The bus to Planet Hedonism

david skinner

Be anxious this Christmas if you are not eating , drinking and being merry because this paper - thin, meaningless and purposeless existence is all that there is. - Dawkins

Augustus

As the old saying goes: In the land of the blind, the one-eyed is king. Equally, in the world of intellectuals, God, in the form of goodness, appears last of all, and is seen only with a great effort. When seen, however, it can only lead to the conclusion that He is the universal author of all things right and beautiful. And not only that He is the source of light in the visible world, but also the immediate source of reason and truth in the intelligible world. Without having seen this form of goodness, and fixed one's eye upon it, one will have great difficulty acting wisely either in public affairs, or in private life.

Niall

Prof Dawkins' views on the frankly terrifying Peter Singer are sadly unsurprising.

Cristina Odone tells a story of sitting next to Dawkins at a dinner party. Dawkins set her a moral conundrum:

“You are on a deserted beach with a rifle, an elephant and a baby. This is the last elephant on earth and it is charging the baby. Do you shoot the elephant, knowing the species would become extinct?...Dawkins was outraged by my answer: man, beast, they were all the same to him and the priority must be to protect the endangered species. He berated me for my foolish belief in the specialness of humanity.”

Need any more be said?

Kristi Collins

‘do whatever you fancy and to hell with the effect on anyone else because Biblical morality is a fairy story’.

Is that what you translate the message to be? really?

I am an atheist and consider myself a moral individual who values human life. You don't need a god or religion to live a moral life. I treat others the way I would like to be treated. period.

Also, I think I'm a much more selfless person than those that are religious because I am being a good moral person..just because I think its the right way to live. Not because I'm afraid of going to hell or think i'm going to be rewarded by heaven.

How do you account for the fact that secular countries have less crime and bloodshed then the countries that have a high percentage of religious people? Wouldn't the opposite be happening if you needed religion to be a moral person? How do you explain that to yourself?

There are religious messages all over threating that I'm going to hell if I don't accept jesus. How is this so offensive then?

oh and by the way, the bible IS a fairy tale.

slowthinker

1. If we were to be invaded by aliens of superior ability, how would we argue against their assertion that human lives were worth less than theirs? Some of Professor Peter Singer's conclusions might seem uncomfortable. If we think they are wrong, then it is up to us to reveal the flaws in his logic. (Majority opinion and faith do not help here.)
2. I agree that the bus message is open to misinterpretation, especially by those who interpret Matthew 15:4 as not justifying honour-killing of children (much older than Singer's 28 days threshold).

Susan van Druten

Do you mean to tell me that if your god doesn't like your species best then all is for naught? Do you mean that since pigs and dogs and chimpanzees can't know they are less important than humans in god's eyes, it's okay and we should feel smug about owing our existence to such a prejudiced god? Why does this make you feel good?

Nicholas Pitt

Ha ha ha! But it's nice to know even Dawkins is somewhat uncomfortable with the implications of the ads. The previous item on his apparent climb-down at the debate is absolutely fascinating.

I found the following an amusing and often sharp response to the bus ad palaver:

http://www.michaelkelly.fsnet.co.uk/bus.htm

But be warned it contains some crude language.

Andrew

Can't help remembering Psalm 14:
'Only the fool has said in his heart, there is no God.'

Igor

Ohh! They just invented the sissy atheism. Ridiculous.

Maurice, MD

The notion that religion and enjoying life are incompatible is excessively uninformed.

There are indeed some religious communities that shun what is pleasurable to most mortals, but these are not characteristic of the great religious traditions.

Go to a biblical concordance and check how many times the word "rejoice" appears.

For example: "This is the day that the Lord has made, let us REJOICE and be GLAD in it" (Psalms 118:24).

Or do the Dawkinites equate rejoicing and gladness only with debauchery?

Huw Thornton

I know, Melanie, but it's just the sort of slogan which a group of Guardianistas would come up with. The devil may have all the best tunes, but the religious (thank heaven) have the best PR.

