No God, lots of fuss
Affiliated groups of atheists in Europe and North America are organising bus advertising campaigns informing us that there is ‘probably’ no God and that we should stop worrying and enjoy our lives.
The campaign annoys me, but not for the reasons that one would expect. People are free to believe in God or not, and if they are free to say that they believe in God, so they are free to say that they don’t. If people are free to preach belief in God, so they are free to preach the opposite. So, no, that is not what annoys me, as it might annoy others, including the neo-fascist politicians in Italy – where else? – who succeeded in having the atheists’ advertising campaign banned on the grounds that it violates some mysterious aspect of ‘ethics’ in advertising.
This is what sets my teeth on edge: the use of the word ‘probably’. You would think that atheists, of all people, would be certain in their own minds about the non-existence of God, that they wouldn’t be blithering and blathering in the same way as those ‘believers’ who are not quite sure, who practise their religion just in case there is a God and they wake up after death to find this elusive being waiting for them with their name on the Naughty List.
The unspoken belief in the statement that there is probably no God is that there just might be one, but the odds are so small that you might as well forget about the prospective threat and get on with the business of enjoying life. And that brings us to the other thing that really irritates me: the atheists who came up with this less than brilliant marketing ploy for their cause don’t appear to realise that the prospect of no God is more disturbing to many people than the prospect of there being a God.
It is the existence of a God in their moral universe which allows them to enjoy life in the reassurance that they will be rewarded for the good they do while others will be punished for the bad they do. Whip God out of the equation and they are left floundering in a sort of moral anarchy. How can they enjoy life when they know that the paedophile down the road, the heroin-trafficker round the corner and the wife-beater in the flat downstairs will not be toasted on Satan’s spit for all eternity? For if there is no God, then there is no heaven either and no hell. Of course, by the time most of us have grown up, we have come to terms with the increasingly dim likelihood of circles of hell and pastures of heaven. We believe in them for the sake of our own sanity, but without probing too hard because we prefer a reassuring fairytale than what might turn out to be harsh reality.
Now here’s the third and last thing that tees me off about the atheist campaign. Adults believe in God in roughly the same way that young children believe in Father Christmas and the tooth fairy, and for very similar reasons. And before the Jacqueline Callejas of this country jump down my throat, by this I am not going one further than the atheists with their bus advertising and saying that God is just about as real as the mythical creature this country calls Krismiss Fader, rather than than that he ‘probably’ doesn’t exist. No. What I am saying is that the process of belief is much the same: children believe in Father Christmas because that is the received wisdom in their world, and because authorities higher than they are have assured them that he exists and they have no reason to question that authority. Children also need to believe in Father Christmas because it makes their world more interesting and gives them something to look forward to when they petition him with their hopes and desires.
How would I react to a bus advertising campaign by the Anti-Father-Christmas League, informing under-10s that Father Christmas probably doesn’t exist? This is how: why ruin things for children? Let them have their fun. And that’s exactly how I reacted to the photographs of buses driving past with that wet and wimpy ‘There is probably no God’ slogan. It’s not a public information campaign alerting passers-by to the dangers of smoking, say, or to the benefits of eating more greens. No, it’s what I call a spoilsport campaign, designed by the sort of person who gets a perverse pleasure out of shaking others from their comfort zone.
It should make no difference to atheists whether other people believe in God or not. If they are bothered by other people constantly telling them that there is a God and that they should believe in him, the response isn’t joining them in dishing out more of the same but from the opposite side of the spectrum. The response is to ignore the Christian preachers because, in your own words, God probably doesn’t exist, so what’s the big deal.
When atheism organises itself and seeks to convert others, what it has effectively become is a religion in itself, like the new religion of environmentalism. Atheists appear not to be content to get on with life in the absence of a god. Like obsessive believers in God, they seek to ram their belief down the throat of everyone else. They are as bad, and for the very same reasons, as those born-again Christians who pin you to the wall at parties and try to persuade you to come along to the next prayer group meeting despite your insistence that you have never been, are not, and never will be interested in religious involvement.
If you really don’t believe in God, why go on about it all the time? I rather suspect that the clue is in that word ‘probably’, which snuck into the slogan. The atheists are not quite sure, which is why they bang on about it all the time, to reassure themselves. A person who really doesn’t believe in something doesn’t even think about it, unless it impinges on his own life or on the ordering of the society in which he lives, which gives him a vested interest – as with Catholicism in Malta. There is no organisation of people who don’t believe in ghosts, or of people who don’t believe in the paranormal. There are only organisations of people who believe in those things. The rest of us don’t give ghosts and the paranormal a second thought.
