and back up my claims,” Ms. Sherine wrote in a commentary on the Web site of The Guardian.
And then she thought, how about putting some atheist messages on the bus, as a corrective to the religious ones?
And so were planted the seeds of the Atheist Bus Campaign, an effort to disseminate a godless message to the greater public. When the organizers announced the effort in October, they said they hoped to raise a modest $8,000 or so.
But something seized people’s imagination. Supported by the scientist and author Richard Dawkins, the philosopher A. C. Grayling and the British Humanist Association, among others, the campaign raised nearly $150,000 in four days. Now it has more than $200,000, and on Tuesday it unveiled its advertisements on 800 buses across Britain.
“There’s probably no God,” the advertisements say. “Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”
Spotting one of the buses on display at a news conference in Kensington, passers-by were struck by the unusual message.
Not always positively. “I think it’s dreadful,” said Sandra Lafaire, 76, a tourist from Los Angeles, who said she believed in God and still enjoyed her life, thank you very much. “Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I don’t like it in my face.”
But Sarah Hall, 28, a visitor from Australia, said she was happy to see such a robust example of freedom of speech. “Whatever floats your boat,” she said.
Inspired by the London campaign, the American Humanist Association started running bus advertisements in Washington in November, with a more muted message. “Why believe in a god?” the ads read, over a picture of a man in a Santa suit. “Just be good for goodness’ sake.”
Although Australian atheists were refused permission to place advertisements on buses saying, “Atheism: Sleep in on Sunday mornings,” the British effort has been striking in the lack of outrage it has generated. The Methodist Church, for instance, said it welcomed the campaign as a way to get people to talk about God.
Although Queen Elizabeth is the head of the Church of England, Britain is a deeply secular country with a dwindling number of regular churchgoers, and with politicians who seem to go out of their way to play down their religious beliefs.
In 2003, when an interviewer asked Tony Blair, then the prime minister, about religion, his spokesman, Alastair Campbell, interjected, snapping, “We don’t do God.” After leaving office, Mr. Blair became a Roman Catholic.
More recently, Nick Clegg, a member of Parliament and the leader of the Liberal Democrats, announced that he was an atheist. (He later downgraded himself to agnostic.)
David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, alluded to a popular radio station when he joked that his religious belief was like “the reception for Magic FM in the Chilterns: it sort of comes and goes.”
Still, since Sept. 11, 2001, religion has played an ever more important role in public discussions, said Mr. Dawkins, the best-selling author of “The God Delusion,” with the government increasingly seeking religious viewpoints and Anglican bishops still having the automatic right to sit in the House of Lords.
“Across Britain, we are used to being bombarded by religious interests,” he said, “not just Christians, but other religions as well, who seem to think that they have got a God-given right to propagandize.”
Next week, the Atheist Bus Campaign plans to place 1,000 advertisements in the subway system, featuring enthusiastic quotations from Emily Dickinson, Albert Einstein, Douglas Adams and Katharine Hepburn.
An interesting element of the bus slogan is the word “probably,” which would seem to be more suited to an Agnostic Bus Campaign than to an atheist one. Mr. Dawkins, for one, argued that the word should not be there at all.
But the element of doubt was necessary to meet British advertising guidelines, said Tim Bleakley, managing director for sales and marketing at CBS Outdoor in London, which handles advertising for the bus system.
For religious people, advertisements saying there is no God “would have been misleading,” Mr. Bleakley said.
“So as not to fall foul of the code, you have to acknowledge that there is a gray area,” he said.
He said that potential ads were rejected all the time. “We wouldn’t, for example, run an ad for an action movie where the gun was pointing toward the commuter,” he said.
But Mr. Bleakley said he had no problem with the atheist bus ads. “We do have religious organizations that promote themselves,” he said. “If somebody doesn’t believe in religion, why wouldn’t we carry an ad that promotes the opposite view? To coin a phrase, it’s not for us to play God.”
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God bless those pagans. Homer Simpson
"forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" - Jesus
Oooh, that's so wonderfully condescending of you, Solstice.
Bite me.
You think that when we have billboards advertising "Want Longer Lasting Sex" it wouldn't be a problem. But this was the advertiser that refused.
I knew it, advertisers are ultra right wing religious extremeists, no matter how hip they appear to be on The Gruen Transfer.
Besides, Lindy Hop is a degenerate dance, so if there is a God, we're all going to hell anyway.
She doesn't want atheism rubbed in her face? Welcome to our world, honey. Talk about missing the point.
Hooray for Dawkins.
GREAT article.
And yeah, Solstice, I agree with Wombat. Bite me too.
False dichotomy. The existance of God does not imply that one needs to worry and not enjoy life.
One could argue for the exact opposite, actually. For example, I lead a worry-free, extremely enjoyable, happy life, exactly because I believe in God.
I lead a worry-free, extremely enjoyable, happy life, exactly because I believe in Tequila.
I lead a worry-free, extremely enjoyable, happy life, exactly because I believe in Anal.