This is one of the reasons that this campaign will have results which will surprise those that devised it.

Yaffle

What's more, the association in the slogan between belief in God and worrying in a non sequitur. Might religious people not find belief consoling rather than worrying? Might the non-religious not be troubled by the thought that there really is no point to it all?

James Murphy

Now Melanie, on this subject you are practising precisely that dialectical trick which others use on you: namely, simply ignore what they've said and repeat your own argument! - As I humbly observed on a previous thread on this subject: the existence of that great non-theistic world religion Buddhism proves the practicability of a faith based on morality and compassion - without any need to refer human actions to the authority of a creator God. - And before fundamentalist David gets on line, 'No, the Buddha was not a kind of god' to his followers. The first line of the Buddhist credo is "the Buddha was a man, as I am a man: what he achieved, I, too, can achieve...' In effect Buddhism says, 'let us accept sole responsibility for our own moral, spiritual actions, and let us rise to the challenge of refining them. - And let us do so because it both benefits our fellow men and women, and glorifies the essential divinity of the human spirit!

Richard Morgan

Glad to see you aren't selectively quoting there Mel.

James B

To my mind, far too many people misunderstand the concept ‘atheism’. Atheism is nothing more than an absence of belief in a god or gods. By associating the concepts ‘evangelical’ and ‘fundamentalist’ with the concept ‘atheism’ is to imply that atheism is much more than it is – that it is a belief system or ideology (on a par with, and in opposition to, other belief systems or ideologies such as Christianity or Islam), which is absurd. If atheism is a belief system or ideology, then not collecting stamps must be a hobby.

Two statements from Melanie’s article worthy of consideration: ‘…without the Bible there could be no justice and no morality’, i.e., atheism leads to immorality; ‘do whatever you fancy and to hell with the effect on anyone else because Biblical morality is a fairy story’, i.e., atheism leads to hedonism.

If one fully understands the concept of rational morality, one will understand that it consists of a code of values and virtues (including the virtue ‘justice’), derived from a consideration of man’s nature and the factual requirements or needs of man’s life, that serve to promote one’s life to the extent that one may realise one’s full potential and maximise one’s happiness and well-being while respecting the inviolable rights of others to pursue their own life-promoting values (should they so desire). The principal virtue of rational morality is rationality, i.e., the process of rational thinking, the exercise of which leads one to the conclusion that the concept of a personal god is irrational and therefore submission to a personal god is incapable of adding any real value to one’s life and is almost certainly likely to detract from it. Thus, rational atheism arises naturally out of rational morality. Rational morality is rooted in the facts of reality and is therefore objective. Biblical morality, on the other hand, consists of nothing more than the arbitrary whims of an alleged personal god; in other words, it consists of nothing more than subjective floating abstractions, with no basis whatsoever in the facts of reality and therefore with no consideration of man’s requirements for life and happiness. It demands that one self-sacrificially serve an alleged other and therefore must at best retard one’s life and at worst destroy it – such a morality is nothing less than immorality. Biblical morality is therefore not merely a ‘fairy story’ – it is a potential nightmare.

Hedonism, i.e., the doctrine that pleasure is the principal good and the proper aim of action, takes no account of man’s nature or the long-range factual requirements of man’s life and also takes no account of the rights of others to pursue their life-promoting values. Because someone derives pleasure from or feels like doing something does not mean that it is necessarily in his or her best interests to do so and in many instances it is likely to be destructive to him or her and possibly also innocent others. Hedonism is therefore at odds with rational morality.

So, does atheism lead to immorality? Perhaps in some circumstances it does, but not if it is of the rational kind (rational atheism) and emerges naturally through the life-promoting practice of objective rational morality.

Does atheism lead to hedonism? Perhaps in some circumstances it does, but not if it is of the rational kind (rational atheism) and emerges naturally through the practice of life-promoting objective rational morality.