The creator of the atheist bus campaign is a British comedy writer called Ariane Sherine. She was spurred to action by the sight of bus advertising with slogans like ‘Jesus died for your sins’. She was drawn by these apocalyptic messages to the website of the evangelical Christian group which organised the campaign. There, she learned that as a non-Christian she is going to spend “all eternity in torment in hell”, burning in a lake of fire.
I can understand her desire to put a rocket under these people. I feel roughly the same way myself. But why take down innocent, non-molesting believers in the gunfire? Here’s how Ms Sherine describes her motivation, in a newspaper article. “I’ve always felt truly exasperated at the idea of hell – I think it comes from having parents of two different religions. My family background sounds like the set-up to a joke: my father’s side are Unitarian Universalists, my mother’s are Zoroastrians, and there are a few Jehovah’s Witnesses thrown in, too. As a mixed-race kid, being brought up Christian, the thought that my mother was going to hell merely for coming from a different part of the world seemed nonsensical and cruel. I couldn’t quite believe that ideas of eternal damnation were being spread from the side of a bus in 2008, so I suggested at the end of an article that all atheists reading it donate £5 to fund a positive, rational counter-advert.”
Richard Dawkins, who has become very tedious on the matter of God, with his God Delusion having become the bible of the atheist religion, matched the first £5,500 collected. The British Humanist Association supported the campaign. And atheist organisations in the United States, Canada, Spain and Italy joined in. The Italian atheists ran into a brick wall, and surprisingly, the Australian authorities clamped down on the campaign, too. The Australian atheist slogan was by far the best – far, far better than that wet British ‘probably’: ‘Atheism – sleep in on Sunday mornings.’ Though of course, it is quite possible to believe in God but not Sunday mass.
I was amused to discover that even the grandmothers of atheists are no different: their grandchildren can do no wrong. Ms Sherine’s 83-year-old Zoroastrian grandmother sewed advert covers for the launch and told her that she had watched the media event with a devout great-aunt. “It was very nice,” she said. Perhaps Ms Sherine has much to learn from that level of religious tolerance.
This article is published in The Malta Independent today.
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Just one small note, the “Probably” was added due to legal counseling. Saying “There is no God” wouldn’t have passed as it’s a statement of certainty – sad but true (for some reason saying “there is a God” is accepted).
Also, you are not the first one to complain on the proselytising from atheists. Admittedly, campaigning for atheism is by default a negative campaign. Atheists tend to spread their disbelief for, I think, one of three reasons:
1. there are obviously the ones who simply do it out of mischief;
2. there are the ones who do it as they believe the world (and fellow people) would be better off casting belief in God behind them;
3. there are the ones who recognise the extremely negative attitude towards atheists in many countries.
Personally I do think that the people around me would be better off without belief in God. I think it’s detrimental on a both personal and societal level. Perhaps it’s due to growing up in a pretty much godless society, although I’ve had plenty of religious influences.
I’m not sure what makes disbelief any less qualified to spread than any other political or philosophical idea. Your article just confirms the general feeling is that atheists should just stay silent in a corner. The second someone goes out publicly asking people not to believe they get attacked for trying to become what they are speaking against, when in reality what they are speaking against isn’t just the proselytising, but all the negative connotations surrounding it (such as hell, dogmatic belief, irrationality etc).
As much as I am in agreement on your article, I don’t see why every time Italy is mentioned you see fascists everywhere. Despite having a lot of complicated laws and strange parliamentary set-up, it is one of the best democracies in Europe with all political ideas being left, centre and right leaning. Even gays and pensioners are represented in the parliament and senate. Italy is a better democracy than your beloved Britain. With your argument even Australia is fascist. Please excuse my English.
[Daphne – That’s right: they even vote in porn stars, grand-daughters of Benito Mussolini, and political rejects from Malta. And their prime minister is a corrupt and highly embarrassing billionaire. Where else would it happen? I think it has nothing to do with the tolerance that comes from respect for civil liberties and for democracy, and everything to do with an unprincipled tolerance for everything down to organised crime, which comes from an ‘I’ll leave you alone, Jack, if you leave me alone’ approach to life. What the Italians have is not democracy but a kind of paradox: organised anarchy.]
I consider myself sympathetic to the bus campaign that is being run in various countries, and also find myself in tune with a lot of your opinions, Daphne, so today’s divergence made me stop and think awhile.
At the outset let me say that I am in process of adjusting and coming to terms with a new belief system, one that ‘probably’ doesn’t involve believing in religion or a skygod. It’s a conscious movement away from simply being a lapsed Catholic, or someone who just doesn’t go to church. I began to see that as a cop-out, a sort of drifting along without nailing my colours firmly to the mast.
I can relate to the word ‘probably’ because I think it is easier for a thinking person who has started this process to embrace the notion (at least initially) of agnosticism rather than full blown in-your-face atheism. You would probably argue that this is yet another cop-out, and maybe you would be right. But I can envisage myself travelling on the spectrum of unbelief from agnosticism to atheism.
