Yes. They’re no Carl Sagan that’s for sure.
Right but people talk about them as though they are their best buds, fellow travellers fighting the good fight against all those stupid bastards, everywhere else.
Hey, if you want to use Fred Phelps as you counter-example to Richard Dawkins be my guest.
Enough power to get a sign on the buses, That is more than I thought we could have. Love to see that on a Detroit bus.
Please go back and read my post. I’m not accusing anyone of being illogical. Der Trihs said that religion is irrational and anyone who practiced it was also irrational. I asked him to back up his claims. All clear?
Yes, premises matter. They matter in faith as much as they matter in science or geometry, etc. Your point?
Catchy…good beat and I can dance to it 
But, no, not really an effective way to convert (or would that be “UNconvert”?) anyone.
Actually, I think that slogan would go over very well with 2 groups: those who already don’t believe in a god and those who are undecided/agnostic. (my 16 yr old son would love it)
Those who already believe in a god will not be influenced. EXCEPT, as was pointed out, to take the campaign as further evidence of some massive conspiracy against them. As such, it would only serve to strengthen their faith and make them more active in opposing the rights of groups to post such slogans on buses.
I DO happen to believe in a Higher Power (though the term “god” has been so corrupted I hesitate to use it) but I generally agree with the slogan and would have no problem with seeing it on buses or elsewhere.
But in the US, which is populated by a significant minority of radical fundamentalist Christians and a majority of “godists” according to most polls, such a campaign would NOT go over well.
Then again, if drawing huge amounts of publicity is the goal, it would go over like mad!
I suppose it comes down to balancing out the number and value of those the campaign influenced to become even more radically religious and those it influenced to become even more secure in their lack of religiosity.
Very good post, Observer.
I personally don’t see it as an attempt to “unconvert” anyone. Where I live, religious groups have been buying billboard space to promote their views. Hey, if that’s how they want to spend their money, that’s their right. And it’s equally the right of atheist groups to do the same. It’s about time the opposite viewpoint got some “face time”.
That being said, you’re probably right about that campaign not going over well here in the US. But so what? The point of such a campaign would be to let the public know that there is an alternative to theism, not to sell a product. As I read the British slogan, it doesn’t insult believers–that is, it doesn’t say, “People who believe in god(s) are idiots.” Anyone who would infer that from the slogan probably already felt that way. I am not one of those; I’m an atheist, but if believing in God or Cthulu or Zeus, etc. gives you strength, purpose or succor, hey, I say go for it. It’s just not for me.
I would definitely welcome the publicity, though. Maybe this would be the first step in getting atheism “out of the closet” and showing the country:
a) We’re not evil, traitors, or immoral, and
b) There’s a lot more of us than you’d like to believe there are.
At a Republican campaign stop recently, a prominent local “conservative” stated, “Real Americans believe in God!” The “faith=patriotism” argument is the one thing that bothers me more than anything else. If a campaign like the one in Great Britain eventually eliminates (or at least marginalizes) that mindset, it will have succeeded in my eyes. In fact, how about this: an ad portraying a soldier or veteran who says, “Hi, I’m Joe. I served my country in two wars…and I’m an atheist.” or something similar.
I’m grouping together these posters who asked very similar questions:
The underlying theme here seems to be that there can only be one type of rationality. I challenge this assumption and refer you to Stanley Tambiah’s book, Magic, Science, Religion and the Scope of Rationality wherein he points out that there can be multiple orderings of reality. You can look at the world around you and find a variety of ways to make sense of it, to find a variety of logical, rational patterns behind it. These different orderings all work with their own logic. This isn’t to say that western style rationalism is invalid, but rather it’s own unique cultural roots have to be accounted for. For a specific cultural example, try Mary Douglas’s Purity and Danger, especially in chapter 3 wherein she explains the logic behind the food codes in Leviticus with the classic example of why pig flesh is forbidden. Essentially, it’s forbidden because it’s not considered proper food. Because pigs are four legged animals with cloven hooves yet they don’t chew their cud, the ancient Israelites did not considered them (or were told by God to not eat them) proper food. Now do you see? Completely different logic with its own set of rules with a very different opinion based on different cultural imperatives.
