I see the two ads as being two different steps, and they don’t necessarily have to appear in order. The “You are not alone” ad is for finding and encouraging each other to support each other. The “Probably no God” ad is the second step, to supportively challenge those people who are sitting on the fence, whose commitment to religion is rudimentary and perhaps only from inertia or a kind of default social compliance. Only those people would be likely to reconsider their passively held beliefs by such an ad. The actively devout will be impervious to it and so are not the target audience.

So I disagree with Hemant that the “Probably” ad is just a call-out for hidden atheists, but I am not yet convinced by your argument that the second part of it is by implication insulting to theists.

I don’t think it is intended to get in the face of true believers, or to imply that they are unhappy worry-warts. Maybe we should ask them about their feelings when reading it, rather than assuming it is “demeaning” to them. So far, all the objections I have heard from theists focus on the “Probably no God” sentence, rather than the “relax and enjoy life” sentence. They seem to be ignoring that part, at least from what I have read and heard so far. If you have evidence to the contrary, please let me know.

“Christians keep trying to shove their religion down our throats,”

Actually, I don’t mind that as long as they buy the advertising themselves and don’t get the government to do the forcing.

I am not against religious people getting their point across. There’s plenty of billboard space and IP addresses to go around.

Now that I contend that I don’t mind it, am I allowed to say that I think it’s okay if we do it too?

Thanks for your reply.

Honestly, I prefer “Don’t Believe in God? You are not alone.” When they decided on the other one for my home of Toronto, I really wish we took that instead. It is outreach instead of starting a fight that doesn’t exist here.

Honestly, I like the slogan, I think it’s funny and gets the point across that there is no reason to spend our lives worrying about what some higher power may or may not want, etc. But Hemant said this:

“Those bus ads — which are not antagonistic at all to me — are a way of letting other atheists know they are not alone. It’s a “bat signal” of sorts, calling out to other non-theists. It says there is nothing to be ashamed of and we ought to be proud of our lack of religious beliefs.”

So why don’t we just say that? Why are we trying to intentionally demean those who DO believe in a God in order to reach out to those who don’t? I’m sorry if I read to much into it, but since a big criticism that most atheists make is “Christians keep trying to shove their religion down our throats,” we’re not doing a very good job of taking a high road in this case.

We’ll get criticism regardless, I’m pretty sure all the vitriol against the TTC for the announcement that the ads were going to run would happen either way. I would just rather be proud that we’re reaching out to each other with kindness, rather than doing so with sarcasm. Isn’t that what friendly atheists do?

Atheists want to do more than simply reach out to other isolated atheists. We also want to express our opinion to the rest of society. We want to be heard once in a while above the cacophony of religious chanting and ranting. We have a rightful place in marketplace of ideas as much as anyone else, and I know that you agree with that.

If you think that the current bus ad, “There’s probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” is deliberately incendiary because it implies that theists are not enjoying their life, (you may be reading too much into it, but let’s assume you’re right just for argument) then what would you suggest instead? Would just the first sentence suffice, “There’s probably no god”? or would that still be too incendiary? I appreciate that you think we should stand up and express our non-belief, but how gentle and delicate do we need to be? If we determine our statements only by what does not offend any theists, then we would end up saying nothing. So many seem to take “offence” at even the most courteous and well-mannered disagreement with their beliefs.

It seems there was an entire generation of intellectual atheists between between Bertrand Russell and Richard Dawkins. Who could tell?

Seriously. It seems their entire modus was to retreat to a walled garden and try to live as religious a life as possible without actually believing, and without fundamentally communicating with the outside world.

I understand the red scare drove many of them underground. But honestly, our forbears (pun intended) have much to answer for. What a hostile environment to nonbelief we arrived in. Where was the assertion of equality? Where was the outreach from the walled garden? For all of the exhaulting of humanity at Cambridge, where, at all, was the actual ENGAGEMENT with the rest of humanity?

You know, the non-stiff-upper-lip high-minded?

What of the rest of actual humanity? Well, for them (those stupid, muddy working-class shlubs), they can use the crutch — the “moral prop”. If you ain’t good enough to read Milton, Blake, and Lawrence, well, we aren’t going to dumb it down for you.

Isn’t that the antithesis of “exhaulting humanity”?

And by the way, what’s so great about humanity to begin with? Shouldn’t that very notion of an absolute perfectable nature be examined with extreme skepticism?

So much about what Scruton holds up as the virtues of Humanism strike me as nothing more than arbitrarily chosen ideals. Or rather ideals chosen because they had counterparts within Christianity. Ethical system, check. Sexual restraint, check. Faith (even), check. Even patriotism. Why should patriotism flow naturally from Humanism? I cannot think of a notion more antithetical to Humanism than patriotism. My allegiance is to the IDEALS of America, and if the country departs from those ideals, I do not cleave to the country and forget the ideals.

Humanism *must demand* that we consider ourselves humans before nationalists. What use, then is “Patriotism” as an end or a virtue in and of itself? Suppose we are humanist citizens of a corrupt regime, subjects of Saddam, for example. Is patriotism really a humanist value in that instance?

Everyone reading this is well aware of the open hostility to atheists that exists in America, from the shameless attacks by elected officials, to the silencing by the media, to the outright calls for us to voluntarily silence ourselves from the pundit class (now including Scruton).

This is where Old Humanism brought us. All that bowing and scraping. All of that exhaulting the Human as a pinnacle. All of the toiling in the walled garden while treating the masses as lesser intelectuals not ready to lose their moral prop.

Old Humanism removed themselves from the discussion, retreated to the halls of the intelligencia, ceded their position and abdicated their role within the general public. Where, half a century earlier, Robert Ingersoll, the great agnostic, packed lecture halls and spoke directly to the masses. Where among the Old Humanists is his kind today? Nowhere. I submit to you that we have had no such voice until Richard Dawkins.

It’s the Old Humanism which brought us to be the most distrusted minority in America, and allowed religious authoritarianism to ravage the masses unchecked by any contrary voices. Perhaps it IS time to stop sneaking around, talking in whispers and keeping to our walled gardens.

Time to come into the light, and re-engage the conversation.

Our daughter is growing up to be a nice and militant anti-religion free thinker. More power to her.

Similarly, your complaint is noted and pointless. I think I WILL sod off, then.