Your comment about the need of people to believe in something is right, but children believe in the tooth fairy precisely because they are children and their mental and analytical faculties are immature and still developing. Are you suggesting that adults should always tap the child inside them to avoid the glare of the real world? Forgive me if I am wrong, but you seem to imply that it OK for the great majority of humankind to believe in a personal god and in the prospect of eternal salvation in the afterlife as long as it gives them succour and contentment. They can believe in the tooth fairy if it suits them, and keeps them contented, but a select few know better. That panders to my notion of condescension.
What does this matter? You correctly raise the point about whether atheists need to go on a publicity campaign at all. And the answer would be no, if theists and organised religions didn’t bother and affect the individuals and society outside their immediate sphere. But they do. With a vengeance. They insist on a god given right to lead (and judge) on matters of morality and ethics, and their influence on secular law makers is pervasive and extensive. So organised religion matters very much. And organised religion very largely gets its strength and raison d’etre from the masses of believers.
Hence my present need to evaluate and see where I really stand on these matters, and what I believe in. It’s a daunting unnerving process, one that can be very isolating, and on a personal level the bus campaign gives me a sense of being less alone in this process.
I watched an interview with one of the organisers of the campaign on BBC news a few weeks ago. He was asked why the “probably” and he admitted that it was a bit of a compromise, and that you actually can never say for sure that something does not exist, not even fairies – I think those were his exact words.
I agree with him on that one. It is ignorant to say that god definitely does not exist. As ignorant as saying that he surely does exist. What annoys me in the adverts is only one thing – saying that god does not exist when God means many different things to different people and can be so many different realities to different people. Such a blanket statement is no more than a marketing slogan.
Please spare us atrocities like ‘snuck’. You’ve been spending too much time in Toronto, I think.
[Daphne – I’ve been using it for years. It’s a really good word.]
Dear Daphne,
Actually I find “The God Delusion” a very good read, even if I do agree that staunch atheists end up being a mirror image of the believers they so despise.
At the risk of sounding simplistic, I have basically whittled down the reasons to why people believe in God to basically two-
1. Valium effect – the one which you mention, persons might find the propect that the paedo across the street shall not be roasted on a split for eternity highly reductive and disturbing. You claim that denying the concept of eternal justice would cause mass hysteria, panic and ultimately anarchy.
I beg to differ – I find it more disturbing that we attach retribution to divine intervention than to hard law. The paedo across the street should be addressed to with hard penal law and no fairy-tale ending. In essence the fact that we would so much like one nasty little guy to be subjected to the pains of hell for eternity does not make this prospect any more real. To use your example, just because kids so badly believe and relish in the belief of there being a Santa Claus, does not make it any more real.
2. Pascal’s wager – However low the odds on God’s existence might be, it would be more worthwhile to believe in God because (i) if you are wrong, there is nothing to lose, (ii) if you are right you go to heaven. Conversely, if you deny the existence of God and you are wrong you get eternal damnation.
I have found that this actually works for many people, in disregard to the fact that (i) Omniscient God should be able to see through your mimickry in “feigning believe” (ii) With the thousands of Gods, what if you bet on the wrong one? What if you devote you life to Yahweh only to find Baal, who is just as vengeful of the God of the Old Testament? Would it not be better for you to be neutral rather than bet on the wrong horse? (iii) Wouldn’t a just God value coherence and consistance scepticism rather than feigning religion?
Re: The probability issue in the slogan. I do not find that inconsistent with atheism. The alternative would be what, having a slogan – “There CERTAINLY is no God” ? How can you be certain – no one can prove or disprove the existence of God, and alleging otherwise would be banal. Just as for example you cannot positively disprove or prove the existence of dragons, or unicorns,or mermaids or to quote Dawkins (pushing it a bit afar) “the spaghetti-flying monster”, neither can you positively approve / disprove the existence of God.
Futhermore, shouldn’t the person who alleges something be the one to prove it. Let us put the onus of God’s existence on he who alleges it (and please no Aquinas “proofs”).
Lastly (I apologise for my long mail), to atheists may find the intrusion of believers rather offensive and irritating. Just look around, Church instituions intrude in our lives every day with newspapers, television programmes, entire TV Channels actually, cruxifixes in public offices etc;
And at the risk of sounding a Gift of Life Looney, how about taking a hard look at Article 2 of the Constitution for maxmimum intrusion?
Quote – ” 2. (1) The religion of Malta is the Roman Catholic Apostolic Religion.
(2) The authorities of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church
have the duty and the right to teach which principles are right and which are wrong.
(3) Religious teaching of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Faith
shall be provided in all State schools as part of compulsory
education.” Unquote
What is this – An Iranian theocracy?! “The duty and the right to teach which principles are right and which are wrong” ?! – you must be joking.