"Probably" no god? Like it's a question of statistics? :roll:
There's "probably" no pink unicorn running through my front yard. There's "probably" no goblin haunting my car. There's "probably" no merit in the claims of Master Cleanse.
:roll:
Yes, but do you know how many times I've been told the opposite, Cesar? Or how many times I've been told that morality = religion? Or how many times I've had others' viewpoints "rubbed in my face?"
I've learned to agree to disagree.
I'm not on any mission to convert others to atheism. I believe that religion gives many people comfort, direction, and strength. Personally, the notion of there being no God brings me comfort, direction, and strength. It does not matter where those things come from.
It bothers me, though, when people follow blindly; when they do not question their faith or the things they've been told. So many people misinterpret to the point of creating violence in the name of a god who would never support such a thing. That works both ways... so many people make assumptions about other religions that create unnecessary violence. And so many people go through life not thinking for themselves, not raising their voice, not standing up for what they believe is right. Group think.
I like that there are groups out there who are willing to stir the pot a litlte. As the Methodist Church said, get people talking about God. Let people make whatever choices bring them peace, but let them do so from a point of knowledge and careful consideration.
Oh, and Claudia... you can bite me too. But only because I know you like it. (See, atheists can be generous too).
See Bryn, there are God-believers and God-believers. There are atheists and atheists. Although it is a simple yes/no binary question (does God exists?), the way both sides of the issue is presented and defended varies greatly. As with anything else, the question needs to be answered objectively.
The truth of any matter stands on its own, regardless of how or by whom it is presented. The truth that gravity will make things fall exists, even if somebody "rubs it in my face." Truth is truth even if a notorious liar proclaims it. It is not the person or the delivery that makes something true or false. Person or delivery may spur emotions on you one way or the other, but that's about it.
You may not be on a mission, but notorious atheists of our times are. They rub stuff on our faces too.
And to a point, it does matter where your comfort, direction, and strenght come from. Comfort is happiness where you are, direction tells you where you're going, and strength gives you power. If one believes in slavery, owns slaves, and is prosperous because of it, he/she is comfortable, has direction and is full of strength.
So comfort, direction, and strength, in and of themselves are not inherently good. They come from and take you somewhere, and it's the somewheres that validate your comfort, direction, and strength.
Oh it bothers me when people follow blindly too. It was because I didn't follow blindly and question the faith I grew up in and looked for answers that I am the believer I am today.
I stand up for what I believe. I hope you respect that ;)
I personally don't mind terribly the atheists ads. Does it annoy me? Yes, probably not more than a "Keep Christ in Christmas" bumper sticker would annoy an atheist. They promote something I believe is wrong. It is only natural to oppose it.
We're in agreement, then, aside from certain personal beliefs that are not being discussed in this thread.
I just agree and claim I am god. It's such an inconceivable response the conversation on the subject ceases. It works when being harassed by Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses. Their reaction is usually quite amusing, sort of like entertainment at the expense of a telemarketer.
Yes, I'm a mean god.
Theists have been playing offense for thousands of years. Can't say I feel any sympathy.
Yeah, I can't really name any famous/notorious atheists at this moment. (Maybe in the UK Jonathan Miller is famous. But not here.)
The list of famous/infamous theists goes on and on and on and on...
i think that says more about you.
Please list your atheists without a google search, then.
(Defensively, I could name a lot of DEAD atheists, but that's not what we're talking about.)
I really need to get this for my car:
of the top of my head:
billl maher, richard dawkins, gorbachev.
Michael Shermer, Christopher Hitchens, and Bertrand Russell (even though he's dead) also come to mind.
Beckto's point is sound though. You can name all the famous atheist "evangelists" on one hand, but I bet people can name 5 times as many famous people who talk nonstop about God. You can name maybe one or two books about atheism but a bajillion books about how awesome God is, from the Bible to the entire Left Behind series (and another ton of books dealing with nondescript spiritual mumbo jumbo like The Secret or The Celestine Prophecy). Atheists tend to be loud and their message so countercultural, mainly because people balk whenever you even hint about criticizing reliigon, that it sticks out. All the better to get the message out, I suppose.
And seriously, a few books by three or four people pales in comparison to the avalanche of religious warriors we atheists have to filter out day in, day out, both in the media and our personal lives. I still remember the first one I ever encountered. I was 9 and in summer camp, and the kid sitting next to me freaked out hysterically when he found out I didn't pray ever, and implored that I had to or I was going to die. He literally screamed it in my face and started ranting and raving in a high pitched voice about how I was going to die if I didn't pray. The counselor told him to stop screaming and to calm down, calmly laying a hand on the kid's shoulder. He was so startled he dropped his fork, then screamed again, demanding that the counselor trade forks with him because he had caused the initial drop. Good times.
