Seen On A Bus Ad In London: "There’s Probably No God…" and Humanists

by rabbifink on January 9, 2009 · 3 comments

I live in Los Angeles where we are famous for our billboards. I grew up near New York City famous for its Madison Avenue and advertising. Normally the danger of these advertisements is the images they supply. The images are designed to be salacious and titillating. Apparently London has another whole set of issues they need to deal with on their bus advertisements.

I have a problem with the tone of the advertisement. “There’s probably no God.  Now stop worrying and enjoy your life”. There is a flaw in the logic here. A logical fallacy that cannot be ignored is evident. The argument assumes that if one believes in God then they are worrying and if there is no God then you have no worries. This is false on both accounts. In fact I would say that if there is a God then you don’t need to worry as God must have some sort of plan using Godly wisdom which we cannot fathom. If there is no God then your worries are real. You are part of a random universe subject to the randomness of time. Now that is something to worry about!

The concept for the ads comes from, ironically enough, a blog post. The blogger is upset that London buses were promoting Biblical scriptures. Not everyone believes in God so she found the ads offensive. This I agree with. Scripture on buses reminds me of one of Pacific Jewish Center community member Milton Simon’s favorite ideas. “I have the truth, and you must obey”. Meaning plastering scripture on the side of a bus tells the non-believer that he is a) a bad person and b) going to hell. I find this offensive as well.

The good news is that a blog post can have a big impact!

Behind all of this, is the surging movement of Humanists. They are behind these ads as well as some others which are not as offensive. The ads which are running on Washington D.C. buses read “Why believe in God? Be good for goodness’ sake”. Interesting concept. The truth is that this would be nice. People actually being good for goodness’ sake. But again another fallacy exists in this ad. Belief in God is not so that we should be “good”. We believe that goodness does exist without God. I gave a lecture about this and you can hear / download it on this blog. God is just there to give us a hand so that we know what good is in a given situation. Sometimes it’s too hard for us to know what “good” is. Yes, most of time we have an intuition as to what it is right and what is good. We need God’s higher wisdom to help us out when we don’t know what to do! It happens. Also, sometimes we want to grow. Sometimes we want to be better than good. How can we work on ourselves to be better? We are given instructions in this regard from God as well. So it is nice for the world to be good for goodness’s sake but we want more that just good. We want a life of growth. And we can have it!

Post edited on December 1, 2010.

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Tagged as: ad, advertisement, atheist, God, humanism, humanists, New York Times, the lede

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  • Nick

    I’ve come to this site a little late but felt compelled to give a post.
    The statement “there’s probably no god” is completely accurate and based clearly on much more research than you have done. Given that over the centuries there have been hundreds of gods that you choose not to believe in anymore, and that even today there are a few dozen. It is entirely accurate to say that their all probably wrong.

    It is much more likely that humans fill a need for answers about life and death and social order with religion than a higher power controls the universe.

    Before you jump down my throat about not knowing what im talking about.
    I have read the Bible, and the Koran, and the Tanakh and researched many Sutras in Buddhism (my preferred text).
    I have also read and researched the Theory of evolution and scientific methodology.
    I suggest you do the same, because it really becomes quite clear how the world works once you take a passion in scientific thinking. It allows room for the unknown and challenges you to find the answer. Religion claims to have the answer and fills unknown’s with “having faith”

    The reason he says “probably” is because like any good scientist or atheist should argue, it is impossible to prove a negative, proving something does exist is much easier because we can observe it and test it, proving something wont happen or doesn’t exist is by definition impossible because you cant observe it or test it. Therefore you must always leave open the possibility that you are wrong. Hence “probably”. Regardless of how improbable the possibility.

    The “don’t worry statement” comes from the bibles own flawed logic. If you believe in God then you must by definition believe in hell as well. And lets be honest spending eternity burning would worry most people. What he’s saying in that statement is that you should enjoy your life without the worry of eternal damnation because ultimately religion and God all a load of nonsense. Provocative? – Yes – A good way to convince believers to let religion go? – No, probably not!

    People really need to relearn what science is and how it works. It is a fundimental way of explaining the world around us accuratly and without emotion. If you doubt that then i suggest you count the things that science has contributed too that are in your room that you are sitting in right now. Starting with your computer.

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