Here’s another example, one not based on religion at all. Consider a map of our planet. This is a geographical map, showing only geographical features: mountains, oceans, plains, deserts, lakes, etc. Now consider a different map, still of our planet, but now of the political entities as of this year, 2008. You’ll still see the same features as on the geographical map, but now there are all these lines. These lines mark the political entities. Yet those lines have no physical basis, they don’t exist except as a convenience to mark political entities. Yet we pay serious attention to them. Consider the line the separates the northern US from the southern part of Canada. We pay serious attention to that line and who crosses it and for what reason. Yet the line and what it represents has no physical reality. If you view the world only in terms of physical geography (one type of logic or rationality), those lines marking political organizations make no sense. They certainly don’t have a physical reality to them. And you won’t pay attention to something that has no physical reality, right? Yet those lines do have reason and logic behind them, tho that logic would not make much sense to a person who only views the world in terms of physical geography.
Your example is internally consistent, but it is dependent on you taking “Four legged animals with cloven hooves that don’t chew their cud aren’t proper food” as a given. It is the equivalent to “If A, then B”: it doesn’t let you say B is true unless you first know A is true. So if you don’t have a rational reason to believe A is true, believing B without any additional evidence is equally irrational.
Say you want to get people to quit smoking. One way is to present evidence that it causes cancer. Another way is to tell people that smoke strengthens the devil, with no evidence. Isn’t that an irrational justification? That the cause is good is not what is at issue here. Certainly not murdering is justified, but we can find better reasons not to do so that an invisible deity forbidding it.
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This I don’t get at all. No one claims borders are physical. They change over time at the whim of war and politics, and are nothing but conventions, like splitting time into weeks. Don’t you think a jingoist who is willing to die to keep a border from moving a mile in some direction is irrational?
Maybe the priests who invented god to explain the world (and make a nice living) were rational - but those who blindly believed weren’t. I think many believers would argue that faith trumps reason, and would proudly claim the mantle of irrationality if it didn’t come with the baggage of implying someone is deranged.
I disagree with your first point, Dawkins is not a crank. although I will concede that he does not always come across well.
I think that religious education is a form of child abuse, in so far as teaching children erroneous information can be classed as abuse.
How can we decide which mythology is acceptable to teach kids?
As well as god do we teach kids about elves, vampires, ghosts and UFOs all of which have well defined belief systems and greater or lesser numbers of devotees?
I have real problems with schools teaching religion as anything other than comparitive mythology. IMHO the bible and the koran and other religious texts belong on the same shelf as the bumper book of fairy stories.
I challenge your assumption that all types of rationality have equally value. Forbidding a primitive group to eat an animal that carries dangerous parasites is rational and valuable. Forbidding them to eat them because of their number or type of feet might have the same effect, but it’s not rational. If the group ignores other animals that are safe to eat because of this, then it’s harmful. Again, it’s the assumptions that are not rational. Why are four legged animals with cloven hooves that don’t chew their cud bad? This ‘logic’ only follows if the assumption is rational.
This isn’t another form of logic. Border are artificial definitions that humans impose. We have lots of them. They don’t require logic, in fact I don’t see a lot of reason or logic going on when it comes to countries & borders.
*Religion *- my devout belief in my true god.
*Mythology *- your foolish and misguided belief in your false god.
My dad lives in the exurbs and I live in the city. When I visit him, I usually come on Saturday afternoon and stay overnight. I was usually invited to church on Sundays and I declined. Then one Saturday night I added, “I’m an atheist.” I got into a heated argument with my stepmom. I thought they knew I was an atheist, but apparently not. I don’t keep it a secret. My brother, the Biblical scholar(literally), and I have had some enjoyable debates.
My point, again, is that many people don’t realize that many people around them are non-believers. I am for anything that shows that we’re not scary or evil, just normal folks. We need to promote atheist awareness. We’re one of the least trusted minorities in the USA and that scares me.
I’ve just read the article in your link, it is very worrying that atheists are viewed so negatively in the USA. In the UK it doesn’t seem that bad, yet. Although after a fairly optimistic period in the '90s with the decline of the Church of England, faith groups once again seem to be rearing their ugly heads and trying to force creationism etc down peoples throats, for example with the creation of City Academies.
I do wonder in this post 911 world if the rise of fundamentalist Christianity is a response to the percieved threat of fundamentalist Islam?