(For the sake of clarity, note that all newly born babies are atheists, but their atheism is obviously not the product of rational thinking, which is yet to emerge; their atheism is therefore not rational atheism.)

John Walsh

Those who make reference to Pascals cheap wager in an argument backing up religion have little credibility.

Maurice, MD

Re NIALL's anecdote:
Dawkin's dinner-table question makes no sense. If it was the LAST ELEPHANT on earth then it would not have a mate with which to breed and the species would become extinct in any case.

If Dawkins is so brilliant, did that little detail not occur to him?

stanley Jerusalem

James B -
Mightily impressive.
Just a small point a little off the plot to some of you believers out there.
It's CELIBRATE not celibate.
I know; we all have agendas.

Julian Fruppapoipepauppioioip

To Niall - did anyone mention to Dawkins that if it really was the last elephant on earth then their extinction is already inevitable, as it takes two to make a new one (excluding the cloning possiblility)?

Worried, Windsor (redux)

Previous post ether-ated (divine intervention?), so I'll try again.

".. without the Bible there could be no justice and no morality"

There are, apparently, between 2.4m and 33m people killed in the Bible by God (see here - http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-many-has-god-killed-complete-list.html)

If that isn't "brutal anti-humanity" I'll eat my hat.

Checkout, also, the top 10 Biblical massacres - http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2008/04/bibles-greatest-massacres.html
Gruesome stuff.

James B

Kristi Collins, I like everything you say in your post except this: '...I think I'm a much more selfless person than those that are religious because I am being a good moral person, just because I think it's the right way to live'.

I would assert that to the extent that one leads a 'selfless' life, i.e, a life of self-sacrificial service to others, one is not promoting one's life but rather one is retarding it. A distinction needs to be drawn here between being kind and generous on the one hand, and being selflessly sacrificial on the other; the former, where it is appropriate, will promote one's life spiritually and is likely to be reciprocated and is therefore moral; the latter will always retard it to some extent, which is immoral.

I think it is regrettable that in the same way that many people are indoctrinated in their childhood and youth to value religious belief or faith, many more are indoctrinated, often more subtly, to value self-sacrifice. This is not to criticise you, Kristi, for by ‘selfless’ you may well have meant being ‘kind’ or ‘generous’.

Altruism – the morality of self-sacrifice – holds that serving others at the expense of one’s own life-serving values is moral. Egoism or rational self-interest – the morality of non-sacrifice – rejects on principle all forms of human sacrifice – both self-sacrifice and the sacrifice of others. It holds that being moral consists in rationally pursuing one’s life-promoting values, neither sacrificing oneself to others nor sacrificing others to oneself.

Dixon

How can Melanie be so insightful at one moment ( see her piece about the US election ) and yet so mysteriously obtuse at another?

How on Earth does she conclude that "dont worry" is an exhortation to dispense with all concern for the effects of ones actions on others? It is not simply a bizarre equation but one that it is even more strange for such an intelligent woman to make?

Isnt it obvious that the diffidence of the "probably doesnt exist" is itself a refreshing antidote to the hotheaded, zealous fundamentalist ranting that everywhere surrounds us nowadays?

My views are more complex than mere disbelief. But I welcome the bus advertisements as at least a tiny breath of fresh air.

Craig Strachan

"There’s almost certainly no God, so live your life to the full"

The problem with that is that it assumes that there is in modern Britain a cohort of people who are holding back from living to the full because they are worried God might be watching with pursed lips.

There isn't, He isn't, who cares?

Random

The reason for the "probably" is an absurd law about not offending religion on bus adverts. Silly to protect people from offense if people say something bad about their imaginary friend, but the law is the law until it is repealed.

Try doing some research if you want to ridicule others.

jodyb

I have to say, as a Christian myself, the atheist bus makes me laugh whenever I come across a mention of it. There is something about the tone of the advert that's kind of amateur -clumsy, naive and obtuse at the same time. I think atheists might have shot themselves in the foot. :)

TheHellLibertine

I can't wait until someone claims that these buses are responsible for their criminal actions just as people blame the Grand Theft Auto games for violent crimes.

