Storm in a teacup

[iainjclark]

This atheist bus advert is funny, sensible and positive. Really the mildest, nicest of messages. Amusing, then, to see how divisive it's proving on the very Guardian comments section that inspired it.

According to one early comment: "You must be very proud of yourself. Presumably you are giving no thought to the consequences if it turns out you are wrong. No. Thought not." To which I'm tempted to use the famous Dawkins reply: well what if *you're* wrong about every religion other than your own? We are all non-believers in the majority of faiths in the world today. Even the most devout Christian blithely takes the risk that one of the other religions may be right.

A number of atheists (never the most cohesive bunch) also object to the advert on the grounds that it'll get people's backs up, or smacks of proselytising, and I can see their point. But really it seems so polite and modest as to defeat any arguments about "militant" atheism. It reminds me of the equally amusing Stonewall advert ("Some People Are Gay. Get Over It!") but comparing the two makes it clear just how non-confrontational the bus ad is.

Stephen Green of pressure group 'Christian Voice' said: Bendy-buses, like atheism, are a danger to the public at large. Yes, he said that.

There've been a few other comments from religious groups or scholars praising the advert for inspiring debate or awareness of God, which is fine. In particular there's a counter-point piece in the Guardian by Simon Barrow here. He can't see what good it'll do "apart from raising brand awareness". I tend to agree, except that I think raising brand awareness of atheism (or, in the watered down form of the advert, agnosticism) is a valuable thing to do. Atheism is a stance I happen to agree with, but it's also a hugely misunderstood one, widely and wrongly reviled as bleak or amoral (see 'Christian Voice' above), and *vastly* outweighed in society by implicit and explicit promotion of religious belief¹.

Barrow seems troubled by 'stop worrying and enjoy your life' bit "Not because I want people to worry and not enjoy life, but because for so many people it is really difficult to do this right now." Again, fair enough, but that's really taking it out of context. It's intended as a riposte to the "your soul is at risk" line of argument, not as an entreaty to stop worrying about everything else.

He also revisits some fairly well trodden arguments about religion and atheism. He's happy to join with Dawkins et al in ridiculing the likelihood of a "vindictive sky-god" -- the very idea! -- but contrasts this with a loving and "transcendent God" which he clearly feels isn't prey to the same difficulties. I'm left wondering why one is more likely than the other. One is certainly *preferable* to the other. If there's a God, I'd certainly prefer it to be the latter. But thinking that it might be quite nice if there was a loving God doesn't make it any more likely.

Barrow goes on to say: "It is, rather, a matter of faith. By this I do not mean the denial of rationality, but the kind of reasoning appropriate to a mystery which can never be captured by human mastery, and which requires an encounter with the personal (that is, the struggle to love) to perceive." Insofar as that makes any sense to me at all, if the kind of "rationality" appropriate to belief in God stops at "I personally feel it and my feelings are true for me" then that is simply a circular restatement of the concept of faith. It's a perfectly *good* description of faith, but why dress it up as something it's not, i.e. the commonly understood definition of rationality that relies on a logical, provable argument?

I'm guilty of seizing on Barrow's article because it's convenient and these things are on my mind at the moment, even though I'm not about to prove or disprove the existence of God in a blog entry. I doubt he intended it as a rigorous defence of religion (although he is using it to critique the bus campaign.) It's just that I remain fascinated by the logical side-steps and misdirection from the rational to "it just is" that seem to characterise certain defences of religion. I quite accept that faith can't be proven, and feelings and religion can be important to people. But that only means that they're important feelings, not that they have any external verifiable truth.

In any case, Barrow is very conciliatory and is looking for common ground between believers and non-believers in that everyone values compassion and love. I agree. But again Barrow's main argument for God here seems to be that it's easier to believe in the primacy of love if you believe in a loving Universe. That's yet another "it would be nicer if..." argument. It may be harder for atheists to be nice because they don't believe in God (I flatter myself that I'm pretty nice and it doesn't seem like an effort, personally), or it may be harder for atheists to be nice because they don't do it out of fear for their immortal souls (but doesn't that make their niceness quite special?) Either way, I'm still hard-pressed to see how the preferability of a loving God adds to the argument.

