By in large, the advertisements plastered on the sides and rear of DC metro busses are pretty standard fare. But every so often, something interesting appears. This is one that I saw on the way home from work the other day. This organization has run ads in the past, including one in DC in 2008 with the tagline "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake." I don't recall seeing it at the time, but the current one strikes me as being rather more pejorative in tone, in addition to glibly dismissing any nuances to this issue. If you visit their website, they characterize this campaign as an effort to provide support to "kids and teenagers who don’t happen to believe in a god." That's a laudable goal, but I'm not sure something this borderline-incendiary is the best strategy to help non-religious kids cope.
Me too. The only message atheists ever get in the US is that they're wrong, damaged, mentally ill, or downright evil. Sending the message to atheist kids that they can actually feel good about themselves seems good to me.
I absolutely agree, but the vibe I get from this ad is less "being an atheist doesn't make you a bad person" and more "if you believe in god(s), you're the mental equivalent of a five-year old with an imaginary friend."
I am not a religious person at all, but I agree with how Jestintime is seeing the ads. Have a pro atheist message, not an insulting anti religious message.
Any pro-atheist message would be immediately interpreted by the Bretts of this world as anti-religious anyway. There is no single message that this group could formulate that wouldn't piss off a religious person, so I say: Why bother? I approve this ad.
I don't really like it, it comes off as far too smug. The defensive body language, the eye rolling expression, everything says "smug asshole" to me.
I don't care what religion people have (or don't,) just keep it out of my face. This a very in-your-face type of ad, it is on a Westboro Baptist level of confrontation.
Madkevin, you're right -- the religious freak the frack out over any trace of atheism. However, I also think you're wrong. This ad is unnecessarily demeaning to kids who believe. You wouldn't want to build the self esteem of girls with an ad saying that boys suck, so why do this?
Context. That context is equivalent to calling out a five-year old as an idiot for believing in Santa Claus. That's probably fine with some of you as well, but it just seems a little over the line. No one is screaming outrage here, btw. Just a bit over the line.
I think it's unfair too. You shouldn't tell people who believe in God he's their friend when it's really an abusive relationship.
Hah. My reaction to people tut-tutting this ad is a big lower lip, my knuckles grinding into the corner of my eyes, and a hearty boo-hoo. I just can't get it up for feeling sorry for the poor oppressed Christians in this country. It's so hard to be them.
Because boys aren't imaginary. BUT SERIOUSLY: It's the insane double-standard I take issue with. Religious people have no problem explaining to me in great detail how I'm a sinner, or pressing religious material into my hand at a bus stop telling me how all my gay friends are going to be tortured for eternity, or (as has happened TWICE this year) calling all the apartments in my building on Sunday morning to demand a reason as to why I'm not in church. I've been approached by the super of my building three times so far about the Christmas celebration they're having in the common room, and three times I've explained to him that I do not celebrate Christmas. I pass by signs outside of churches every single day telling me how I can only be redeemed by listening to their specific strain of religiousness. The buses I ride every single day contain anti-abortion ads paid for by religious groups. So, yeah, this poster seems hilariously tame by comparison. If a couple of religious kids have faith that's so precarious that this will tip them over, well... good.
Really? I'm not seeing it. I think that comment and the fact that this thread exists at all is pretty telling about the balance of politeness, though. Atheists are bombarded day in and day out with far worse than what amounts to "what you believe isn't true" from every angle and with far more lasting consequences than feeling slighted by an ad on a bus.
Huh, I don't see the context as being demeaning or offensive either. It treats belief in god as a little silly, but belief in god is, for athiests at least, pretty darn silly! I don't think athiests should have to tip toe-around that. It also doesn't seem more offensive than the way God is often portrayed on TV shows. Comparing it Westboro Baptist Church is crazy, but maybe Athryn is trolling me.
This is the main point in this ad's defense, I think. If atheists and Christians were just going at it all over the US media, I'd say they both should chill out. If they were both already chilled out and this ad came out of nowhere I'd say it was unnecessarily dickish. But as it stands now? No way. Given that Christians are currently still waging their centuries-old, comprehensive campaign to make life as uniformly awful for nonbelievers as possible under the law I do not begrudge an atheist organization a little bit of trolling, and given that and the fact that Christians rule this country and close to everything in it and according to them are best friends with the all-powerful creator of the universe, I think they'll recover from accidentally seeing this ad. If it helps one teenager who's being ostracized by his or her peers, community, or even family feel a little bit less down on themselves and a little more like they're the ones who are awesome and the people around them are the stupid jerks, it's worth it. Edit: to add a little specificity, I live very near the border of a major east coast city (i.e. not in the sticks by a long mile) yet I still can't go a day without seeing multiple advertisements whose purpose is to convince me that I'm literally such a bad person that I deserve to be tortured for eternity, and that that's exactly what's in store for me. So I'm not too concerned with the ego-bruising someone who believes that might endure if exposed to the suggestion that their beliefs are a little goofy.
You know, you can celebrate Christmas in this country without believing in God. God has very little to do with it, unless you're sitting in a church. Eat, drink and be merry!
