Atheistic Campaign
March 11th, 2009 § Leave a Comment
Since fall last year the atheistic buscampaign that started in London has received a worldwide following. Atheists have taken to advertising and they’re liking it. In the Netherlands it has been difficult to get the bus rolling so an alternative billboard campaign has been started with the first near Amsterdam airport on the 10th of March 2009. The text reads: ‘There probably is no God, dare to think for yourself and enjoy this life’.
Atheists love to put religion down. There are believers (dumb, dumb, dumb) and atheists (smart!). In my opinion atheism is just one of many sets of beliefs about what reality is truly all about. As far as I’m concerned it does not offer the most plausible explanation for reality.
That’s why I would like to take the opportunity to discuss the untenability of atheism in a series of three articles addressing the three propositions of the billboard:
(1) ‘Enjoy this life’: what is the relationship between atheism and morality?
(2) ‘Dare to think for yourself’: what is the relationship between atheism and meaning?
(3) ‘There is probably no God’: how plausible is the atheistic worldview?
It appears to be no coincidence that this powerful summary of the atheistic point of view should correspond to the three main arguments that can be brought against it:
(1) atheism leads to an immoral universe;
(2) atheism leads to a meaningless universe;
(3) atheism is founded on the implausible viewpoint that God does not exist.
The text on the billboard starts with the assumption: ‘There is probably no God’. Two conclusions follow from that premise: (a) ‘Dare to think for yourself’ and (b) ‘Enjoy this life’. If we can show this premise to be flawed then the two conclusions are no longer self-evident. But even if we assume for argument’s sake that God does not exist, we find that the conclusions in themselves lead to despair. What daring and enjoying is left in the face of a God who does not exist?
In my series about atheism I will show that without God there is not much reason for daring and enjoying. Happily we are not compelled in any way to accept the premis of God’s non-existence. On the contrary. God most likely does exist, and it is exactly because of that that it is possible to think for oneself and enjoy life. I will show this in the last article of the series.
The first two articles are a clear case of what is called negative apologetics. Christian apologetics is the defense of the Christian worldview with arguments. Negative apologetics in this regard is an attempt to show the untenability of non-Christian worldviews, in this case atheism.
The last article then consists of positive apologetics by means of a few arguments for the existence of God. This series however, is not a comprehensive essay. I have used material of others, though the articles are the result of my own thinking process. The articles will be posted when they are ready.
