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

[tree_and_leaf]

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.

Comments

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

Dawkins has always been an agnostic in the strist sense of the word, and says so in print in several of his books. Having said, that, I agree with tree_and_leaf I agree that he makes more heat than light, whatever side you're on.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I should really read The God Delusion before I say anything else about him. Considering the number of books written as replies to The God Delusion from a Christian or other deistic perspective, Richard Dawkins has done wonders for religious publishing.

[tree_and_leaf]

Alastair McGrath's certainly got a lot of mileage out of it...

[tree_and_leaf]

I really ought to read "The God Delusion" some time; the trouble is there's generally something else I'd rather read in my spare time... All I know about his agnosticism vs atheism is the thing about the seven point scale (is it?), where seven is a total atheist and he's six. Though I may be misremembering.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

Sounds vaguely familiar. I only read it once. It's a very persuasive polemic, if you agree with Dawkins anyway, but it's not going to win any converts. But then, I don't think that was the point of it; it's a rallying call, not a conversion call.

[tree_and_leaf]

I know have this really odd image of Dawkins doing a sort of anti-altar-call, like Billy Graham, only not.