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The gods on the DC Buses

The gods on the DC Buses

Postby Kolbitar » December 23rd, 2008, 4:40 pm

(Tried to get the following published as an op-ed in USA todays online religion section, but, sigh, was declined... just wondering what some of you might think)

The gods on the DC Buses

Buses in Washington DC will now carry the "humanist" slogan, "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness sake." But what does that honestly mean? To me it's no different from asking, Why believe in goodness? Just be good for goodness sake. Or, Why believe in God? Just be good for God's sake. Nor can I consider that people who sing this song have seriously taken the music of goodness to heart; otherwise, I believe they would have discovered the desperate need to call upon a muse for divine help, for the art of morality and our inevitable failures to be good are, according to great men like St. Augustine, Blaise Pascal, and C.S. Lewis, the very motive for seeking revelation from God. Moreover, I'd argue that part of "being good for goodness sake" involves believing in God for people's sake; humanists who were good for people's sake wouldn't slight their deepest convictions, and spurn the hope, which attends their faith. To me, the "humanist" slogan is an oxymoron, I see nothing fundamentally humane about it.

The very slogan itself, really, is an embarrassing tribute to its own authors. I'm sorry to say, it shows they either lack an awareness of, or refuse to acknowledge, the fact that God is not just a being religion holds exists, but philosophy does as well; that He's not only an object of faith, but of reason too; and, in either case, that it's traditionally posited that God is distinguished from all else by having no limitations, so that the slogan reading "a god" is confused from the start. There is and can only be one God, THE God; another "god" would have to be distinguished in some way, which would involve a limitation, thus would not BE God. In a country founded by Christians and deists, who believed in a basic idea of God, which served as the foundation of human ethics, is there, then, perhaps more to this inaccuracy than meets the eye? It's an ever-present temptation for those who want dramatically to alter the present to blur the past, even, I would think, if it starts with the most subtle propaganda (like inaccurate and uncharitable bus slogans).

"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath?" Apparently, Thomas Jefferson would seriously doubt that a nation "can be good for goodness sake", that is, if goodness is deprived of an eternal context, i.e., divorced from the notion of God. This philosophical deism of a Jefferson or a Franklin, however, is, in itself, practically dead, and only really survives into the present through living forms of Christianity (like Evangelical Protestant and Conservative Catholic Christianity). The rub for certain people is that these active forms of Christianity are, in large part, the primary forces behind things like saving traditional marriage, banning embryonic stem cell research, and attempting to overturn Roe v. Wade. In other words, belief in a God of "justice" and "wrath" currently translates politically, so that political reaction, I'd suggest, is what drives things like "humanist" bus ads.

I hear and read all of the time that people motivated by faith should keep their religion out of the political arena. To an extent I believe this principle is correct, but I think it helps to define that extent, which is really only to reclaim what I believe was understood by our founders, and by those in their succession, like Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr.

I'd like to do this, to define that extent, with the help of one more quote from Jefferson, "A free people claim their rights as derived from the laws of nature." For many, that quote might understandably bring to mind the phrase in the Declaration of Independence reading, "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God", especially in light of Jefferson's earlier quote. But the point is that no one that I'm aware of wants to introduce articles of faith into the political arena -- no one, for instance, wants to force public schools to recite the Nicene Creed or, perhaps instead of fluoride, to take Holy Communion wine. Instead, the controversial issues rest, and should be discussed, at the level of "natural law"; that is, as subjects of reason, not faith. Whether or not one's reason is motivated by faith should be of nobody's concern, but that, I'm afraid, is what really angers people.

Indeed, it's religious motivation, I believe, that "humanist" reactionaries attempt to undermine through things like inaccurate and uncharitable bus slogans. To be sure, humanists have their own motives. The atheist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche knew that the death of belief in God would mean the rise of our own selfish motives as gods in His place. Humanist slogans, in that case, might ultimately and more accurately read, "Why believe in God? Trust in OUR gods for goodness sake."
The man who lives in contact with what he believes to be a living Church is a man always expecting to meet Plato and Shakespeare tomorrow at breakfast. He is always expecting to see some truth that he has never seen before. --Chesterton

Sober Inebriation: http://soberinebriationblog.blogspot.com/
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Re: The gods on the DC Buses

Postby moogdroog » December 27th, 2008, 9:32 pm

They sound like the kind of adverts currently running on London buses - 'There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and get on with your life'. What disturbs me isn't the explicit attack on faith (c'mon - Christians are pretty used to this by now. Snore!) but the implicit encouragement for people to take the semantics of 'goodness' as 'something opposed to religion'. This kind of advertising seems to work in a 'nudge nudge, wink wink' propaganda kind of way to me: 'hey, you don't need to think about the philosophical, historical or linguistic semantics of this. You know, those God-botherers are only good because some bearded guy in the sky tells 'em to be, and they're scared they're gonna go to hell! Well, me and you, we're smarter than that!' I wonder if socially we are losing certain tools for logical/literary/philosophical thinking and analysis - how we discern meaning, context and implications, whether a thinking person of faith, a thinking agnostic or a thinking atheist.
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Re: The gods on the DC Buses

Postby Mornche Geddick » January 3rd, 2009, 10:39 am

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Re: The gods on the DC Buses

Postby Karen » January 7th, 2009, 3:46 pm

I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library. -- Jorge Luis Borges
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Re: The gods on the DC Buses

