I say just live a good life - dont run people down - dont try to convert them - leave them be without your church and god - they will find their own way - and still live a good and honest life without the need of guidance from the guys in dresses -

you are the person who made up the claim that I had stated there were very few atheists in this country.

If you start off a post with a verifiably false assertion you can hardly expect me, or anyone else, to then go through the rest of it in the hope that somewhere along the line you might come within shouting distance of what might loosely be described as a fact.

Making up claims which you then refute is, by definition, strawman, and is usually regarded as proof that you can’t muster any worthwhile reply.

Your claim that atheism is ‘progress’ from ‘outdated’ views is claptrap; what is there outdated about looking for proof of a statement? No-one can prove there is no god because it is impossible to prove a negative; that’s why Richard Dawkins refused to sign up to the ‘There is no god’ version of the advert. He’d be gutted by his colleagues if he did otherwise.

Logic applies irrespective of one’s culture and one’s language. You claim to value Western philosophy whilst simultaneously ignoring one of the central achievements of that philosophy.

You cannot seriously expect human beings around the world not to notice that you are propounding a logical absurdity under the guise of rationality; there is a jarring disconnect which simply provides an opportunity for religious fundamentalists to point to the hypocrisy of the claim.

And they do point to it, in much the same way as they point to the hypocrisy of the IMF, which had one set of rules for developing countries, but quite another when it is the US doing all the things the IMF has preached against for decades.

Of course, now that the Prime Minister is going cap in hand to the Gulf States for money to bail out the IMF we can expect rather less honesty about how badly some of those states treat their citizens, just as we can expect rather less honesty about how China treats its citizens.

But no doubt you will convince yourself that adverts on London buses will fix that as well…

Anyway, I said:

“If you’ve got a point, make it. Don’t hide behind a false air of intellectual superiority and condescending rhetoric.”

Yet the sum of your response was:

“Anyone with a grasp of simple arithmetic should be able to work that one out.”

“You do seem rather keen on making up strawman arguments, never a good sign…”

Oh dear, those last four words are embarrassingly cliched, and it’s all ad hominem sneering again I see. So after accusing me of knowing nothing about Western history or culture you decide not to actually debate any of those points and instead focus bizarrely on what you consider to be an inappropriate contextual use of the word “large”.

If you’re going to call people out on their supposed intellectual inferiority to yourself (which you’ve pretty much done with everyone you disagree with on this thread) don’t run a mile as soon as your shoddy points are questioned. You’re clearly not as smart as you think you are mate, otherwise you wouldn’t be so evasive.

I’m done with this “discussion”, I’m going back to arguing with people in real life about things that really matter, like football.

I pointed out that on a planet with around 6.7 billion human beings ‘a large number of people’ would come to a rather larger figure than a few thousand people. Anyone with a grasp of simple arithmetic should be able to work that one out.

I have at no time suggested that there are only a few atheists in this country; perhaps you could explain where you derive this claim from?

You do seem rather keen on making up strawman arguments, never a good sign…

Maybe you’re right and there are hardly any atheists/non-believers in the UK, and it’s limited to just the people who have to date donated £112k to what is a light-hearted idea for an advert. If you believe that then fine; I think you’re wrong, and it’s at least 16% in London alone according to the last Census. I guess that you didn’t read that I anticipated that exact response, as the question was clearly intended as a trap.

What exactly is your point? Or which of my points are you addressing? I’m perfectly aware of what Whig history is, but throwing second-hand pejorative terms around in an ad hominem fashion instead of actually addressing a point is likewise “unlikely to impress anyone with the intellectual force of your views”.

“It would help even more if you added up the number of people who have been killed in the name of god and compared it with the number of people who have been killed in the name of science.”

Go on then, add them up. What a totally baseless and pointless rhetorical claim. Are you claiming that it’s better that people believe supernatural-orientated lies as they’re less likely to kill each other? Like a placebo? Religion hardly led to no-one killing each other did it?

“Once you have done so you will discover that there have been many people, throughout history, who were atheists, and some of them were even atheists in cultures in which atheism could be a rapid ticket to extinction.”