Best,
Jack
I would guess that most atheists are scientific and logical people. They have found no proof that a God exists, but they also have found no proof he doesn’t exist. They rightly think it would be hypocritical to say there is no God, as it would mean they are as dogmatic about their cause as the believers.
As to the campaign itself, I think the whole point was to counter the feeling that we should worry about everything we do from a perspective that there is a God to punish us. What they’re saying is that there is ‘probably’ no God, so don’t worry, live a little.
‘Religious’ people basically believe that they are obliged to propagate their religion, for the good of humanity. You object to this (your reference to born-again Christians pinning you against the wall) and equally to atheists’ attempts to spread their (somewhat ambiguous) message. You object to obsessive ‘believers’ and obsessive ‘disbelievers’ and condemn both sides of the spectrum. What’s happened to your belief in freedom of expression? I too find Nutty-religious and now Nutty-atheists completely un-interesting (like footie to you) but the nuts are free to spout their mantras for as long as they like, so why get all hot and bothered? It’s not like atheists are affecting your rights and freedoms in any way (unlike Catholics are in Malta).
They should run a similar campaign on Maltese buses, the slogan should read “There is a God, and He is probably driving this bus”.
1) Italy: A country where naked women can appear in ethical adverts, but not atheism.
2) The ‘probably’ part was added as a reference to The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins. It refers to the fact that you cannot totally disproof the existence of a god, since by definition god is elusive. Just because religious people are 100% sure god exists, does not mean that atheists should do the same and say that they are 100% certain. This is like the fact that disproving Santa Claus, fairies, and the invisible pink unicorn is impossible.
3) A new advert they are considering states “Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings.”
4) Simply because people feel like they need to believe in a god, does not mean that they are doing something right. Some people feel like they need alcohol to get along in life… . Anyway, I do not want to deviate due to this point.
5) Atheists do not want religious people to stop believing. They, or rather we, want religious people to stop having a monopoly on everything. We want to stop being seen as second grade citizens.
6) You cannot honestly compare a nine-year-old believing in the tooth fairy to a full blown adult believing in a higher deity. Just because one is acceptable, does not make the other anywhere near acceptable.
7) How come an atheist stating that there probably is no god make it a “spoilsport campaign, designed by the sort of person who gets a perverse pleasure out of shaking others from their comfort zone”, while a religious person repeating to you and everyone that cares about you that you are going to hell is the norm? Is arguing back suddenly a perversion? Seriously, you have to be on this side to feel it.
8) And honestly, before hammering on about the word probably, read the relevant chapter in The God Delusion.
You certainly hit the nail on the head. There is an obsessive atheist who constantly writes in The Times trying to convince people to become atheist. I often remarked to my wife that he seems to be trying to convince himself more than anybody else. Kind of the anti-Jacqueline Calleja…
I believe that the insertion of the word “probably” isn’t there due to some closeted doubt. You need to look at who the campaign is targeted at. It is not really targeted at those who would believe any old nonsense from “authorities higher up”. It is targeted at those who have never questioned it but who already know deep down that they are clinging to the idea of a superior being for comfort.
It is never too clever to antagonise your audience with a “holier than thou” unruffled absolutism. Using a softer approach can be far more effective. I realised this when I questioned a Christian’s beliefs with gruff assertiveness, only to be told – “Leave me alone, I want to believe. I don’t want to think about it.” Whereas if I had just fueled that person’s innate doubt without creating offence, I might have succeeded in launching that thinking process that could lead to autonomy from all their superstition.
That ‘probably’ stems from the British way of understating facts and was used to great effect in the Carlsberg advert.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/05/atheist-bus-christian-response
Dear Daphne,
You are adding a lot of fuss and seeing things that are not there. This is not an attempt to convert people. It is a statement of fact (arguably a lot more factual than “Jesus died for your sins”, which nobody took notice of). It is an educational campaign along the lines of: Smoking may kill you.
Hopefully, people who read it will start to think and if that in the future results in less interference by religion-based laws and regulations in our lives, we can all thank God (or whatever).
I was brought up as a typical Maltese Catholic, all bells and whistles, including sacraments and full church school regime. The whole hog! When I was around 14, I realised that I did not really believe in all this male chauvinistic magic, and that I was really an atheist. Not much of a struggle to come to terms with that; it was like accepting the inevitable really. Once you come to your conclusions, religion seems so obviously fake, medieval and quasi hilarious.
I am fully in synch with “probably”. It’s the same with a lot of other things in the physical world – the big bang, the extinction of dinosaurs, the physics of matter and energy, life on other planets – who can say for sure?
I see the point about trying to “convert” believers to atheism. Waste of time if you ask me. I think, however, that the current movement is more of a “coming out” thing rather than a crusade. It’s raising awareness – that it’s not bad to be an atheist and to try to make it politically incorrect to discriminate against non-religiously inclined people. Especially so in Catholic fundamentalist countries such as Malta.