Byron in Wahroonga

***there’s probably no God***

Ha! Now that's funny. Is there anything more pathetic and contradictory than those in the professional atheist industry? They cannot even give credit to the Christians who built the successful Western democracies which gave them the right to vent their spleen. Like the spoilt children of a millionaire they think they personally earned their ease. Of course, they're teenagers, with a lifetime of maturing ahead. A 67-year old man like Dawkins can't be excused.

Superted

Mel,

While I usually enjoy your blog, you are unfortunately deeply wrong on this particular topic.

You point fingers at the lacking conviction of atheists, yet this in itself demonstrates a lack of understanding of the atheist position.

As James B explained, atheism is simply one who has no belief in God, *not* one who has a belief in no God. The distinction is subtle, but cannot be overstated. You are an atheist with respect to most 'Gods', be they Greek, Norse, Hindu, or otherwise, simply because you do not believe in them. That you readily abandon this multitude yet choose to stick with the Judeochristian 'God' because your parents presumably insisted that He, unlike all the others, actually exists, does not speak to your position.

Now, with that background out the way, here's the important bit:

***Existence claims cannot be disproved.***

Allow me to elaborate. If I tell you there is an invisible five-headed giraffe on your front lawn, you simply cannot disprove it. Luckily, in reasoned debate, the burden of evidence lies with the affirmative, and it would be my job to provide evidence for the giraffe rather than the other way around.

Such evidence not forthcoming, it is perfectly sensible for you to assume that there probably isn't an invisible five-headed giraffe on your front lawn, and to stop worrying about your flower-beds and live your life. Do you see where I'm going with this?

An atheist who claims that there is no God is guilty of the same absurd arrogance that religious people perpetrate when they claim the opposite. This is why the busses say 'probably'. That said, it's pretty safe to assume that atheists who make the extraordinary claim of non-existence regardless, are referring merely to our everyday understanding of knowledge and not speaking to the exclusion of logical possibility.

But then, if atheists aren't absolutely *sure* of their position, why don't they worship God? You seem to hint at this question when you mention Pascal, so I would be delighted to provide an answer.

Atheists, despite the impossibility of saying with absolute conviction that there is no God, do not worship Him because doing so would be monumentally absurd and contradictory. If I pray to Jehova simply because of the negligible possibility that He exists, then I must also wear pink socks because of the possibility that the Sock Overlord (a celestial weasel-like creature which takes a strong albeit inexplicable interest in socks) would punish me otherwise. And I should, just to be on the safe side, worship every other conception of God I or anyone else can think of, because there is the same amount of evidence for all of them - none.

Finally, even if you base your belief on Pascal's Wager, you must eventually realize that Pascal's Wager tells you nothing about the nature of God nor the way in which He/She/It would like to be worshipped. Maybe God actually hates flattery and intends to punish anyone who worships him with eternal hellfire. At the end of the day, I can in equal measure use Pascal's Wager to justify staying inside for the rest of my life, on the remote possibility that the sky is going to come crashing down when I leave the house.

Byron, your suggestion that the right of free speech was granted by benevolent Christians is ridiculous. They didn't grant it, they stopped constraining it (which they had done rather well for quite a long time).

Kristi

James B, maybe 'selfless' was the wrong word.

A religious person once said to me. If you don't believe in god then why don't you stab people in the back?
I answered 'because I value human life'.

