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

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

That seems a bit over the top, but I've had enough experience of the idiotic kind of religious zealot to see why Dawkins's crowd are doing it. I'm not sure this is helping, as generally atheists should be proud of not backing people into corners and nagging them about the state of their souls, but there you go.

A plague on both their houses, as far as I'm concerned.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

'Have YOU accepted Darwin as your personal saviour?'

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

NO!

(I lol'd, though...)

[tree_and_leaf]

I can entirely sympathise with that! I have just got back from dinner, where we were jammed in beside a group of enthusiastic evangelicals discussing how they couldn't relate to people who didn't "Have grace in their lives" (bad theology anyway) and their plans for trying to convert their housemate.

If I start giving off those sort of vibes, please tell me so that I can apologise profusely and mend my ways.

[caulkhead.livejournal.com]

Poor housemate. I wonder if he's an agnostic/atheist, or just the wrong sort of Christian.

[tree_and_leaf]

The poor chap, indeed. Either is perfectly possible...

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

You've never, ever done anything of the kind. Nor have any of the people who have occasionally made me think that this Christianity lark might have something to it after all.

The enthusiastic evangelicals remind me of some of the CICCU types a good friend of mine was matey with at college. Not a shining example to anyone, alas.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

My impression of OICCU was never favourable, though as an undergraduate I often lapsed into a defeatist cynicism on some issues and these included the numbers of conversions I heard of, with people changing their names to Biblical ones in a few cases I knew, or thought I knew of.

On the other hand one of the key conversations in founding Oxford's Doctor Who society happened after an OICCU meeting, so I was instructed in the society's folklore; so OICCU did have some indirect impact on my student existence.

[tree_and_leaf]

My mother went through a lengthy atheist phase, mostly - she says - the result of a brush with her university CU. I suspect it was probably a bit more complicated than that, but I do believe that they can do a lot of damage to vulnerable people (it's always a bit awkward dealing with them from a college chapel point of view, too, because they are quite capable of deciding that you are not Real Christians and therefore a threat who people ought to be warned against).

[tree_and_leaf]

Sorry - encounters like that make me very embarrassed in a 'get off my side, damnit' sort of way, and simultaneously worried about whether I am that unbearable.

... in fact, at the moment I am feeling glad that my atheist/ agnostic friends have occasionally had encounters with practicing Christians that weren't completely ghastly.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

And I really like it that Christians who truly believe can still have a sensible discussion with me without feeling too repelled (this last was particularly true of a University friend who was also in CICCU!)

[tree_and_leaf]

You've never struck me as repellent! - and I do wonder why people find a sensible exchange of views so. Unless what they're really afraid of is their own doubt, of course...