more bus slogans
Current slogan on the buses: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” (A paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 15:32, by the way.)
Suggestions for future adverts, in the name of Truth in Advertising:
“There’s probably no God. So stop praying for comfort and accept that the disease you suffer from will ensure that you die in pointless agony.”
“There’s probably no God. So forget about being reunited with loved ones when you die.”
“There’s probably no God. So realize that the people who cheated and abused you will never suffer retribution.”
“There’s probably no God. So there’s no one there to forgive you for your sins.”
“There’s probably no God. So your empty, joyless life of solitude and frustration is all you get. Deal.”
UPDATE: I keep forgetting that the internet doesn’t do irony, so let me be more explicit. The point of this post is as follows: the slogan on the Atheist Bus makes the implicit but quite clear argument that religious belief is simply a source of “worry” and that if you give up that belief you’ll be better able to “enjoy your life.” However, abandoning religious belief does not always make people happier; nor is it true that everyone is fortunate enough to have an enjoyable life. These truths, and my post, have nothing whatsoever to do with the question of whether religion is true, but rather address the claims about happiness and enjoyment that the slogan makes. If atheists had a whole series of such slogans they could acknowledge some of these complexities. However, bus slogans don’t do complexity, a point I was trying to make ironically by suggesting alternative slogans, but then, as I have said, the internet doesn’t do irony. Thus my end is my beginning. Everybody on the same page now?
So you are stating, for the record, that the reason to believe in God is that it makes you feel good independent of whether it’s an actual fact of the universe? Glad we have that cleared up.
— Ryan · Jan 23, 09:13 PM · #
Alternatively, another bus slogan:
“There is a God. He afflicted you with a horrible disease, took your loved ones from you, allowed others to cheat and abuse you, and gave you an empty, joyless life of solitude and frustration. Worship Him, though, because he’ll forgive you for being less than 1/100th the bastard He is and if you’re lucky he’ll let you live with him in outer space.”
Very compelling, I think.
— Ryan · Jan 23, 09:19 PM · #
“There’s probably no god, so we’re better than you.” That being, of course, the actual impetus behind most contemporary atheism— the ability to assert superiority.
— Freddie · Jan 23, 09:19 PM · #
So you mean we actually have to strive for justice in this world than do nothing in the hopes that a magic man will take care of it? That’s horrible!
— John Cain · Jan 23, 09:19 PM · #
Freddie, is that not also the impetus behind contemporary religiosity? The concept of being “saved” seems to me a pretty explicit announcement that “I’m better than you”.
— John Cain · Jan 23, 09:23 PM · #
Freddie, I like your implication that that isn’t exactly what people like Alan Jacobs and Joe Carter are also doing when they write posts like this.
— Ryan · Jan 23, 09:24 PM · #
So you are stating, for the record, that the reason to believe in God is that it makes you feel good independent of whether it’s an actual fact of the universe?
Um . . . what? Dude, I’m trying to help out the atheists, not stating my own beliefs. I just feel sorry for them that they could only come up with one slogan.
Seriously, if you want a better sense of what I’m getting at, read Freddie’s comment on this post. And while you’re at it, look at what he said here.
— Alan Jacobs · Jan 23, 09:31 PM · #
Well, Alan, Freddie is deeply and bizarrely wrong, but I won’t hold that against you, I guess.
Contemporary atheism is an exercise in contempt, because that is all that is left us. Freddie says we aren’t interested in decorum or respect, and I’m not entirely sure why he thinks decorum and respect are things that have ever been granted to us. Christian commentators respond to our scorn with sneering condescension and claims that somehow they are under siege by a tiny sliver of a minority simply because we are sick and tired of being forced to act as if what they’re saying makes any sense at all when they have never once granted us anything similar. I like Freddie a lot, but his position on contemporary atheism is weak-kneed, fuzzy-headed nonsense.
Atheism is only “demoralizing and painful” if you are willing to have this debate on the philosophical grounds set by theists. Much as he likes to claim otherwise, Freddie is Christian through and through.
— Ryan · Jan 23, 09:52 PM · #
The problem for the theist, it seems to me, is that little room remains for a functional notion of God. What you’re left with is functional belief, which is different.
The problem for the atheist: the empirical fact that belief in God is functional. Perhaps caution should replace contempt when tinkering with the mindspace of animals.
— JA · Jan 23, 10:32 PM · #
I’m not entirely sure why he thinks decorum and respect are things that have ever been granted to us
They certainly haven’t been granted to you for much of history. The question is whether you’re doing anything constructive in allowing that fact to color how you argue now. There are bastards on both sides. My tendency is to think that the new atheists, or whatever you want to call them, have decided to fight fire with fire in a very nonconstructive way. It certainly seems to me that the public faith of that movement, such as it is, suffers from a great lack of charity and humility. It’s probably unfair for me to make as many sweeping claims as I have, though. So better to say “Richard Dawkins and his crew are interested in asserting superiority.”
Besides, purely as a matter of tactics, apart from considerations of principle, I question what contemptuous atheism generally and those bus ads specifically are accomplishing. But, look, it’s true that I tend to talk in categoricals when I shouldn’t, and for applying labels far too broadly, I apologize; it’s a character flaw of mine.