Isn't it more admiring to do right by others because we want to not because we are expecting some reward or afraid of punishment?

that is what i meant really. i don't even know if admiring is the right word but i think you get my drift

i certainly can't claim that i live a selfless life..lol

hadrian

The answer to all those who preen themselves on being 'good people' is simple- your values are meaningless in your utterly impersonal universe where human existence is a purely purposeless, value-less chance. It is also worth noting that the sheer self-righteousness of the unbeliever- the very thing Christ attacks as most soul destroying of all and the most destructive, leading as it inevitably does to idealistic fanaticism of one sort or another(religious or secular),
or to nihilism as mentioned in specious argument on this bus. Why eating, drunking, merry making is any 'better' than moping and moaning etc in an ultimately human pointless existence and universe is beyond me. Dawkins et al haven't even the spindliest leg to totter on! A materialistic universe has no 'oughts'( the basis of all morality) it just is. If that's how you view life then at least be consistent.
As for 'selfishness' driving heaven and hell, you confuse the concept of personal 'self worth' with this...and inadvettantly betray your radical, amoral materislism which cannot comport with any cosmic personalism on which morality stands. No God=no purpose=no law=no judgement.
As sinful law breakers we prefer our own 'standards' to any absolute ones but those standards remain illusory and no one else's. I've yet to see an atheist face this stark truth fully consistently- though Nietsche did try and consequently went mad. gOd ultimately is not mocked.

Nick Kaplan

Hadrian; you say in a materialist universe there are no ‘oughts,’ but in your universe the only ought is what God tells you you will burn for if you don’t obey it. How is this any different from the ‘oughts’ that the government tells you you will be imprisoned for if you don’t obey? The real source of moral oughts are rights, and rights exist in virtue of human nature, and they thereby impose universal oughts on all human behaviour.

hadrian

Nick- No, you cannot smuggle the concept of 'human rights' applicable universally into an impersonal universe.For a start many individuals just wouldn't care or agree and, hey, in a pointless existence, they can hardly be berated for being 'wrong' or 'bad'.
The difference between God and the State is pretty obvious. God made you, the State didn't. And being the only source of being and morality, I think you can safely conclude He is the one whose Word is to be trusted implicity, not the State, even if it were seeking to minister according to His Code, the Code of Life.

Mrs Jenkins

The way we integrate our spiritual feelings into our mundane everyday life is the ultimate expression of our uniqueness. We are disconnected from each other by our uniqueness but connected by our innate knowledge of belonging to a species with the connection of our common instincts and feelings. To unravel the conundrum of how we master the art of mapping our apartness onto our togetherness yet relishing the ability to have our own inner consciousness with total freedom and privacy is at once frightening and exhilarating as we battle for self awareness.

I fall into the category of atheist. However my spiritual experiences (in very basic terms I mean for instance encountering a sudden stirring of my spirit from something in nature or a profound experience or action from another person in an unexpected and spontaneous way) of the world and all its wonderful and awful contradictions lead me naturally to fully understand why others utilise the frame of reference of a structured and organised religion for harnessing the spirit of their existence. Many of us now have grown up in less structured environments with weakened connections to the previous generations of our families and their communities. More of us otherwise would no doubt have followed the patterns of those role models and attended more regular religious gatherings as part of our development. We would have been naturally initiated into making use of the structured facilities of a religion. Thereby we would have been afforded a natural path into ritual of meditation on the parts of us that are good and whole and picking up on the telepathic positivity from a large group of others doing the same in whichever respective churches and temples. Those of us who for various reasons are dislocated from those connections, and have been raised in more secular environments, and do not have the natural inlet, are more often than not now deciding to remain independent and self sufficient with freedom of spirit. Reconciling a way of life where ostensibly or wholeheartedly we hand something of ourselves to the control of a deity and then have to adhere to prescribed behaviour demanded by religion does not fit comfortably into modern experience.

Of course to be a free spirit within confines is difficult. But just because atheists would be unable to operate within those confines it doesn’t mean that there are not people who have measured their own inner consciousness and have the ability to balance their thinking enough to do so. I wonder (if it were possible to research each member of any religious gathering and to drill down and quantify what they were ‘worshipping’) whether you would probably find some ‘atheists’ in denial, who if they examined their consciousness clinically enough would find they are not worshipping the prescribed deity but channelling and receiving something unquantifiable which becomes more quantifiable and beneficial for them by using a prescribed deity as a point of focus. Perhaps in loose terms their ‘god’ maybe a feeling or a shape or whatever they decide is the unquantifiable manifestation of their connection with their spirituality. They enjoy the gatherings, the words, the wisdom, the empathy, the ceremony, the solemnity, the beauty and calm of the surroundings and the sense of belonging and the links of continuity with their forebears.