I would like to see atheists proclaiming publicly their belief (or lack of it) in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. Now that would take some guts and that is where I would admire them for their convictions.
Daphne-Silvio Berlusconi has succeded in making Italy a two-bloc political democracy and on corruption no court has as yet found him guilty of corruption in spite of the crusade against him by left wing magistrates. Just a note on Italy: in that country there were no Banks of Scotland, Northern Rocks and the like. And Italy’s euro has stood the times more than the Queen-faced Sterling. And what about the former Conservative sleaze Ministers and Labour’s “cash for honours” and the PRESENT Lord’s corruption?
[Daphne – Ho-hum. That old England-Italy thing again. Funny, but I didn’t know the euro was Italy’s, and that Silvio Berlusconi – he who is not corrupt because no court has found him guilty of corruption (“yet”) – had allowed all those other countries in the Eurozone to use it.]
@ Lino Cert
“They should run a similar campaign on Maltese buses, the slogan should read “There is a God, and He is probably driving this bus”.
I thought of another one that could run on Maltese buses:
“God, if you exist, please save the people on this bus”
@david farrugia
How on earth could one call Silvio Berlusconi’s control over the Italian media ‘democratic’?
http://www.wikio.com/article/68016393
This reminded me of Carlsberg’s advert tagline …. “Probably the best beer in the world”. Usually adverts tell us the product is definetely the best, but apparently Danish laws do not allow you to, since you can’t prove it. Also, it gives a sense of credibility, as the source is not being dogmatic and arrogant.
[Daphne – I don’t know what Danish laws have to do with it, when the advertisements are published outside Denmark. The laws which govern advertising are territorial.]
You are being contradictory when you take it against Italian politicians for banning adverts on buses stating that there is probably no God and at the same time censuring the promoters of those adverts because, in your opinion, they are being ‘spoil-sports’ in ‘shaking others from their comfort zone’, in other words, denying believers the comfort of their faith, unnecessarily and just for the hell of it.
A believer and an atheist have one thing in common. Neither of them is quite sure of the existence or the non-existence of God. Perhaps that is why they are always going on about it, to reassure themselves in their belief and non-belief.
As regards children and Father Christmas, you should know that unlike God, who may or may not exist, every adult knows that Father Christmas definitely does not exist. Would you rather that children have their fun by being lied to? Would children, when they grow up and discover that they had been lied to continuously during their formative years, have complete trust in adults, even those most close to them?
I see that you have veered somewhat from your usual views on the subject. Please try to be consistent in your writing.
I would also like to congratulate you on your reply to David Farrugia. It seems that apart from your other attributes, you have now become an authority on Italian politics.
[Daphne – 1. No, I am not being contradictory. I fully uphold the right of people to say things with which I do not agree. You appear to be one of those people who make the mental leap from disagreeing with something to saying that it should be banned because you disagree with it. 2. Agreed. 3. You’re either not a father or if you are, you’re not the sort that a child would like to have, given a choice. Maybe you grew up without Father Christmas and there were no stockings packed with presents for you, which is why you don’t understand this one. I have not veered from my usual views on Father Christmas. I think he is one of the most important parts of Christmas, more important even than Baby Jesus, because he represents the true, essential spirit of Christmas. 4. Nobody is an authority on Italian politics. By the time you’re up to speed, things have changed again.]
I have to say I disagree with most of what Daphne has said, and that there is definitely an element of delusion in how she ties ethics to religion, and how religion helps societies become more sympathetic and moral. If you look in the Human Development Index, you’ll see that the majority of the world’s top 10 countries such as: Japan, Sweden, Denmark, are all atheistic countries, and highly secular; they do not teach religion in schools, and no indoctrination takes place. In fact, they have the lowest crime rates.
I can say that personally, growing up in Japan, my parents who are non-religious never tried to indoctrinate me in any way, and were accepting of whatever belief or religion I chose without criticism, but with complete acceptance and love.
I think that ultimately in the big picture, these atheist bus campaigns can only do the world good. Atheism or secularism increases as educational standards and living standards increase in a nation. You can wiki the average IQ per nation, and you’ll see that the nations with the smartest people are all atheistic countries.
As atheism rises in countries, the crime rates plummet, as people start to take complete responsibility for their actions, as they cannot throw their sins or responsibility on a third party such as Jesus, through a broker such as the clergy, and end up making the same moral mistakes over and over again as they know they will be forgiven. Don’t take my word for it, investigate it yourself, and you’ll see that it coincides with your own wisdom.