This guy isn't doing that. The super is involved in some sort of Christian sect/cult thing, and he's using the Christmas party as recruitment. (I know this, because he told me.) So, yeah, pass.
On the grounds of balance in order to boost non-believers, as others have (reasonably) argued, or because you want to shame all those idiot believer kids into realizing how stupid they are?
I agree the message is less "it's okay to be atheist" as much as "if you believe in God you're dumb" Any pro atheist message will antagonize some people, but this one in particular has no reason except to antagonize people. I just don't see how this message helps the atheism acceptance cause at all.
Well, no advertisement is going to get a kid to question their beliefs if they aren't already doubting. Something confrontational might just be what it takes to get their attention and go "Hey, let me look into this a bit more..." It was Barry Goldwater who said "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!" - when engaged in a noble cause, sometimes you have to be confrontational, cross some lines, ruffle some feathers.
The idea is to go past "it's ok to be an atheist" which is kind of tepid and take a real stand by saying "It's good to be an atheist. You can feel good about being an atheist." It isn't so much about atheism acceptance as it is about combating all of the existing forces that are designed to poison atheists' kids self-esteem and cajole them into converting.
How does it say that? At worst it implies that belief in god is dumb; it absolutely does not imply that believers in god are dumb themselves. You can think a particular belief is silly while not thinking less of people who hold that belief.
Yeah, but that message is very much "It's stupid to believe in god" more than "it's awesome to be atheist", which is why I can't really get behind it. Like, I get wanting to use aggressive rhetoric because of how much bullshit is lobbed at Atheists. I just don't think it helps the idea of mass acceptance. Then again, I feel like mass acceptance is inevitable currently, and is helped mostly by Church scandals and hard line stances on shit more than things you read on a bus.
There's very little rhetorical line between "what you believe is dumb" and "you are dumb" when you're on the receiving end. Acting like it's some huge gulf that's closer to discussing choice in engine oil than faith or lack there of misses the entire historical problem with disagreements on faith. edit: this is to say that to someone who is deeply religious, it's not simply an isolated silo of their life, saying their core guiding principal in life is stupid is saying they're stupid, and everything they've ever thought or felt is stupid. I get wanting to aggressively fight back against anti atheist bullshit. But if you can't see how this is more antagonistic than helpful, I don't know how to explain it further. I'm not religious anymore in my life, but I cannot see a weekly church goer reading that and thinking "Oh, that's nice for the kids" instead of "Uh, you say what about my faith?" edit 2: Seriously, am I being forced to like Brett posts and back him up? What the hell, thread. I haven't gone to a church for non wedding purposes in twenty freaking years!
I'm not directing this at any particular person here, but sometimes communicating with militant atheists feels like accidentally stumbling into an MRA meeting.
I'm not going to say the ad is offensive, but it does make me roll my eyes almost as hard as the girl is rolling them in that ad. Yessss, you are so much smarter than non-athiests, smug child! Because if there's something teenaged atheists need, it's a reason to feel even MORE smug and obnoxious about how smart they are. I get that in some areas of the country, being an atheist is worse-than-annoying (not in any I have lived in, as it happens, for which I am glad). I get that hearing about how We Are a Christian Nation is irritating (as it also spits on non-Christian believers). I get that Christmas isn't being secularized fast enough for some people. But being a douche about it just ... isn't the way. I'd feel the same about pretty much any movement that takes that tack. Like if there was a "hooray for evolution!" ad that said, in essence, "lol creationists!!!!!!" I would still roll my eyes. Because all it does is make the people who feel differently than that feel defensive, annoyed, and WAY less likely to think someone who thinks differently than they do isn't an asshole. You might not care if you alienate non-atheists with a smug, self-back-patting ad about how super smart atheists are, and that's fine. But hopefully you also don't care if someone like me, who is actually sympathetic to the whole atheist-in-America thing, continues to think that atheists sure can be smug assholes sometimes. <3
All I can tell you is that if I tell either my daughter or wife that something they think is ridiculous, I don't get the sense that they appreciate any such nuance. What I get is "don't you fucking dare call me stupid!" Or words to that effect.
Just on ascetics, I think the poster girl is too snotty looking. But whatever, the bar for posters that are meant only to rile has been set very very low. Come on kids, fuck that class and hit that bong Let's buy guns and kill those kids with dads and moms With nice homes, 401k's, and nice ass lawns
Yeah, this is what I was trying to get at. Also, my comparing it to WBC wasn't me saying it was offensive, it was comparing the bluntness of the message.
I think we've lived through enough fights with ingrained belief to know by now that aggressively confronting them doesn't cause the adherents to suddenly go "holy shit, I was wrong all along!" instead of doubling down. There's a deep difference between something I have an emotional investment in and something I don't. You can even see it with people whose kids do something wrong, and the parent will even be in stark denial and aggressive when presented with physical evidence. Humans just don't normally react to shit like this with a calm rational detachment that says "well sure, you can believe that and I can believe my angle, and we both mutually respect each other!", if we reacted like that our history as a species would be far more boring.
