tree_and_leaf | Amusing, in a headdesky way, or headdesky in an amusing way?

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Amusing, in a headdesky way, or headdesky in an amusing way?

Dawkins and Sherine back bus ads reading "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

.... yeah. Atheist says: stop thinking and take my word for it!

(Actually, that's a little unfair, because the ads are intended as a response to a series of evangelical ones threatening non-Christians with hell-fire. All the same, the fear of hell is not exactly integral to the faith of most of the religious people I know†, and I cannot say that a sudden loss of my faith would improve my enjoyment of life; quite the reverse.)

On a side note, buried in the article is the information that Dawkins supports a Tory humanist group. I didn't know he was a Tory, but for some reason I'm not entirely surprised. (ETA: see comment from

lizw below; this appears to be a misunderstanding.

† The only sense I can make of Hell is total alienation from God, and therefore all that is good, of becoming lost in myself and in hatred, which does indeed scare me quite a lot, but I suspect that's not the sort of thing Dawkins et al think I'm scared of.

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I think I need to observe that the advert doesn't attempt to encourage one to lose one's faith. It just says stop worrying.

I think, in the context of the advert, that it's just as valid to believe and not to worry about the possibility in believing in something that doesn't exist, as to not believe and not worry about failing to believe in something that does exist.

I think it's the implication that believers are necessarily worriers that might be considered insulting...

I don't think it's targeted at believers, rather, like the evangelical Christian adverts it is targeted at the not-quite believers, the waverers, the ones who worry that they don't believe.

If the believers feel insulted by that then they ought to think about how the evangelical adverts are viewed by non-believers.

This points to the other problem - that the campaign falls into the trap of the evangelical posters, that you can only either be for or against simplistic points of view.

the campaign falls into the trap of the evangelical posters

I don't think it does. I see it as pricking the balloon that is the evangelical Christian adverts: pointing out how stupid they are. It is saying that one doesn't have to take any notice of the evangelical adverts; this it OK to continue doubting the existence of God (if that is what one wants to do).

I don't feel insulted, though I think I might do if I were 'wavering', in the sense of having serious questions about God, etc. I know a few people who have moved from agnosticism to Christianity, and in no case were they motivated by the fear of spending an eternity in torment.

they ought to think about how the evangelical adverts are viewed by non-believers.

Yes. I do. Every time I see one of them I cringe, because they're offensive, theologically dubious and, pragmatically speaking, stupid. Unfortunately I can't do anything about them, because 'believers', let alone 'Christians' aren't a homogenous block, any more than 'agnostics' or 'atheists' are.

Every time I see one of them I cringe

I know and you are not alone, there are many other people who feel similarly. The sorts of people who create such material aren't Christian, except in name.

I've found this link here (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/20/transport.religion) which gives precise details of the campaign which sparked the counter-campaign, if that makes sense.

I have to say, I share the fury of the original writer about the first set of ads, but I can't see the logical connection between the fury and the response; surely she must have realised that many people who were offended were offended by the fact of advertising about closely held and personal matters of belief, as though they were comparative forms of soap powder, not the content of the advertisements?

FWIW I detest the notion of the Dawkins bus ads for more-or-less the same reasons as you state - offensive, so reductive of complex attitudes and beliefs as to be virtually meaningless and, essentially, stupid.

Now I look at the article, I vaguely remember it, and I remember thinking that I would have been infuriated for by the ads, but, as you say, for a variety of reasons, none of which result from atheism.

surely she must have realised that many people who were offended were offended by the fact of advertising about closely held and personal matters of belief, as though they were comparative forms of soap powder, not the content of the advertisements?

Yes - there's something vaguely indecent about it, quite apart from the fact that it tends to result in a meaningless slogan (if you can dignify it with the name).

Hear hear. I speak as someone who was brought up in a state of ignorance about religion such that her first introduction to Christianity was probably the glow-in-the-dark plastic baby Jesuses circulating in the playground of the American School of Milan when I was in first grade, and spent the rest of her childhood surrounded by a Catholic majority in a sort of permanent identity crisis, torn between a sensation of exclusion and potential future damnation and vague attraction to the spirituality of Christianity tempered by distrust of the misogynist institutional thou-shalt-nots on the one side, and on the other the knowledge that I was half-Jewish but on the wrong side to actually be Jewish, and with my unbelief forming part of my identity.