I think ultimately, the atheists have a problem with the religious community trying to affect the political system by trying to enforce such things as: no divorce, or compulsory religious lessons, which has little or no relevance to secular society or morality; I agree that studies on comparative religion would be useful in schools to better understand history, but classes such as ethics or philosphy would be more useful than religion.
Lastly, the atheist community have a problem with the ‘no tax’ status of religious organisations, as ultimately, they try to attract customers and clients and receive money for services rendered. To the secular community, it makes sense that these businesses should have to pay taxes as well, just like everybody else.
Please don’t take this as an affront to your discourse; i wish you much peace and unconditional compassion.
1. The sentiment expressed in the advert campaign is more agnostic leaning than atheistic – agnostic in the sense that even if some kind of god may exist, such existence does nothing to life on this earth.
2. Looking at the psychological dimension of god-belief, the god-existence belief is not as important as the belief in an eternal personalised soul. The question therefore begs: assuming some kind of power/god exists, what are the chances that we do have an eternal soul? Practically nil I say.
3. The big question dealt in the above contribution follows: why should we lead a kind and good life in the absence of a soul that will be judged for the ultimate prize? One agnostic/atheist answer is that happiness is only achieved by being ‘good’. This is, after all, at the heart of all religions. It is a pity that while ‘man’s’ reason leads to this; natural instinct leads to mutual ‘mutilation’ resulting in general boredom and unhappiness.
It is indeed sad that the ad campaign fails to hit on this important aspect of any civilised society.
Sorry to post this here but I wanted to draw your attention to how Denis Catania “debates” when someone who does not hate “the illegals” occasionally posts something on his Facebook site. Shaun posted several messages none of which (as far as I could see) were offensive in any way but simply highlighted the flawed arguments made by Catania and his clique.
Denis Catania (New York, NY) wrote
at 2:11pm
Does anyone have anything else to say to this Norwegian JERK!!!! Before I delete her and ban her sorry ASS.
Shaun’s messages were along the lines of this one below:
Shaun wrote at 10:51am
“The petition is so the Maltese government could realize what is happening to our country with the thousands of klandestini entering Malta and Gozo.”
So what is happening to our country because of these immigrants? You failed to explain what’s so bad about them.
To add a little more to the ‘probably’ theme….
As somebody mentioned previously the word probably is related to the fact that there is no proof that god exists OR that such a thing doesn’t.
The issue is that logic, reason and fairness dictate that we subject both the idea of the existence or non-existence of god to the same standards of proof. Proper standards of proof mean those to which we subject ourselves in courts of law or those to which we subject scientific theories.
And if we do that we will find that there is not a single shred of proper evidence for the existence of a deity, and a ton of evidence for the opposite, or at any rate, huge amounts of evidence demolishing the evidence in favour of one or the other god.
Evidence in favour of the existence of some kind of ‘mainstream’ deity is of exactly the same kind as that of the evidence in favour of the existence of The Flying Spaghetti Monster (followers are known as Pastafarians – for the founding text, see http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/), The Invisible Pink Unicorn, and their progenitor faith, Bertrand Russel’s Celestial Teapot.
So whilst there is no conclusive proof that god does not exist, well, the evidence is pointing in that direction. So there (most) probably is no god.
And it’s about time that believers lost their special privilege to get offended and play the hurt feelings/blasphemy card whenever anyone challenges the veracity or plausibility of their beliefs, when they’re not burying us in spectacular twists of logic and non-sequiturs.
As to the stridency of atheists or otherwise, and their similarity to believers, well, it’s not altogether unjustified. Huge numbers of adherents to the three major monotheistic faiths believe that the end of the world is a good thing, and a large enough number are actively working to bring that about. So, quite frankly, the less people believe in a god which encourages them to work towards the end of the world, the safer we feel.
Please also remember that no-one is using Father Christmas or the tooth fairy as a raison d’etre for war, genocide, oppression of women etc.
If you find Richard Dawkin’s scientific approach boring, try Christopher Hitchens for something a little more fiery and offensive, if that’s your taste. For, among other things, an analysis of the different standards applied to religion see Sam Harris. Lots of speeches and debates can be found on youtube, http://www.fora.tv and google video.
In conclusion, note that through the course of history, about 10,000 religions have been put forward and preached. Most believers in one or the other absolutely disbelieve in the other 9,999 religions. In other words most believers are actually 99.99% atheists. All of them find it easy and obvious to point out the flaws, fallacies and confidence tricks of other people’s religions.
Some of us just go one god further.
@ Reuben:
1) Richard Dawkins is a monumental w****r, regardless of whether his opinions are correct. In today’s world, however, he is seen as a genius, regardless of whether his opinions are correct.
2) All of the atheists I know (i.e everyone I know except the Muslims), bar none, are complete imbeciles. Being an atheist does not put you above the rest of the scum. At least if you follow a religion, you can contribute a few seconds of interesting conversation.
