After much deliberation, it appears they’re going to agree with the right to publish the ads.
I finally saw one last weekend. It seems they aren’t all that frequent.
“No God”? Not really - from the article, it’s “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life”. “Probably” being the key word - maybe a weasel word, but it’s as accurate as you can get, IMO. Shouldn’t offend anyone, either - any more than those Sequoia ads all over the freaking place. Those don’t offend me in the least.
The phrasing introduces doubt, which IMHO will have a opposite effect. By saying there is no god one can indulge in sinful pleasure with that as reassurance. But saying ‘probably’, will leave that nagging doubt and cause greater guilt in straying from God (again IMHO)
I said this in an earlier thread, but without the “probably,” the ads aren’t funny, and they are supposed to be funny. I agree there’s no reason for anybody to be offended, but it’s a statement many aren’t used to seeing in public, which makes it worthwhile and is going to bother some people. Oh well. Good to have public agnosticism and atheism in the marketplace of ideas or ads or whatever.
Seems to have a bit of the “militant agnostic” element to it–you know, “I don’t know and you don’t know either.” I love it.
I know at least one person who’s interpreteted such ads ironically—as if an airplane’s passengers were told, “There’s probably no trained pilot in the cockpit. Now stop worrying and enjoy your flight.”
I remember seeing a thread on these ads before, and I just don’t get the point of it. That is, I could understand a religious person wanting an ad that said something like “God loves you” because, obviously, he believes in God and wants to share the message and, depending on his particular beliefs, may hope it could save someone from an unpleasant afterlife.
I just don’t get why an atheist or agnostic would care though. I get that it’s potentially mildly amusing, and I’ve certain spent some money for mild amusement before, but surely that’s considerably more. Sure, they believe what they’re saying, but obviously, convincing other people of that belief won’t save them any unpleasantries. I can understand wanting to debate it, read/write about it, or whatever, but I just don’t understand the motivation here at all. What do they hope to accomplish with this? How will they determine if the ad campaign is successful or not? Do they expect religious people to convert? Do they expect there’s a lot of suffering agnostics who will see it and have a better life?
I also have to wonder, does allowing these sorts of ads also mean that if a religious group wanted to put up a similar counter-ad, assuming they don’t already have ads, they would have to be allowed to do it for the very same reasons that HAG is allowed to do their ads, right?
Not that Canada is getting there necessarily, but with our leading party being rooted in semi-fundamental Christianity, there is some concern that we could see some of our open, secular policies get influenced by religion.
No - no conversions, per se. It does help, IMO, an agnostic like me to know there are groups of people out there that are confident in their lack of belief that they can proclaim it.
“There is probably no God. Now get on with being the replication mechanism for a witless molecule, and stop childishly pretending it means something.” 
Ottawa, eh? So how does the French version or subtitling go?
Pardon my French, but: Existe-il Dieu ou même si non, éviter le mal et faire le bon!
If this is part of the motivation, how does this ad campaign prevent the changing of these secular policies to more religious ones? And, really, if semi-fundamental Christians are getting elected with some of these policy changes metioned, wouldn’t it seem that the majority of Canadians may want some changes? You certainly have the right to disagree and resist them, but I really can’t see how the ad campaign helps but make the agnostic/atheist movement look a bit smug and hypocritical.
I’m fine with wanting affirmation that you’re not alone in your beliefs, but doing an ad campaign seems a little overboard to me. I certainly have some beliefs that are not held by the majority, but if I want affirmation, I can find like-minded friends or use the internet. In fact, the internet seems like a much better way since, as an agnostic, you can find large communities of like-minded people.
But, quite frankly, the ton of the ad doesn’t seem aimed at agnostics at all, but believers. Agnostics don’t need to be told there probably is no God, as they already believe that. It looks more like it’s just a stab at religion.
In fact, Richard Dawkins’ reaction to the original ads in London seems to reinforce this:
The reaction of Hanne Stinson of BHA (leader of the group that financed those ads) had a similar sentiment:
I’m all fine with wanting to spread your message, but this is just a crude methodology, doesn’t seem like it’s effective at all. To me, it just makes it look like atheism and agnosticism are getting eerily close to doing many of the things that I often see them denouncing religion for. In this case, this is all but indistinguishable from unsolicited witnessing.
FTR, I’m also against these sorts of methods for promoting Christianity as well.
As a Christian, I have to wonder…
Just what makes the posters think I’m NOT enjoying my life? What SHOULD I be doing to enjoy life that my faith is holding me back from?
I don’t think they’re saying that Christians can’t enjoy life. They are saying that you don’t have to be a believer to enjoy life… that damnation isn’t really something anybody has to worry about. Ever.
I think a distinction has to be made - there is no “affirmation of belief”. It’s a simple lack of a particular one that is very ingrained in society. I think, if anything, the poster could be a note those raised under the oppression (real or imagined) of a religion that the perceived threat may not be real. Not that they shouldn’t believe in whatever they believe in - just that they don’t have to.
Sorry to pick on this point - by Atheism/Agnostism is not a belief system. There is no system.
None.
No “beliefs”.
The “beliefs” as pertains to any possibility of any diety/whatever are as varied among atheists/agnostics as they are between every religion.
There’s no message saying “come join us” or “there are magic-sky-pixie consequences to what you say/think/do, so follow these rules”. Just that there’s no actual need to worry.
I understand your objections to the use of the word belief because of the stigma attached to it with regard to religion, but it really seems like a semantic argument to me. I’m not using it to imply a belief system. I would argue that someone the likes of Richard Dawkins is bordering on, if not already having crossed over into, an atheist belief system, but that’s neither here nor there. But, quite frankly, the word “belief” doesn’t have that stigma to me because it just means “something I hold to be true”. I suppose that’s because I am Christian myself and, thus, don’t have a desire to separate myself from belief systems in general.
That is, saying “I don’t believe in something” is equivalent to “I believe something doesn’t exist”. So, to take a simpler example, if I say “I don’t believe in the tooth fairy”, it is equivalent to saying “I believe the tooth fairy doesn’t exist”. There’s no pagentry or system or religion attached to belief in the tooth fairy or not believing it it, so it is accurate to say that I have a belief that the tooth fair doesn’t exist. So, when I was refering to athiest beliefs, I’m simply saying that among the things you hold to be true, one of them is that God does not exist.
So, to restate the phrase I used in the first sentence of my post, if it irks you, feel free to replace “affirmation that you’re not alone in your beliefs [that there is no God]” with “affirmation that you’re not alone in not believing in God” or “affirmation that you’re not along in hold it to be true that God does not exist”. I’m not trying to force some sort of pseudo-religious paradigm on whatever you happen to hold as truth, but at the same time, it’s just far more cumbersome and it just doesn’t have a meaningful distinction to me.
As for the point I was trying to make, it was simply an observation that human beings have a desire to know they’re not alone in a situation. For me, it is knowing that other people may share my political ideology, my theology, my musical taste, or any number of characteristics, opinions, and beliefs I have. For an atheist and agnostics, that includes knowing that there are other atheists and agnostics out there.
However, I do believe that the ad is equivalent to a “come join us” sort of message, given the tone and the context of the quotes I posted earlier.