I still think Dawkins is a prick, but the ad does address a state of mind that is very familiar to me standing as I do in a cultural crossroads. Periodically I worry that I am neglecting the spiritual dimension only to find that Judaeo-Christianity requires adherence to patriarchal beliefs and/or practices I find repugnant, Buddhism requires vegetarianism, and the Hindu priests in Edgware consider females contaminants and cross the road to avoid them. I've narrowed it down to Quakers or Unitarian Universalists, but that would mean commuting on Sundays as well as Mondays-Fridays.

I still think Dawkins is a prick

A disservice to pricks, but I agree with you and I speak as a non-Christian. ;-)

I prefer the term Constipated Arsehole. Everybody needs an arsehole, but a constipated one (a) isn't working, and (b) the person in question is full of...!

a state of mind that is very familiar to me standing as I do in a cultural crossroads.

Which complicates matters, of course. Personally, I have problems with aspects of the Christian tradition, mostly to do with misogyny, but I think it's easier to argue with a tradition you were born into but want to remain part of than with one you knew first from the outside.

I think the only thing one can do, though, is try to follow truth as far as you can see it. I don't think any God who rejected someone for that, even if what they perceived as truth was objectively wrong, would be worth giving the time of day to, let alone worshiping.

Although being called a worrier is a lot less insulting than some of the comments directed at atheists that are very commonly heard without objection*. Which it appears the point of the campaign. Speaking as an atheist who has in the past been called damned, evil, and a whore (and that's just in person, let alone in print - one memorable incidence of the latter by someone who actually thought I should be flattered that to be told if I weren't an atheist slut he's ask me out), my heart doesn't bleed for anybody who is momentarily discombobulated.

[ETA: And that's why they're reductive. They're not meant to persuade. They're meant to make people double-take and think "why is that advert weird". If they were complex, they wouldn't be much of a parody.]

*And routinely expected to be. As Radio 4 put it, a complaint against Thought for the Day doesn't stand if the offending language is "grounded in scripture". I am waiting for the day they excuse racist argument on these grounds as opposed to misogyny.

Point taken - the problem with always being sensitive towards any potential insult to any group is that the first in the queue gets all my attention.

"who actually thought I should be flattered that to be told if I weren't an atheist slut he's ask me out"

So much for compassion, then. I'm sorry to read this.

thought I should be flattered that to be told if I weren't an atheist slut he's ask me out

Clearly someone who never understood why Elizabeth turned Darcy down the first time around...

Indeed. Not to mention someone who deserved a slap.

*uses Slope icon for his spectacularly awful attempt at proposing*

As he was at university, presumably he could read. But perhaps he simply preferred the "Left Behind" series.

I had to google the "Left Behind" series to find out to wot you was alludin', and I now owe you a vote of thanks for greatly enriching my day.

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tree_and_leaf - 2008-10-22 14:58 (UTC) - Expand

OH GOD DON'T MENTION LEFT BEHIND!

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nineveh-uk.livejournal.com - 2008-10-22 15:12 (UTC) - Expand

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tree_and_leaf - 2008-10-22 15:30 (UTC) - Expand

Urgh. That's vile, and I'm sorry to hear it.

I'm not insulted by the ads or anything; I just think they're a bit glib. But you're right; the militant fundamentalists have said things that are worse, often.

It was quite funny afterwards, but it was probably a good thing that I never met the chap in question once I'd had the time to come up with an answer.

As a text, it is a bit lightweight - but on the other hand a lightweight text might mean that the publicity has a chance of getting on to talk about why the advert is there, rather than getting stuck in a dissection of the particular argument.

Come to think of it, I'm sure there's a verse in Ecclesiastes that says something very similar....

if I weren't an atheist slut he's ask me out

To which the response probably ought to be 'Even if you weren't the kind of uptight intolerant prat who gives religion a bad name, I wouldn't touch you with someone else's ten-foot bargepole'.

Or, indeed, just your icon...

Well I'll certainly know what to say next time.

Ah well, perhaps there is hope for him yet, given the presence of the guide dog indicating that he must have been admiring me for my intellect.

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