Christopher Hitchens
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD0B-X9LJjs
Last night’s comment by Dr. John Consiglio kind of confirms the feeling me and others here had:
“When man loses: (1) the sense of God, (2) the sense of sin, (3) the sense of faith, then man starts behaving no different to the worst in the animal kingdom.”
Now we are the worst kind of animals cause we are atheists. Nice!
Source of last comment:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/blogs/view/20090203/fr-joe-borg/are-we-on-the-eve-of-the-death-of-democracy
H.P. Baxxter: “Richard Dawkins is a monumental w****r, regardless of whether his opinions are correct. In today’s world, however, he is seen as a genius, regardless of whether his opinions are correct.”
You will find that the general consensus of him being a genius is not due to his non-religious view, but of his contributions to science and in particular evolutionary biology.
@Holland: “It is ignorant to say that god definitely does not exist. As ignorant as saying that he surely does exist.”
By your logic it would also be ignorant to say that Big Foot and Father Christmas certainly do not exist, because we can never be certain if they exist or not. In that case we might as well scrap the whole concept of “existence” because what exists is merely a matter of opinion, I guess.
@Steve: “I would guess that most atheists are scientific and logical people. They have found no proof that a God exists, but they also have found no proof he doesn’t exist. They rightly think it would be hypocritical to say there is no God, as it would mean they are as dogmatic about their cause as the believers.”
Atheists are people who do not believe in god. If you’re “not sure”, you’re not an atheist, but a skeptic or agnostic.
@ H.P Baxxter
Thank you for your enlightening contribution. I presume that this that hotchpotch of bias, stereotype, bile and intolerance make for as you say, ” a few seconds of interesting conversation”.
Has Mr Baxter “possibly” highlighted the quality of conversation to be had with a non imbecile believer.
@H.P Baxxter
“2) All of the atheists I know (i.e everyone I know except the Muslims), bar none, are complete imbeciles. Being an atheist does not put you above the rest of the scum. At least if you follow a religion, you can contribute a few seconds of interesting conversation”
Now thats a nice rational, friendly example of tolerance and rational debate. Thanks for compliment. Although of course, I’m not the one who believes in a talking snake, an imaginary man in the sky who knows everything about everyone aat all times etc etc etc
Here’s a few people, who, by your warped standards are imbeciles and never contributed ‘a few seconds of interesting conversation.
http://www.wonderfulatheistsofcfl.org/Quotes.htm
@ Matt T.
‘Lastly, the atheist community have a problem with the ‘no tax’ status of religious organisations, as ultimately, they try to attract customers and clients and receive money for services rendered. To the secular community, it makes sense that these businesses should have to pay taxes as well, just like everybody else.’
It’s worse than that here in Austria – the Catholic church COLLECTS tax from its adherents. You have to leave the Church if you don’t accept to pay this tax. When I moved here I spent some weeks registering as unemployed, during which time the Church demanded about €35 per month. The slogan here should be ‘THERE IS NOTHING SO CERTAIN AS GOD AND HIS TAXES’
GOD bless our children
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090206/local/the-most-colourful-school-around
I know it’s off point but here’s something interesting about Berlusconi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl-yIkUh5fg&feature=related
It’s a documentary in six parts, so get comfy
@H.P. Baxxter
Are you saying that only those who follow a religion can contribute to an interesting conversation? What a load of rubbish! Don’t generalize! I’ve had some very interesting conversations with atheists and non-atheists (Catholic priests and devout and not so devout Muslims to name a few)
As for Richard Dawkins, he may or may not be a monumental w****r, but I don’t know him, and I doubt you do either, so I’ll reserve judgment.
@ H.P. Baxxter
What are you on about?
@MikeC
Mike, you are the only person I know that does not know any Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, etc. Amazing!
Is it not impossible to prove a negative? And therefore the “probably” is necessary?
@Alex
Very interesting and as you would expect, censored by the Berlusconi media in Italy.The Italian way of democracy, I suppose.
What I’m on about is that I’m surrounded by a bunch of imbeciles, who all happen to be atheists. Like Richard Dawkins, I deduce a correlation between the two. In Malta, the situation would be reversed, since being an atheist makes you “different”. In the rest of 21st century Europe, it is the believers who go against the flow.
As for the bile, yes, if I weren’t full of bile I wouldn’t be writing on this blog.
p.s. @MikeC: When did I ever say I believe in a talking snake?
@simon
Not sure what you mean about not knowing any Christians etc – I was quoting HP Baxxter and responding to his intolerant and bigoted comments.
Now you mention it, of course, not sure I know any REAL Christians…..
Tim Ripard writes: “It’s worse than that here in Austria – the Catholic church COLLECTS tax from its adherents. You have to leave the Church if you don’t accept to pay this tax”.