I know. What exactly does that have to do with anything I’ve said? (Please don’t reply with a “Well if you don’t understand, then I suggest you…” type response, I know it’s your M.O. but people do it on the internet all the time and it makes you look like a pompous idiot). If you’ve got a point, make it. Don’t hide behind a false air of intellectual superiority and condescending rhetoric.

It would probably help if you grasped that religions encompass a much wider range than you appear to imagine.

It would help even more if you added up the number of people who have been killed in the name of god and compared it with the number of people who have been killed in the name of science.

I very much doubt that the millions killed in the death camps were cheered by the knowledge that the Final Solution was devised by some of the finest scientists Germany had to offer…

If you really believe that a few thousand people constitutes ‘a large number of people’ then you need to get out more.

And if you don’t understand what Whiggish history is then you need to take a few years and read some.

History, that is.

Once you have done so you will discover that there have been many people, throughout history, who were atheists, and some of them were even atheists in cultures in which atheism could be a rapid ticket to extinction.

Proclaiming your superiority whilst simultaneously demonstrating your profound ignorance of the history of Western culture is unlikely to impress anyone with the intellectual force of your views…

I think the religions are scared - otherwise they wouldnt protest so loudly when they are lampooned -
We have had 2000 years of Christianity - and other theisms and the middle east doesnt look much different today than when the Romans occupied it .. It doesnt seem like its been a great success this god thing.

Consider the people who were indoctrinated with the pseudo-science of Social Darwinism; a lot of people died as a result of the belief that one could scientifically prove that some ‘races’ are inferior and are doomed to be destroyed in the survival of the fittest.

The wars of genetics killed far more people than the wars of religion did…

That is not to say that atheists have nothing to worry about. At least, atheists can worry about real things, like having your house repossessed, or experiencing the tragic death of a close one, rather than burning in hell for the rest of eternity for being gay or being coerced into arranged marriage.

Considering that people are being brought up and indoctrinated with these views, I can see how there should be a space for campaigns like the Atheist Bus.

I would suggest that if you compared my morals with the ten commandments you would come up with a similar list. People dont need god to live the right life. I would also suggest that athesists may be on a better more honest path than the believers as they live according to their own set of morals and are not swayed by evangelists or hate sermons. Atheists are not setting off bombs around the world.

Now you may say that without religion we would have anarchy - but as only 7% of the UK population attend church -that leaves 97% of non believers - and we dont have anarchy.

I was referring to this:
http://www.justgiving.com/atheistbus

If your point in response is that that’s only a few thousand people, then I’d suggest that it’s the tip of an iceberg based on my personal experience. You might then say “no it isn’t”. In which case I’ll shrug.

“Outdated” depends on your position of course. I can only speak for mine, but I think that the sentiment of the ad is aligned with it. I would suggest such examples as Catholic opposition to contraception of any type, the idea that living things were created by a supreme being as described in Genesis, and Zionism of any kind. I’ll leave Islam out of this, not because I’m afraid of getting a fatwa slapped on me (I think it’s an absolute load of rubbish, and a plagiarisation of the preceding monotheisms, for the record), but because I don’t know where to start.

(Now for some ‘heading off’…)

Yes I suppose I am Eurocentric, and no I won’t apologise for it. I’m not in the slightest bit ashamed of being Western, or British or anything else, and I won’t patronise people from around the world by pretending that I don’t think they’d be better off with more application of what I personally perceive to be the best aspects of Western philosophy in their societies.; such as democracy, and yes, liberty, equality and fraternity. Unfortunately we seem to export the worst of our culture more keenly. I am however open to non-Western philosophies when they have a relatively practical application in a philosophical sense (I quite like aspects of Buddhism for example), and I think we can learn things from other cultures, just not when they’re based on anything supernatural, because I don’t think that there is any such thing as the supernatural.

Sorry if the above sounds defensive, but I thought it best that you understood ‘where I was coming from’.

Let me know if you have any comments about the rest of my original post.