Calgary and the Pro-God Ads

This is the one objection I had to the atheist bus campaign. Religion is on the wane. Belief is down in polls. Church attendance is dropping. Religion, ignored, quietly goes away, quietly becomes less dogmatic. Children don't go to church as often as their parents did. People find the old beliefs quirky and silly. The godless slowly win the long race.

Unless you agitate the believers.

So, fine, they have their own ads now.

God cares for everyone ... even for those who say He doesn't exist!

I'm not sure what religion they're speaking for when they say this. The ads were apparently purchased using the money of a number of people from a number of different faiths ("Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims", the purchaser claims). But I don't believe the statement is accurate.

A cursory reading of the christian bible, for example, states pretty clearly that god doesn't much care for atheists:

Psalm 14:1 Only fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, and their actions are evil; not one of them does good!

Romans 1:32 They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.

Romans 1:28 Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done.

If this god of theirs "abandoned" us, I have a hard time believing the claim that said entity also "cares for us".

But that's just me, and they'll automatically declare that I'm "interpreting" their bible incorrectly then I point out that it says exactly the opposite of what they want it to say.

What's more to the point is that there will now be a brief agitation of the believers. We can hope that this will leave the fence sitters with more information on the issue so that, the next time a pollster asks, they can say, "No, I don't believe there's a god" and we can start doing away with this notion and god-belief is somehow necessary for moral behaviour.

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Atheism is Offensive

That's what I've learnt. When the religious want to pray over us, use their religion to deny us rights, declare us unfaithful, unwise and untrustworthy, this is fine and acceptable. When they want to declare us immoral, there is no hue and cry in the media. When they want to force our children to endure their prayers in taxpayer funded schools, they are considered brave and righteous.

When we, the atheists, tell them to stop indoctrinating the credulous minds of our children, we are considered oversensitive. They can tell us that we are raising our children poorly and this not considered insulting but rather "an expression of a viewpoint".

But if we ever, ever, go so far as to publicly say that we don't believe in their god, or any god ...

Well, that, that is offensive. According to Kanata North Councillor Marianne Wilkinson, a representative of the people:

“I don’t think we should be demeaning people in advertising at OC Transpo,” she said. “I think the words are offensive to everyone who believes in God, regardless of what religion they are. To me, as a Christian, it is demeaning. It grates on me.”

Demeaning? How is the statement that it's okay not to believe in god demeaning? Every Christian church and Muslim mosque makes its own public statements. The billboard frequently tells us that god gave us his only son, or that there is no god but Allah, and Mohammed was his prophet. I happen to think that Marianne Wilkinson's religion is very demeaning, but you don't see me telling her to take down her signs.

What does she even mean when she says that the phrase "There probably is no god" is demeaning and offensive? Is life of lesser value because other people don't agree with your religion? Is your belief so weak that it can't weather a spoken word against it? How is it offensive? How does it attack you? No one is stopping you from believing what you want.

And "it grates" on her. Really? The idea of people not-believing your beliefs grates on you? And you're in politics? If that's the way you feel, that just awareness of my very existence "grates" on you because we disagree, then I shall verily enjoy "grating" on you for as long we both are alive.

Speakers included resident Theresa Milligan, who said she felt the wording of the ads was “an implied statement of hatred against all people who believe God exists.”

Hatred? I hate you because I don't think that your god exists? No, dear, that's not it. There's nothing implicit in atheism that says that atheists hate those who believe. Most of the time, we atheists view most of you with a sad shake of our heads. But if you want to see which side of the street generates hate, insult and offense, try some bible passages:

Psalms 14:1 "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God."
Lev 20:13 "If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."
Matt 27:25 "All the people answered, "Let his blood be on us and on our children!" "

Yes, clearly the atheists, with their declaration of disbelief, are the big haters here. Clearly, our vicious and malicious offences are nothing in comparison to the biblical ideas that disbelievers are "fools", homosexuals should be put to death and the Jews killed Jesus.


h/t Galloping Beaver

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Bwahaha! Atheism On Your Bus!

I know what you're thinking: shouldn't we atheists be dispelling the myth that we're out to eat babies or go on raping and pillaging?

I suppose, but I still think we should occasionally avail ourselves of ripe opportunities to laugh maniacally.

To wit: Ottawa refuses Atheist bus ads.

Apparently, the city has been allowing ads with bible passages on them but has refused the atheist ads which say, as they did in Britain: "There's probably no god, now relax and enjoy life." They wisely put it in all-caps to save the trouble of deciding whether to use a capital 'G' for the deity.

But talk about playing in to our hands. The Christian and religious majority are constantly harping on about how hard done by they are, about how persecuted they are, about how they can't even say "god" anymore without being vilified and mobbed by hordes of evil atheists.

But, when you get right down to it, it's really the atheists that have the hardest time just being who they are without having someone else's beliefs crammed down their throats.

When I see something like this, I know that it's generating yet another wave of cognitive dissonance that crashes against the faith of the religious.

And I see that it is good.

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You Can't Be Good Without God.

I suppose that's what the Metro Transit Authority in Halifax is telling us when they denied the Humanists an opportunity to advertise on the sides of buses.

"So, if anytime we feel there's a message that could be controversial and upsetting to people, we don't necessarily sell the ads."

Indeed. I can't wait for the obvious corollaries to come through on a broad statement like that. I'm rather offended, quite personally and honestly, when politicians tell us that atheists can't be trusted because we don't believe in god.

The Humanists are simply responding to that multitude of religious people that insist religion and god-belief are necessary for morality, thereby insinuating that the rest of us are incapable of morality. The Humanists are saying that we can be good without god.

And this is controversial?

This stands, to me, as the typical rant of the religious. They get to swing their fists wherever they want: insulting us; tricking our children in to their cult; using our tax dollars to fund their worship. And if ever we tell them to stop insulting us and to leave our children alone then we are persecuting them. Suddenly, it's so difficult to be in that gigantic majority of Christiandom because they're not allowed to punch us in the face with their dogma.

Yes, I can see how that could be offensive: announcing that some of us, despite everything their priests have told them, can lead moral lives without their religion. I can see how that must grate on their nerves. After all of the abuse and scorn they've been permitted to heap on us, after all the nonsense they've taught their children about us, they're forced to face the truth that some of us actually lead decent lives without being cajoled or threatened with eternal damnation. What will their children think of this?

Yeah, that must really tick them off.

h/t to Red Tory.

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What Atheists Believe In

So the Atheist Bus Campaign is coming to Canada, or at least Toronto, which is a lot like the Centre of the Universe anyway.

Of the many misconceptions that atheists face about immorality, there's always this tendency to demand things of atheists.

The first thing to be demanded is that we prove that god doesn't exist. That's what I like about this campaign. It is clearly labelled the atheist bus campaign, and yet the statement is, "There's probably no god". This accurately describes the atheist position which is that we see no reason to believe in any gods. It's not that we positively declare "There are no gods". It's that we disbelieve the declarations of religious people that there is a god.

Then comes this bit from a minister. Sadly, the writer of the article paraphrased it rather than quoting, but I think the general gist of it is quite common.

The moderator of the United Church of Canada, Right Rev. David Giuliano, said he would rather see atheists say what they believe in, rather than what they are against.

The whole point of atheism is the not-believing, not the believing.

But if you really want to know what atheism means to most of us, I can take a vague guess with which most of us would probably agree.

It means freedom. Freedom from dogma and guilt and everything else religion brings us. But a youtube video already says it better than I could, so here ya go.

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