'Is it because we feel that atheism is on the move, getting confident, organised and proselytising like more traditional religions?'

Steve Tomkins reflects on the recent bus poster kerfuffle

What a lot of fuss over a poster on a bus.

You’ll have heard about it, presumably – the British Humanist Society having a whip round to put a poster on a bus promoting atheism, Richard Dawkins putting his hand in his pocket, the great unveiling: “There is probably no God. So stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

It was in all the papers, all the news programmes, and then again in the topical comedy programmes.

Which is itself is interesting, because Christian and even Islamic posters appear all over the place, and no one bats an eyelid.

Why the big story? Is it because we feel that atheism is on the move, getting confident, organised and proselytising like more traditional religions? That we’ve had the books, now the posters, next the rallies and youth camps.

Quirky

Or is it for the opposite reason, that the story is quirky because we feel this isn’t what atheists do, or at least not well? Is atheism a worldview that people care passionately enough about for evangelism?

Or is just that Dawkins is a broadsheet celebrity and if he says “Cheese is boring” it makes page 7 of the Guardian?

It started off looking like the first option. The comedian Ariane Sherine launched the campaign in the Guardian in June, but it raised only a quarter of the money needed. It seemed that atheists just don’t feel strongly enough to pay good money to try and make converts.

But then when they relaunched the campaign on October 21 with the news that Dawkins was matching donations up to £5500, they hit the target within hours, and have gone on to receive twenty times that amount.

It turns out that, with the right publicity, atheists do care quite a lot.

As for the message, it seems that atheists do unverifiable claims just as well as Christians.

Worrying

Because there’s no God I can stop worrying? The idea that if believers convert to atheism their worries will be over is as bizarrely and smugly untrue as the opposite claim made by Christian evangelists.

I like the “probably” though. It isn’t really atheism, perhaps, more agnosticism.

But it does bring a touch of humility to the debate that is generally missing from either side. If you want to send donations to my “I’m not really sure what to think about anything” poster campaign, feel free.