The campaign has reached £73,000 and climbing, far in excess of its stated goals. Which is nice. It all seems pretty harmless, and indeed pretty rare -- which is attested to by the level of slightly boggled media coverage.

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¹ Genuinely sorry if all this offends anyone, by the way. I really do have a pathological conviction that even mentioning atheism in polite company is offensive, which is probably why I find this ad campaign so refreshing.

Comments

[abigail-n.livejournal.com]

I see very little that's positive about this campaign. It smacks of the same snide condescension with which the missionary religious accost the secular. I see signs and graffiti of that ilk every day on my way to work: "returning to God isn't shameful" and other variations thereon. At heart, both groups are saying the same thing - that they know something about the universe which the rest of us would see as self-evidently true if only we weren't being silly and blind.

The thing is, though, that at least some varieties of religious missionaries have the excuse of believing that people who don't buy what they're selling are going to hell. Why should it bother atheists that other people have faith, so long as they don't seek to impose that faith or its tenets on others? I don't see that the world would be that much better if religion were to go away. Intolerance, racism, misogyny, greed, violence - none of these are rooted in religion, and though they are often intensified through it I feel confident (and think the events of the last century bear that confidence out) that in its absence other intensifying factors would emerge.

Finally, it seems incredibly silly to me to suggest that just because a person ceases to believe in God they have nothing to worry about anymore, what with war, global warming, the erosion of democracy, and financial collapse. Addressing any one of these would probably be a better use of £73,000.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

I see very little that's positive about this campaign.

I guess I don't see what all the fuss is about. This advert a) is the first of its kind that I've become aware of, and b) isn't trying to threaten or harass or cajole anyone into doing anything except take a step back from their lives and think positively.

so long as they don't seek to impose that faith or its tenets on others?

The point about faith is that it does, quite often, seek to impose its tenets on others. More or less constantly in fact. Even leaving aside advertising and TV programmes, religion is a constant and implicit presence in my life. I live in a predominantly Christian country. We still have blasphemy laws. Religious advertising is so commonplace that it's not even newsworthy. To drive ten minutes to work I pass three churches, a synagogue and a sikh temple (one of those churches has a cheesy billboard with Christian slogans). This one ad campaign is a tiny drop in the ocean compared to that. The crucial difference, in my opinion, is that it's a response to those religious adverts. Without them, it would not exist or need to exist. This is very much a small voice attempting to point out that there are other options, even though you tend not to hear about them or see them promoted very often. As I said, I see this as a "brand awareness" promotion - atheists exist and contrary to what you read aren't all amoral nihilists. In a subtle (and minor) way it's an anti-discrimination advert as much as that Stonewall one.

It smacks of the same snide condescension with which the missionary religious accost the secular.

At the very worst, it's no more harmful than a religious advert, but it seems hard to read it a snide. I might go as far as cheeky. Indeed a lot of the responses including that Barrow piece are themselves quite condescending in a 'cheerful pat on the head' kind of way. (I also think there's a qualitative difference between religious faith, and a set of rational opinions about religion, but then I would, wouldn't I?)

I don't see that the world would be that much better if religion were to go away.

I personally don't think religious belief will ever go away, or if it seemingly does will just morph into some pseudo-scientific version of itself. Religious belief is a deeply attractive way of thinking, part of our upbringing, and tightly bound up with culture heritage and personal identity. Most people aren't going to stop following such human impulses. On the other hand, I do think that if more people were led to question religious tenets and rote adherence to religious doctrine, there might be one less source of fanaticism in the world. Religion doesn't cause intolerance, but it does far too frequently encourage it. And I think that asking people, gently, to critically think through their preconceptions about *anything* is a healthy and positive thing. It encourages a skeptical mindset that's very healthy in all sorts of other areas of life. I certainly don't think atheist advertising will cause religion to go away, but that doesn't mean it serves no purpose.