Same as in Germany, the possible advantage thereof being that Angela Merkel allowed herself to address and admonish the German Pope publicly and directly re Williamson!
p.s.: Angela Merkel is the daughter of a Protestant pastor.
Simon,
Speaking of negatives, I thought I would ask the contributers on this thread a question. What two ‘positives’ make a ‘negative’? Think it sums up this meandering thread. No one has the answer? Answer is ‘Yeah, right’.
An advertising campaigns informing us that there is ‘probably’ no God and that we should stop worrying and enjoy our lives?
Great. Here in America, we’re having a ball contemplating our vanished retirement funds, our vanishing employment, in many cases, our vanishing homes. What the bankers didn’t steal, Madoff did. But not to worry. Take a tip from the atheists. Don’t worry, be happy.
Sheesh.
“Antoine Vella Thursday, 5 February 1836hrs
I would like to see atheists proclaiming publicly their belief (or lack of it) in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. Now that would take some guts and that is where I would admire them for their convictions.”
Very pertinent observation that. Atheists are actually on top of the “most-wanted” list in countries like Saudi Arabia, way above the “people of the Book” , ie Christians and Jews.
@Tim Ripard
Nothing is for free, not even the way up to heaven. In Germany you get excommunicated with your church tax exemption. Do you still pay church tax or do you fear hell?
I don’t know what this island is coming to. It seems that nowadays every Tom, Dick or Harry in Malta is an atheist. There was a time, not too long ago, when I did not know one single other atheist. Whenever I spoke people would listen in amazement. I could hold an audience. Last night I went to a dinner party and it was full of atheists. Nobody was interested in me. Everyone was gathered around this believer, listening to him talk, mouths open in amazement. I was completely ignored. Atheism is no big deal in Malta anymore. I think I will become a believer again. I want to be different. Atheism isn’t fun anymore.
@Harry Purdie
God IS the answer.
@hp baxxter
Why so offensive? Poor misunderstood soul, surrounded by imbeciles. Life must be so tough, labouring on in the face of such adversity. So you don’t believe in the talking snake? Are you absolutely sure? Or maybe you think it probably doesn’t exist? But you believe in your imaginary friend? Why is that any more plausible?
No apple trees? No frolicking about naked in the garden? Clay? Ribs? Plagues? Parted seas? Flat earth? Sun stopping in the sky? Battlements falling to the sound of trumpets? Jonah living in a fish? Water into wine? Loaves & fishes? Do you get to choose which bits to believe? Ignoring the imbecilic bits? Isn’t that a cop-out? Probably is, isn’t it?
By the way, just watched a few videos of Scooter and their front man H.P. Baxxter….. And Richard Dawkins is the w**ker? And WE’RE the imbeciles?
Have a good laugh
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RimESNNG6Ac
@ Andrea. No, I have resigned from the Catholic Church and therefore do not pay church tax, which I found to be the final straw in making me realise I had no faith in the church of Rome. I’m not in the least worried about hell. If it does exist, which I very much doubt, I’m pretty sure I don’t deserve to go there. I believe that there is a deity which no one on earth can understand and that is more or less the sum of my religious beliefs. All other religions are inventions by man designed to win control and power over others.
Unfortunately atheists have to complain publicly because religionists use their tribal beliefs to impose a primitive moral code on everybody else. They want to be treated as being special, when in fact they are not. They end up justifying all sorts of mischief with religion, and when they cannot they do an act of contrition and ask for forgiveness to an imaginary god…
You mentioned children’s fairy tales, let’s leave the adults their superstition too. The problem with that is these adults end up justifying all sorts of discrimination to their fellow men in the name of religion.
Many still treat the story of Moses and the flight out of Egypt as being true. The archaeological evidence points to it being invented state propaganda by some Jewish kings and prophets. In contrast the myth of Troy was taken as being an old fancy story but the archaeological evidence gives it a lot of weight.
I don’t think you could find a harsher insult for ‘The God Delusion’ than comparing it to a bible!
[Daphne – That’s what is, though: the atheist bible.]
I think that’s a bit unfair. I doubt you find that many atheists who really build their whole worldview on the God Delusion. It would probably be a huge compliment to Dawkins if that was true, but it hasn’t converted enough people for that yet.
Personally, if I were to choose to highlight one of the “new atheists” books, my personal favourite is actually Sam Harris’ The End of Faith. Hitchens is definitely the most entertaining read, but Harris digs a lot deeper than any of the others.
@Pat
I would also recommend “The Gospel Of the Flying Spaghetti Monster”, by the Prophet Bobby Henderson.
On the Atheist bus campaign…
…one of the local pundits in Malta took issue with some aspects of the campaign. There were aspects of her criticism that need to be addressed….
http://kenisaverb.blogspot.com/2009/02/on-atheist-bus-campaign.html