nothing coming

I’m not too keen on the atheist slogan on London buses.

The complete slogan reads: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

Why the probably? Richard Dawkins doesn’t believe that there is possibly a God. Neither does the British Humanist Society Association. Nor do the members of the public that put up the money. Nor is it the message that they actually want to put across.

There’s also the fact that the presence or absence of God isn’t necessarily what’s making people on buses worried. I know they’re preaching to the conflicted, but movement atheists already have a problem with pissing people off gratuitously without telling them that the absence of God will pay off their mortgage arrears.

Anyway, my slogans.

Your life may be a pile of shit for all sorts of reasons impossible to sort out by secular means. There is no God.

You’re going to die. Science can’t help. There is no God.

Believing in God may make you happy, but so would having a wank. And you don’t believe in that.

You’ve got nothing coming.

I’m no help, obviously.

Comments

[dsquared]

The thing is that the bus service itself probably does more to make people question their belief in God than the posters do.

I could only suggest that your slogans be improved by reminding people that not only is death inevitable and afterlife unlikely, inheritance tax is 40%.

[ejh]

Neither does the British Humanist Society.

What would be your specific reason for saying so?

[Alex]

Would anyone support me in getting signs reading DON'T BE SO FUCKING STUPID and DON'T BE SUCH A CUNT ABOUT IT put up all over London?

[Andrew Bartlett]

Isn't this just more childishness? I'm an atheist, but Dawkins drives me up the wall. Nothing he does seems designed to pursuade anyone; its all just a handjob for the Brights and a f-you to the Believers.

[ejh]

What's the problem here? Believers in God put up adverts - why not people who disbelieve in God? Does that help push disbelief in God into the public arena and why should people be laid into if they want to do this? Why is it unreasonable in the contemporary world to hold the view that disblief in God may be worth promoting and discussing and why do people like Alex and Andrew find it so necessary to react in such a bizarre, over-the-top fashion to this?

[Andrew Bartlett]

I didn't think my response was bizarre, or over the top. Okay, I see your point regarding my 'hand job' and 'f-you' comment.

I just wondered why we'd want to do this. I know the argument appears to be, 'well, the bible bashers do'. But the equivalency is pretty shallow. The bible bashers do it because their mission is proselystisation. The believe that their church will win new believers using the adverts. In the case of some lapsed members, and some perticularly vulnerable non-believers, they are probably right. What are we hoping to achieve by putting big signs on buses that says, 'there is no god'? I can't imagine that we'd really believe that we'll cause people to abandon their faith. It won't [de]convert anyone. So what is it for? And I thought the best way to summarise all it can be for was to describe these kinds of things as 'hand jobs' and a 'f-yous'.

I do believe that disbelief in God is worth promoting. I just think that we should spend our energies doing that, not engaging in unproductive, probably counterproductive, stunts. If I was convinced that these bus adverts were productive, than I'd be all up for donating a few quid.

[Philip Hunt]

You’re going to die. Science can’t help.

That's not what Aubrey de Grey thinks.

[ejh]

I do believe that disbelief in God is worth promoting. I just think that we should spend our energies doing that

Well, that's what bus adverts do, just as they do when religious rather than anti-religious grouops do it. In neither instance do they represent the entirety of people's activity.

What it does is the same as any advertising - it keeps the message in the public eye and thereby causes people to think about it. If you see, for instance, a poster advertising Alex Harrowell, your Liberal Democrat candidate it doesn't contain an argument therein. It just jogs the mind.

[Andrew Bartlett]

"If you see, for instance, a poster advertising Alex Harrowell, your Liberal Democrat candidate it doesn't contain an argument therein. It just jogs the mind."

But it has a purpose - name recognition come polling day. And as I described, we can at least imagine ways in which the bus adverts can do 'work' for religious groups - in recruiting the lapsed and the vulnerable - that I can't see any equivalent 'work' being done by a sign asserting the non-existence of god.

'Alex Harrowell' is your Lib Dem candidate. You can vote for him. The United Reformed Church of Methodist Evangelists does meet on Sunday at the community centre and will send you literature if you ring that number. And they will tell you the 'good news'. The 'atheist' signs tell you something that you either believe or don't believe. They don't do any 'work' that advances the cause of atheism.

[Phil]

I think tone's important, & I find the tone of that advert peculiarly irritating. If the slogan was "There is no God. Enjoy life." I'd be all for it - I'd probably give them some money myself. (I'm not at all dogmatic on the no-God thing, but I think "God=NO Life=YES" is a bloody good message.)

But "There's probably no God - stop worrying and enjoy life"? It's all about authority, it seems to me - "people more intelligent than you have thought long and hard about this one and concluded that, well, it's a bit long and complicated, but on balance let's just say that there's probably no God, so you can stop filling your head with those silly religious worries".