In this instance, particularly in as it concerns Dawkins, I am unapologetic. Also, in the meta-sense, not affording Alan a reasonable reading of his post doesn’t seem to do any favors for your side or anyone else’s; I assure you, Alan is not a consequentialist.
As for my Christianity, I can only tell you that I neither believe in god nor the divinity of Jesus Christ. On a larger philosophical level, I guess I’m not qualified to say.
— Freddie · Jan 23, 10:36 PM · #
“There is no God. If there were, He’d have made an internet that did irony.”
— John · Jan 23, 11:11 PM · #
* and readers who could pick up on it.
— John · Jan 23, 11:16 PM · #
No kidding, John. So He can make Leviathan and Behemoth but not an internet that does irony? Please.
— Alan Jacobs · Jan 23, 11:20 PM · #
If I had slogged all the way through Anthony Flew’s There Is A God when I had it out of the library last week, I would try to make an intelligent comment. I hadn’t.
Would one prefer “There is probably no God. Now stop feeling guilty and enjoy your (already brief and likely to be briefer if spent hedonistically) life”?
Anyway, good point.
— Julana · Jan 23, 11:23 PM · #
“ [T]he slogan on the Atheist Bus makes the implicit but quite clear argument that religious belief is simply a source of “worry” and that if you give up that belief you’ll be better able to “enjoy your life.” “
That is not what the slogan is intended to mean. As described on their FAQ (linked under my name), what they meant is that disbelief is nothing to be afraid of. It was conceived as a response to a pro-Christianity ad campaign that warned that nonbelievers are going to hell. It could also be considered more broadly as a response to the view that there’s something horrible or unfulfilling about being an atheist, a view held by many theists and shared by a lot of people who have come to question or abandon their theism. Basically, they’re saying that if you don’t really believe in God then you should just accept that and get on with your life – you’re probably right and it’s not that big a deal.
— Blar · Jan 23, 11:28 PM · #
Blar, I should have said not that “religious belief is a source of ‘worry’” but that “religious concerns are a source of ‘worry.’” Other than that, I think my comment stands.
— Alan Jacobs · Jan 23, 11:34 PM · #
I know, I know — it’s all a joke. But what the hell, it’s Saturday.
. . . accept that the disease you suffer from will ensure that you die in pointless agony.
This is a problem of theodicy as well. Disease-ridden agony seems pretty pointless no matter how you look at it, no?
So realize that the people who cheated and abused you will never suffer retribution.
Not entirely true, but also not devastating. Plus, you have civil and criminal law (sturdy social thermostats). And if you’re particularly vexed, you can always sack up and chart a course of revenge. (See Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals).
So your empty, joyless life of solitude and frustration is all you get.
The functionality of belief. Collective frustration is dangerous; it can metastasize and tear down the body politic. On the other hand, belief in purpose and eternal justice and a higher reward is a psychological palliative. (See Roman governing practices, local religions).
Again, I get the irony. I just wanted to rap with what you wrote. Ya dig?
— JA · Jan 24, 05:24 PM · #
John Henderson, an unbeliever,
Has lately lost his joie de vivre
From readng far too many books.
He went about with gloomy looks;
Despair inhabited his breast
And made the man a perfect pest.
Hilaire Belloc
There’s lots more and very instructive it is too
— Fergus Pickering · Jan 24, 05:40 PM · #
Wow, that sounds like a bumper sticker version of some of William Lane Craig’s apologetics. He points out that when approaching the question of the existence of God, many people dial up their skepticism to a degree they would never employ in the other areas of daily life. I believe if he ever met my Grandma, he’d find she was an exceptional skeptic in her daily life. The poor cable guy is the latest object of her skepticism, having been shown the door after he tried to explain the workings of digital internet, cable boxes, and DVR’s during a recent appointment.
— Joules · Jan 25, 04:05 AM · #
I find the “…probably…” part weird.
Don’t get me wrong. In principle, I’m just as willing as any other rational person to run my life based on unsolicited advice plastered across the side of a city bus. But when it comes to relatively Big Things, I almost always require that the advice be stated with absolute certainty before I decide to get on board.
If I were a gimlet-eyed skeptic, hoping to usher in a new age of rational inquiry and free thinking, I would — um, probably — have thought this one through a little more carefully.
— Bill · Jan 25, 04:12 PM · #
How about this one:
“There’s probably no god, but a lot of religious self-deception might make us feel better. (Even if it is not true).
— Carniphage · Jan 25, 06:08 PM · #
That was pretty fine. I’ll always be able to understand why Christians don’t want people to go to hell for not being one of them, but never why atheists have got religion. Is this a recent development?
People are everywhere leaping out of bathtubs crying “Eureka! We’re meaningless chemical reactions… I must tell the others!”.
All of the internets may not do irony, or metaphor, all of the time but there’s much appreciation from this netizen.
— Rob · Jan 25, 11:16 PM · #
I dunno, internalizing those things made me appreciably happier and more satisfied, by discarding rather than trying to resolve the underlying dissatisfactions.
— Senescent · Jan 26, 01:15 AM · #
I just wish they’d specify the probability.
“There’s a 79% (+/- 3%) chance that there is no God. If so, whether you stop worrying and enjoy life will be determined entirely by your genes and environment.”
— Michael Straight · Jan 26, 10:37 PM · #