There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life

KNiVES said:
Aggressive atheism is probably just as bad as aggressively pushing your religion though.
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Mmm, that's what it feels like to me.

I've not read or watched one thing by Prof. Dawkins, but he strikes me as knowingly smug - which I dislike immensely. I may not really believe in God or Christ (or at least not in the same way as the established denominations) but I actually rather like our archbishop, Rowan Williams.

What we believe to be the truth about the universe is really a very personal thing which I don't think can or should be swayed by advertising.

The one thing that would draw me back to Christianity is the real feeling of community. I could go back to the church I used to go to for Sunday School any time and I know that half the congregation will know me, welcome me into their homes, and their arms, help me out in a time of need, pray for me (as little as I reckon that helps), be genuinely interested in how I am getting on in life, etc... Like a huge family. That's the only thing I miss.
 
That's pretty amusing and perfectly justified given the religious propeganda that we are all exposed to. Religion is complete bull in my opinion and it's just a method of the ruling classes repressing us peasants.
 
Tunney said:
Richard Dawkins is NOT an atheist. He's agnostic. Atheists are certain that there is no god. Richard Dawkins states that there is no evidence of a god existing and so god 'probably' doesn't exist.

The message from this advert is definitely agnostic.
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Dawkins is plainly an atheist. He says so himself, only qualifying it by saying that he does not know for certain that God does not exist. This is not agnosticism, it is atheism. If you define atheists as those who absolutely, categorically guarantee you that God does not exist then there would not be any atheists in the world at all.

Whether the message in the ad is atheistic or agnostic is a more difficult question. Personally I would say that the heart of its message is that the existence or non-existence of God is an irrelevance. This is neither atheistic nor agnostic.

However, I do agree that people preaching atheism is just as bad as people preaching religion and, in the case of the BHS, fairly self-contradictory.
 
platypus said:
This is probably true, but regardless, its an interesting idea.
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Not really as there is plenty of documented evidence that Muhammed existed. An Islamic counterpoint would be "There is probably no Allah."

And in defence of the posters, looking at the BHA's statement on it, one of the reasons is to provide a counterpoint to similar religious messages on the sides of buses. What's good for the goose and all that.
 
Tunney said:
Richard Dawkins is NOT an atheist. He's agnostic. Atheists are certain that there is no god. Richard Dawkins states that there is no evidence of a god existing and so god 'probably' doesn't exist.

The message from this advert is definitely agnostic.
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Richard Dawkins is an atheist. As soon as you move from "I don't know" to "Probably" you are an atheist.

Atheism is defined as either denial of the existance of gods (Strong atheism, 'I know there is no god') or disbelief in the existance of gods (weak atheism, 'I see no evidence of existance of god and therefore believe gods do not exist')

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheist

He is not an agnostic, which is defined totally differently. Agnosticism is the believe that the existance or non-existance of god is unknown or unknowable. Fundamentally incompatible with absence of evidence is the same as evidence of absence.

The message from the advert is not agnostic either, it's weak atheist, it leans towards making a statement on the god hypothesis.
 
Actually to be fair, "God" isn't a strictly Christian word. Saying there's probably no God will equally mean that there's probably no Jehovah, Allah, Krishna, Xenu, etc...
 
I think that the message of the signs may be a reasonable one, but pretty terribly worded. The wording of them makes it souond like atheistic hypocrisy. I hope, though, that what is actually intended by them is that people realise that religion is not the be all and end all; that whether somebody is religious or not, or whether they follow your religion or a different one, we should still try to get on with them rather than blowing them to pieces.
 
For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction.

These 'actions' are only happening as a response to what the religious have been doing for years.

It's no good claiming that atheism is "[...] the new religion." or that Dawkins is preaching. His actions and that of the Humanist Society (I suggest a lot of you actually read up on what a Humanist is, as it will help you understand why they're doing this) are only 'extreme' as it's the only way they'll be initially listened to. Religion is so deeply embedded in society, it simply wont work to pussy-foot around the issue.

Anyway, we've had the whole 'atheist' and 'Richard Dawkin' debate a thousand times each so far, and to be honest I'm a little bored of the same people beating the same drum.

...and that's why I'm not going to be investing in this thread. I'm out.
 
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sara said:
The one thing that would draw me back to Christianity is the real feeling of community. I could go back to the church I used to go to for Sunday School any time and I know that half the congregation will know me, welcome me into their homes, and their arms, help me out in a time of need, pray for me (as little as I reckon that helps), be genuinely interested in how I am getting on in life, etc... Like a huge family. That's the only thing I miss.
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Sounds like friends really. Too bad about the God thing.
 
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