Addressing any one of these would probably be a better use of £73,000.

Well yes, but addressing one of these would also be a better use of people's money than funding religious advertising, or going down the cinema, or buying a season ticket to their football club, but people do all of those too -- often in addition to giving to charity. Of all the things that may be diverting funds from solving the world's ills, an atheist advertising campaign on London buses must be near the bottom of the list.

it seems incredibly silly to me to suggest that just because a person ceases to believe in God they have nothing to worry about anymore

I don't think the ad is trying to say "Hey! Nothing to worry about any more!" It's trying to say "Hey! One less thing to worry about!" And of course it's trying to address some preconceptions about religions offering reassurance and atheists offering bleakness. I also think it's received media coverage and a negative response far out of proportion to its likely impact, simply because it's a complete novelty.

[abigail-n.livejournal.com]

This advert ... isn't trying to threaten or harass or cajole anyone into doing anything except take a step back from their lives and think positively.

Well, unless you're equating secular thinking with the positive kind, it seems to me that this statement might equally apply to a bus ad that read 'God loves you and is waiting to receive you.' You and I would find such an ad annoying and even vaguely threatening, because what it is actually saying - which is what the secular ad says to people of faith - is that we're living our life wrong. That's not the brand of atheism I'd like people to be aware of.

religion is a constant and implicit presence in my life. I live in a predominantly Christian country

First, I have to say that I sincerely doubt you have any idea of what it's like to live in religiously-dominated society. Talk to me when you have to pass a purity test and jump through hoops in order to get a marriage license. Or when your lifestyle has to conform to a certain religious standard before you're allowed to adopt. Or when religious considerations affect everything in your life from the hours the buses run to the day you switch back from daylight savings time. And, of course, there are people in Iran and Saudi Arabia who would sneer at both of us for whining about our lots.

But more importantly, what you're saying here basically boils down to 'they started it.' It's aggravating and overbearing when advertising is used to push religion, but it's alright for atheists to do it because we're the beleaguered minority? Maybe that's true, but it's certainly not an approach I'd call positive.

I don't think the ad is trying to say "Hey! Nothing to worry about any more!" It's trying to say "Hey! One less thing to worry about!"

I really doubt that there are many people in the world who sit around worrying about whether God exists (and if there are, they probably don't have much else to worry about). People worry about tangibles - how to support their families, how to preserve their health, how to stay safe, how to keep their job - and there are people for whom the belief in God is a way of combating these worries. And people for whom it isn't, obviously, but those people aren't the ones being targeted by this campaign. As you say, these ads probably won't do any harm, but I can't see that they'll do any good either, which is why I can't help but feel that the money donated to this cause has been wasted, and could very easily have been spent on better ones.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

Yes, sorry, I shouldn't imply that I live my live under the yoke of religion, as I know there are those who have it far worse than I do! It's just that religion is so pervasive in society, albeit in a more low key way than elsewhere, that I find it refreshing to simply have someone state an opposing viewpoint, in however trivial and futile a manner. Thinking on it, the key thing for me about this advert is that it undermines a stereotype - it says that religion doesn't have a monopoly on being positive or reassuring. Atheism can be that too. That's not much in the grand scheme of things, and will go unnoticed by most.

You're right that it's not a million miles away from waffly positive religious messages, like that cheesy billboard on the way to work (2nails + 1cross = 4given). And you're right that no-one's going to suddenly stop worrying, but it might just make them think about things they've already been thinking about it. Even if it doesn't, I think the atheist mythbusting is useful.

It's aggravating and overbearing when advertising is used to push religion, but it's alright for atheists to do it because we're the beleaguered minority?

But by this token, why isn't it wrong to "push" or promote any point of view about any issue? Religious advertising isn't inherently wrong -- at least the non-'fire and brimstone' variety -- it's the monopoly of it that's a problem, because the message takes on an assumed rightness that goes unchallenged. I find this one tiny advert a huge contrast to a multiplicity of messages coming the other way, and I find it hard to equate the two.