Postby Lioba » January 8th, 2009, 10:42 am

I simply cannot understand how I can advertise in favour of "nothing". If someone simply says: I do not believe in God,people will almost automatically ask- what do you believe instead of this? Which answer will be given- I do trust in science, I do hope that people will choose a honest lifestyle in the face of the absurdity of life and so on, it will always be a kind of believe or hope or longing. Can we really avoid "believing " at all?
About morals as " being good for goodness sake".Would it not be reasonable to take side with those who have the same interests as I have. In times of declining virtue and morality would a serious humanist not rather cooperate with believers who stand up for human values than deepening the gap and fighting them?
It looks to me as if some people willfully adulterate the picture of religion by limiting it to its lapses and conceil its positive aspects.For example some take the fights between Isreal and Palestine or the former civil war in northern Ireland and say- look that´s what we got from religion, the world would be a better place without that nonsense. But that is obviously wrong- wars are about political interests, land,natural resources and so on.Sometimes they take place between people of different religions or cultures, what might deepen the gap and make understanding more difficult. But as often we have war between people of the same race, culture and religion.It is so simple and obvious that I cannot believe an intelligent person doesn´t see this, so everybody who denunciates religion by such arguments is in my eyes someone who consciously lies.
Here in Germany I didn´t yet see such aggressive advertisements.But a few years ago their was an interesting case.
A big theater in Hamburg had "modernized " a play in such way, that really all religious groups felt insulted.Only the muslims protested openly, declaring that they saw some scenes not as an insult to their feelings or believes(what would have been a useful argument before a court of law) but as a straightforward offence against the person of the prophet Mohammed. The play was stopped with the argument of the danger of terroristic islamic actions, although most german muslims are turkish people who do not sympathise with the middle east groups of terrrorists.
Afterwards their were lots of lamenatons about the freedom of art sacrifised. I must confess, that the muslim reaction was in my eyes the bravest and most honest of all.
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Re: The gods on the DC Buses

Postby MoogieCha » February 6th, 2009, 6:41 am

Here in Vancouver, BC (Canada), we're getting the slogan "You can be good without God," or something to that effect. I have to admit my first reaction was a negative one. Afterall, in England the atheist bus campaign was dreamed up to counter to a Christian bus slogan. The humanists here, though, would be the instigators. :sad:

After thinking about it, though, I've come to hope that some good discussion will come of this and that those of us who are Christians won't shy away from them. I can see my colleagues saying things like, "I don't believe in God, and I do good things." Which will raise the question whether doing good things makes one "good." And if my friends say, "Yes," then I'd have to ask if the opposite were true: does committing one sin then make you a sinner? :wink:

I'd started a poll in Christian Fellowship on this topic (not having seen this thread), and have had 2 or 3 good responses, particularly on the idea of "good." Lewis had a lot to say on the matter in Mere Christianity.
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Re: The gods on the DC Buses

Postby Bluegoat » February 7th, 2009, 1:09 pm

Yes, in Halifax they tried to put these in the buses as well. However, the bus company has rejected them, which caused a very small argument. But I find the idea of agnostic missionaries quite funny and fascinating.
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Re: The gods on the DC Buses

Postby hammurabi2000 » February 7th, 2009, 2:44 pm

Interesting that some people want to spend their money on such advertising.
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Re: The gods on the DC Buses

Postby MoogieCha » February 8th, 2009, 6:25 am

Update: the transit company here in Vancouver has decided against the humanist ad campaign! I'm actually really surprised!

Here's part of what it said on their website:

"Ad Declined Pursuant to Advertising Policy

The BC Humanist Association has submitted creative material and an advertising order to have the material displayed on Metro Vancouver’s public transit system to Lamar Advertising, the company that markets transit advertising space for TransLink.
The message on the creative material is, “You can be good without God.”

TransLink has reviewed this material and determined that it does not meet the criteria set out in its Advertising Policy for advertisements on the public transit system. For example, the Advertising Policy contains the following limitation:

No advertisement will be accepted which promotes or opposes a specific theology or religious ethic, point of view, policy or action.

As such, the organization has been informed that its advertising order cannot be accepted."

(Sorry, John, I posted this quote on another post but dunno how to erase it.)
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Re: The gods on the DC Buses

Postby john » February 8th, 2009, 3:03 pm

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Re: The gods on the DC Buses

Postby Lioba » February 9th, 2009, 11:12 am

In Great Britain there is a reaction on this kind of advertisements by the Catholic church.for example their is a poster quoting one of the slogans-There is probably no god- so stop worrying and enjoy your life and showing a picture of Mother Teresas work- meant as a contradiction to the slogan.
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Re: The gods on the DC Buses

Postby Bluegoat » February 10th, 2009, 7:41 pm

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Re: The gods on the DC Buses

Postby moogdroog » February 10th, 2009, 8:16 pm

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Re: The gods on the DC Buses

Postby Lioba » February 10th, 2009, 8:20 pm

@bluegoat:
You might be right bluegoat, in the post-mortem publications of her personal thoughts she revealed a lot of inner fights and troubles- that makes her work even more precious and authentic.

@moogdroog- found it in a catholic german forum

http://www.kreuzgang.org/viewtopic.php? ... 42#p253542
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Re: The gods on the DC Buses

Postby john » February 19th, 2009, 4:14 pm

http://www.metronews.ca/ottawa/local/article/184222

FTA: “When statements are said that God probably does not exist, this is an implied statement of hatred towards all those who do believe that God exists.”
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