From the Telegraph
Prof Richard Dawkins drives support for London’s first atheist bus advert
Campaigners believe the messages will provide a “reassuring” antidote to religious adverts that “threaten eternal damnation” to passengers.
The routes on which the atheist buses could be placed have not yet been fixed, but they would travel through the central London borough of Westminster and so could pass close to Westminster Abbey, a Christian place of worship for more than 1,000 years.
Prof Dawkins, Oxford University’s Professor of the Public Understanding of Science, said: “Religion is accustomed to getting a free ride – automatic tax breaks, unearned ‘respect’ and the right not to be ‘offended’, the right to brainwash children. Even on the buses, nobody thinks twice when they see a religious slogan plastered across the side.
“This campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think – and thinking is anathema to religion.”
When was the last time you saw an advertisement on a bus threatening eternal damnation?
Leaving aside for a moment the question of the truth, or otherwise, of Christianity, how – I almost said ‘in heaven’s name’ – can the promise of no eternity be ‘reassuring’. Without God and life after death, loved ones will be gone forever, morality has no anchor and love itself is a meaningless chemical reaction. If nothingness follows death it makes all that appears before of no consequence – ‘a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’. Jesus promises neither eternal nothingness, nor eternal damnation, but eternal life ‘with joys that earth cannot afford’.
And if Dawkins is suffering under the illusion that ‘thinking is anathema to religion’, clearly he has learned nothing from his encounters with John Lennox.
In a characteristically western spirit of self-flagellation, the British Methodist Church is welcoming the ad campaign. From Here
Rev Jenny Ellis, Spirituality and Discipleship Officer, said, “We are grateful to Richard for his continued interest in God and for encouraging people to think about these issues. This campaign will be a good thing if it gets people to engage with the deepest questions of life.”
Bravo, the British Methodist Church, a very Anglican statement; like you, the Anglican church has difficulty distinguishing between loving its enemies and agreeing with them.
I personally think Dawkins is a little to extreme in his views, yet the points you made against him are problematic, to say the least.
Without God and life after death, sure loved ones would be gone forever, yet is that not precisely why you should value them even more when they are with you? To treasure every moment you spend with them? There is no eternal life afterwards to “patch things up” so you better make sure you don’t blotch it up while they’re around. Besides, just because you prefer to have your loved ones stay with you forever doesn’t entail that it’s factually true. It makes as much sense as to suppose that if I prefer to have a billion dollars, then I’ll have a billion dollars.
Furthermore, it doesn’t imply morality has no anchor. People disagree on what is and isn’t moral because it’s just something people feel (whether it’s because of their family, society, religious belief and etc.). Forcing everyone to conform to 1 type of morality makes little sense rationally and pragmatically. Rationally every religion has their own claims about God and morality, so who’s right and who’s wrong? Pragmatically, forcing everyone to conform to these standards will simply breed intolerance and violence.
Lastly, simply because everyone ends up without consciousness after death, doesn’t make the process pointless. The experience of “now” is very real, along with the feelings of love and pain and other emotions. To simply discredit the process because you end up in the same place is ridiculous. It’s like saying if you get tortured for a year, but in such a way that the wounds and your memory of the experience will disappear in 10 years, then it doesn’t matter whether or not you get tortured for a year. I don’t know about you, but I would strongly prefer not to get tortured at all. The process makes a difference even if the consequence is the same.
Dave,
Thanks for the response. Yes, I agree that the desire to see loved ones again is not a sufficient reason to believe one will. My point was to refute the idea that atheism is “reassuring”: I can’t see how a belief that states that everything ends at death could reassure anyone.
As for morality: the fact that there are generally accepted moral norms is, to my mind, an indicator that standards of good and evil exist outside of humanity’s perception of them. In other words, if humanity ceased to exist, the standards of good and evil would still be there. If that is not so, then, as you say, it comes down to feelings and you have no argument against Hitler who felt that it would be a good thing to exterminate the Jews.
On your last point, it is true, of course, that atheists can experience life and all its joys just as Christians can. That is not to say that the experience has any meaning, though; the search for meaning is one that haunts humanity and no amount of experience quenches that particular thirst. For many people, life’s experience becomes a substitute for meaning; it does not provide it. Leo Tolstoy, at the height of his powers as a novelist, was happily married, had children, was wealthy and was acknowledged worldwide to be one of the greatest writers of his time. He found his life so meaningless that he had to remove rope from his home for fear he would hang himself. He subsequently became a Christian.