Controversial, of course, although many of the big religious leaders claim to be pleased because it stimulates a debate about the metaphysical, an "active conversation about life's big questions" (Theos). Perhaps they see it as an antidote to religious apathy in the UK.You'll notice the little avatar in the sidebar that links to the homepage of the camppaign. Maybe I'd feel offended if it was the other way around, but this is my camp so here's a cause that I can latch onto. I don't believe, and therefore I agree with spreading this idea, because like little Olivier Besancenot, I am fighting for my ideas to become more widespread in the majority.
Except, that it's not as simple as that. Especially when it comes to the uneasy combination of "evangelising" and anti-religious sentiment.
After reading some of the views of supporters of the campaign, on the boards of the campaign's facebook group, for example, it seems the primary motivating factor is a "desire to stand up & be counted", to be "organised" atheists as a counterweight to organised religion. This strikes me as a dissapointingly banal explanation. Is it really community, safety in numbers we want? But aren't these the same people who go around saying such organised religion is a sign of weakness, that convictions about God or his absence are something fundamentally personal? Isn't organised religion public ennemy number one for atheists, rather than just people who believe in God? If you've read Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion", you'll know he sees them as part and parcel of the same loathsome and unpallatable phenomenon. I'm sure Dawkins has other motivations than adapting the principles of organised religion to the Atheist cause. I'm also sure that raising his own profile is one of them, but maybe that's just being cynical.
To tell you the truth, if I see leaflets being handed out in the street telling me to "Repent" now before it's too late, I go out of my way to pick one up, take it home and keep it.
It doesn't take long to realise that it's not just the poor and uneducated who believe. A book that examines this precise fact in more depth that I could really get my head around, is Orhan Pamuk's Snow. If I had my copy here I would quote it at you profusely but unfortunately I don't. In any case, I cannot but be humbled by the presence of so many believers in the world who are far more mentally capable, and far more aware of the mechanics of the world and of human beings than I can ever hope to be. What I find jarring about Dawkins is the way in which he flatly dismisses them all out of hand.
Also, the slogan troubles me a little. There's no god, so stop worrying? The second part doesn't seem to follow. And enjoy your life? The third part follows even less.
Howard Jacobs' criticism of the campaign is slightly harsher than I'm altogether comfortable with, but overall rather insightful:
"Some of the least worried people I know are unworried precisely because they believe in a benign creator who takes individual care of them. Ivan Karamazov on the other hand, is misery incarnate, unable to enjoy a moment of mental peace because he cannot see how, if God does not exist, anything can be deemed unlawful. SINCE THERE'S PROBABLY NO GOD it would say on the bendy bus Ivan hires to drive around St Petersburg, START WORRYING BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED.
Your liberal atheist would have trouble following the moral logic of that because he thinks everything should be permitted. ENJOY YOUR LIFE he says, as though the mere fact of freedom from ethical or religious restraint is a guarantee of enjoyment and enjoyment the only measure of a life well lived."
I'm not a believer myself. But I don't pretend that leaves me better equipped to lead either a good life or a happy one."
Sometimes I wonder, if I could click my fingers and have everybody stop believing right then & there, would I? The world might be simpler, we might have more consensus on some things, but neither of those are certain. It is very doubtful whether most the violence and conflict across the world is really to do with "God" or faith at all. It seems to come from something a lot more material, a lot more substantial, and intrinsically human.
What is certain is the world would be a lot more boring. It's not that I enjoy being told I'm going to burn in hell for eternity by the fire&brimstone Godsquad. I just think I might miss the wondering, the thoughts provoked by the metphysical gridlock encountered whenever dicussing the existence of God with any of my believing friends, one in particular.
I enjoy those conversations. I even like reading the "Quick, Repent!" leaflets, that's why I go looking for them. I collect tacky catholic memorabilia because I am amazed that such objects can mean such a great deal to people, can influence their behaviour, give them strength. For me the priority, is not for all this to vanish.
So I might question the aims of "Breezy universal atheism" as Jacobs disparagingly but quite aptly labels it.
I think it's a shame that atheists have hopped on the defensive. Not least because of the backlash it is likely to provoke. But also because I believe that belief or non-belief is a profoundly personal matter.
"Is it not enough to see that the garden is beautiful without having to believe there are fairies at the bottom of it as well?"
These words of Douglas Adams are the kind of rare & subtle wisdom that inspires and underlies some of my most deeply held convictions, they sum up that which gives me confidence and peace of mind in my disbelief. To see them trivialised emblazoned across a double-decker on route 149 is almost too much to bear. I'd sooner have kept them to myself.
But it is not disbelief or lack of faith alone that guides my view of the world and my place in it. That's only a particle of a whole ecosystem of convictions and credences, one with very murky waters, and which is often foggy and nebulous but definitely not inhabited by a supernatural overlord or omnipotent creator.
The campaign will soon come to Italy where buses will bear the slightly less instructional, and less reductive turn of phrase, which manages to be at once braver and less conclusive:
"La cattiva notizia è che Dio non esiste. Quella buona, è che non ne hai bisogno."
That bad news is that God doesn't exist. The good news, is that you don't need him to.
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