Seriously, it boggles my mind how when atheists raise 150,000 dollars to put some ads on buses it's this crazy "in your face" inappropriate persecution of Christians, but the billions upon billions of dollars raised over centuries to do things like build ginormous cathedrals, publish all sorts of books, get people on TV (christians have their own damn TV channel, for crying out loud!), and pass things like prop 8 to deny people rights on religious grounds, that's all just the free exercise of religion by individuals, and there's nothing in your face about it. The persecution complex runs rampant. At the point that people would rather elect a gay muslim felon to the Presidency than an atheist, I don't think religious people should be complaining about atheism being rubbed in their faces.
yeah, i guess i should add marcelo to my list then.
:D
Oh, you can totally add Isaac Asimov and Douglas Adams to the list. They were big atheist proponents in their day. I knew kids who weren't allowed to read Asimov because he was atheist, even though most of his books were about fictional robots and population forecasting with math.
Adams in particular had a great passage that I quoted in another thread, but it's so apropos. The main problem that these billboards are causing is that they're breaking the cardinal rule of religion: You must never criticize religious belief; on the contrary, you must respect, accept, and understand other's beliefs as their own and thus you can't say anything bad about it. All other beliefs - politics, what movies you like, how you dress and do your hair, what you think about black people, all these beliefs are fair game, but religion somehow holds a special respect and significance that makes it inappropriate to criticize. The exception, of course, is if your religious belief is a lack thereof, then that's fair game.
This has become so ingrained in our culture that well-meaning people who don't believe in God still insist on respecting otherwise completely irrational beliefs held by others, and furthermore, they've been told by the culture that "atheism" is such an intolerant abusive "in your face" belief system that people who would otherwise be proud atheists shrink from the label, preferring to hedge their bets and call themselves "agnostics" or whatever. No one wants to be associated with intolerance, but personally I think if you're going to be intolerant of things like racism or sexism, you ought to be at least as intolerant of religion, a worldview which is just as irrational and disconnected from reality as anything else. In fact, I would argue that racist beliefs are MORE connected with reality - they're shaped by our experiences growing up and observing the world (however incorrectly), they're based on deeply-held tribal allegiances that manifest themselves in skin color or language or music or what kind of food you eat. At least I can sorta see how racists come about, but the belief that there's an all powerful magical sorcerer who can conjure up entire universes and create life on a whim and make a woman give birth as a virgin (and who is able to focus on each and every one of us and favor our side in wars and help us win football games to boot) seems to me to be completely OUT THERE.
(wow, a touchy subject for marcelo)
I would have said Asimov, but he's DEAD.
Anyway, Mity, my point is, you snarly butt plug, that naming Osama Bin Laden all the way to Al Sharpton would qualify as theist leaders. That's a huge and very (in)famous list.
Dawkins is not near as famous. Bill Maher is, but his whole platform is not about being an atheist.
As an apathetic agnostic, I find these soapboxish debates amusing.
Not really, it's just something I'm really interested in. If a Christian said their Christian ideas with the same amount of enthusiasm they probably wouldn't be called "touchy."
Which is my whole point to begin with.
Good topic, good posts.
As a Catholic, my experience is mostly with Christianity and not with Islam and other faiths.
In the past, religion (or lack thereof) was more openly discussed. Even in the Bible, the apostles were allowed to go and preach in the sinagogues and pagan temples. Some agreed with them, others didn't. Some followed them, others didn't. But nobody was like "whoa buddy, shut up, you need to respect our beliefs and talking about it is bad."
All of the apostles and many prominent Christians for the first 300 years AD were martyred and eaten by lions, not particularly for offending anybody, but for their refusal to worship the emperor and his pagan deities. That refusal was tied to treason, so it was a political issue, not so much a religious issue. Even in the more recent past (say 150 years ago or so) religious debates were much more common.
I think part of the problem of "intolerance of criticism" is that a lot of people don't really know how to defend their beliefs, so they shy away and hide under the protection of political correctness whenever they're challenged on them. And this goes for both theists and atheists.
In our culture of shallowness and sound-bites, it doesn't take much to influence a lot of people. Fashion fads are a good example of that. That's why, I think, messages that go against what you're trying to live/promote are so frowned upon. I think people are afraid that, no matter how dumb or silly, these messages will certainly get to a lot of people who, not being firm in their beliefs, may start to move away from them.
See, part of Christianity's message is to preach it. Christ's main thing was to call people to turn away from their earthly things, to repent, to learn the true way. While many Christians do a poor job at spreading the message (by rubbing stuff on people's faces, or by bad example, or whatever), they're probably doing it how they know how. It's counter productive a lot of the times, I agree. While many atheists are just indifferent to whether he/she is influencing people on atheism, a true Christian can't be. I think that explain how Christian bumper stickers don't cause the comotion that these atheist ads have caused.
Having said that, there were times and places when atheism was violently promoted, and it was even against the law to talk about God(take the Soviet union and North Korea for example).
I don't aim this at any particular person on this board, but in general, I think if theists were better theists in the sense of knowing why they're theists, and atheists were better atheists in the sense of knowing why they're atheists, dialogue would be much more productive and respectful.
so you are comparing centuries of pogroms and crusades to 70 years of communism?
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