Quite priestly, really. I was particularly interested to see the reaction of the Methodist spokeswoman, which was roughly "any publicity for God is good publicity" - or rather, "any publicity for Thinking Deeply, asking Big Questions and concluding that it's All a Bit Complicated is good publicity". They're in the same business, ultimately.

[ejh]

I can't see any equivalent 'work' being done by a sign asserting the non-existence of god.

Can I refer you to the final paragraph of my preceding comment?

[ejh]

There is no God. Enjoy life." I'd be all for it - I'd probably give them some money myself. (I'm not at all dogmatic on the no-God thing, but I think "God=NO Life=YES" is a bloody good message.)

But "There's probably no God - stop worrying and enjoy life"? It's all about authority

It's quite unclear to me how the expression of doubt is more "about authority" than the absence thereof.

[jamie]

There's a bag and baggage thing going on here: adverts on buses, knocking on doors, proselytising etc are things that believers do: atheists qre supposed to be free of all that, along with the deity in whose name it's done.

Not that I mind this caper particularly, though...

Quite priestly, really.

More specifically, quite C of E: the sort of thing an established unchurch would say. But then movement atheism strikes me as quite culturally protestant anyway.

[ejh]

adverts on buses, knocking on doors, proselytising etc are things that believers do

Or political canvassers, or salespeople.

And to the extent that it does resemble the activity of the religious, there is a very good and serious point to doing so, which is to raise the public question as to why non-belief is not given the same prominence and status in society as belief. If they are doing the same things, why is one not viewed the same way as another? That's a good question to ask and one of Dawkins' virtues is that he has got people asking it.

[chris y]

Would anyone support me in getting signs reading DON'T BE SO FUCKING STUPID and DON'T BE SUCH A CUNT ABOUT IT put up all over London?

I would support you, but not to the extent of dragging my sorry can to London to lend a hand: you're on your own there.

Surely the old slogan, "Life's a bitch and then you die", which must have originated in Anglo-Saxon, would be more to the purpose than the BHA's effort.

[Phil]

If they are doing the same things, why is one not viewed the same way as another?

By and large, I don't see a wayside pulpit or a poster for a church & think "there's Christianity, a valid and respected part of our culture". I think "there's some mad old-style evangelicals, funny that they're still going" or "there's the bloody Alpha course, where do they get all the money?" or "there's the Quakers, they're not so bad in their way", or whoever it might be. My reaction to the Humanists' ad is pretty similar - register someone trying to tell me what to think, register who specifically is trying to do so & react accordingly.

I'm going to shut up about 'probably', because it seems to have got into the slogan early on and stayed there; it seems to have begun as a reference to the Carlsberg ads, or as a way of making the statement unprovable, or something. It still irritates me, but I'll try and find something else to be irritated by.

[Alex]

Hey, I'm quite in favour of atheist bus adverts. If nothing else, they piss off more of the right people than they do the wrong people, and the principle is worth exercising.

But I still think putting up the Prime Directives (see above) would do more good.

[Tom]

I like the 'probably', it's comforting that in addition to having rubbish public evangelicals (get up off your knees Stephen Green) and a rubbish take on the US culture wars (hello, Nadine) we have rubbish public atheists too. 'Probably', forsooth.

[alanb]

I imagine "probably" is in there to reassure Popperians that the BHA aren't claiming they can definitively disprove the existence of God. It's the old Bertrand Russell china teapot argument. Dunno if Dawkins adheres to this view also. Probably he does.

[ajay]

I still think putting up the Prime Directives (see above) would do more good

What, "No Federation starship is to intervene in the development of a planetary civilisation"? Bit obscure, isn't it? /geek

[ejh]

we have rubbish public atheists too

Do we?

Can you name me some better ones, since Bertrand Russell? (Who, incidentally, got plenty of the same abuse for his public atheism that currnt figures get.) Can you tell me which ones have previously been able to force the debate about God and God-belief into the public mind? Isn't the answer "none"?

[Chris Williams]

My only objection to it right now is that my comrades (or perhaps co-members - 'comrades' is a bit NSS and not at all woolly) in the BHA have re-started the pledge (wot I did sign, first time out) without using Pledgebank. Sure there are better slogans, but there are _always_ better slogans.

And I speak as an accredited atheist chaplain here. No, really.

[chjh]

Surely "there's probably no God" is a statement of agnosticism, not atheism?

[ejh]

Well, not really. Atheism isn't necessarily a statement of certainty (although this is often and falsely claimed) but a statement of likelihoods. Agnosticism is "dunno": atheism, "we probably do".