Thursday, October 23, 2008



Caring too much

The Guardian and the British Humanist Association have begun an "atheist bus campaign" to counter religious advertising in the UK with some atheist counterpropaganda. But while their message - "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life" - is one I agree with, and it will undoubtedly generate a few smiles while offending some people who deserve to be offended, proselytising is something religious people do. More importantly, I just don't see the point. I don't waste my time believing in gods - but I don't waste my time not believing in them either. The whole idea is simply completely irrelevant to my life. Why bother to stick that on the side of a bus? IMHO, its caring far too much about something no-one should be caring about at all.

Still, if you do care, you can donate online here. They've already reached their initial target (it only took them a few hours after going live), so they're extending the campaign.

(And on a related topic: Salon has a review of Phil Zuckerman's book Society Without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment, which is quite interesting. I doubt the Danes and Swedes would bother with an atheist advertising campaign either - but then again, they have no need to).