It is argued whether Jesus Christ and many other prophets existed. Without primary evidence for anything the arguments are weakened. We also know the Chinese whispers effect of stories being passed through the day, let alone millennia, and we know only too well it was different strokes for different folks back in the day. Therefore in my opinion to quote extreme Old Testament tenets as an argument against religion is inappropriate. You cannot map previous centuries more prevalent barbaric methods of survival, onto the way we live our lives now. Nonetheless the influences of whoever the prominent and respected philosophers and guardians of moral guidelines at the time of the beginning of the Christian calendar were, they provided a workable frame of reference with the Bible. Surely it was the general acceptance of the wisdom of the teachings of Christ (who I cite only because of my very limited exposure to the teachings and influence of other prophets) which eventually evolved and gradually helped humanity move away from early civilisation’s barbarous rituals with Christ's own execution being the biggest symbol for change. It was one of the first worldwide publications out of the printing presses, I believe. Before mechanical printing presses were invented to provide mass production of literature, Bibles were painstakingly printed by hand with carved alphabetic stamps. It encouraged literacy and provided a common thread of understanding around the world. Those who are without a religious umbrella but who do have faith in goodness, rely just as much on orators and writers with skills of reason and a mastery of words (thanks Melanie) to evoke the core of our human spirit on our behalf and our existence is enhanced by wise and meaningful reflections in religious writings emphasising the common spirit in and around us all.

I am inclined to think that the eminent scientist Richard Dawkins is flailing and rather stuck in scientific dogma at the moment. Religions evolve because they support our need to tap into our spirituality in a tangible way. They support our struggle with the weaknesses that can lead us off into confusion and pain. Not all of us are suited to join religions. I can’t speak for other atheists but I doubt I am in a minority by tolerating religion wholeheartedly because I believe all religions have come about as a natural process of human beings trying to hold on to their spirituality and keep a foothold on hope optimism and faith in their own goodness. Who can genuinely suggest this is a bad thing? We atheists have chosen our independence but we are able to have the freedom of doing this because most of the world lives within faith systems which serve good purpose. War, terrorism and moral decline is caused by human beings making bad choices, not by human beings belonging to faith systems that help them try to tap into the spiritual thread of goodness that connects us all. Where religions fall down most often is in their administration. That will never change because those who try to carry out their role as ministers of their religions will inevitably display the contradictions of the human condition. Some have enough humility and others are just plain fanatical. Some flail around in dogma but the majority are generally accepted as self sacrificing servants of their faith and they provide an enormous support to the world. Like every other human effort theirs will be naturally affected by human flaws. These flaws only reflect the struggle we all have finding the right kind of acceptance for our efforts to find a workable contrast of the exposed and limiting mundane physical interaction with our world versus our individual spirituality which is our own unique private experience, which in cruel paradox would really be rather wonderful to link up and share. Here we are back to the conundrum!

Matthew Shostak

Can someone tell me how this campaign is any more absurd than the 2,000 year old one Christians have launched trying to scare us in to believing with made up devils and made up hells?

hadrian

The 'scare' factor isn't the trivial thing you try to make it. It's the guarantee of cosmic personal justice where evil is ultimately punished and good blessed.

Superted

Hadrian, I honestly don't think anyone is trying to trivialize what Christianity has done to human civilization for the past 2,000 odd years.

Rick Lewis

Melanie Phillips' column is premised on a mistake (well, several actually - but let me stick with the one nobody else has mentioned yet). The "probably" in the bus slogan doesn't represent confusion or indecision on the part of the humanists: according to news reports it is only there because the bus company insisted on it. Apparently this is because their regulations ban ads which might cause offense to religious groups.