The Bible and the Quran contain “horrific material, and to say you get your morality from there” is a problem, the head of the American Humanist Association said Tuesday as the group launches what it calls the largest, most extensive advertising campaign ever by a godless organization.
The group is putting ads in newspapers across the country – and advertising on NBC – in the $200,000 campaign, AHA head Roy Speckhardt told CNN.
The point, he said, it to “challenge the fundamentalists” who “spout their backward ideas,” he said.
The target audience is people who may not realize they are humanists, Speckhardt explained.
“We’re targeting for criticism those who read the Bible literally, not those who pick and choose what they like,” he said. “We’re telling (people who pick and choose), ‘You’re more like us.’ Biblical literalists and Quranic literalists are holding us back.
“We know that you can be good without God, but many folks in America don’t know that,” he said.
The campaign features violent or sexist quotes from holy books, contrasted with more compassionate quotes from humanist thinkers, including physicist Albert Einstein.
You can check out the campaign quotes here.
Religion takes away your reasoning faculties and brands them as unfruitful and even blasphemous. The difference between holy scripture and humanist sayings is that the latter is not a mandate from heaven and people are even encouraged to question their validity while the former insists on being followed blindly without the filter of reason. It's more of a "this is what you are mandated to do, while this is the result of humanist thinking" campaign. As they said, it's against fundamentalists, not people who decide what is moral on their own.
The Catholic Church actually prides itself in its use of reason. This is not to say that they actually employ it. They just like the credibility it garners without the responsibility it entails. You can use reason wherever it's not actually important, but you can't question the fact that Jesus did exist and he rose from the dead and that his mother was a virgin and didn't die but flew up to heaven.
[You can use reason wherever it's not actually important, but you can't question the fact that Jesus did exist and he rose from the dead and that his mother was a virgin and didn't die but flew up to heaven. ]
So they've got scientists, philosophers, and intellectuals by the boatload, but they insist we all still worship the magic zombie hippie Jew?
I think there are 2 categories of people in general: the barbarians and the civilized people.
The barbarians need to be fed with the idea of a punisher for them to behave. That's why an atheist barbarian can be really scary. He has nothing to lose. The civilized people (like most of us) don't need a punisher anymore because we all want peace and harmony for all of us to freely pursue our passions and work.
I still think that Tondo boys and Recto boys need a punishing god, especially because our cops are lousy.
And how about the barbarian who is acting on his gods orders? What can he do wrong if "god is on our side." Sounds familiar?
It just seems a tad more complicated than that.
Mao Zedong was an intellectual well-read atheist, and his policies have killed around 70 million people. Niccolo Machiavelli was most likely an atheist as well, and was also touting a brand of pragmatism which would neutrally allow many grotesque actions.
We have to remember that there is nothing in atheism that literally prevents a person from being unethical. Anyone who is acting in behalf of his perception of truth or pragmatism (however divine or secular), is bound to cross the line.
Which is why I am not a proponent of slamming the religious based on ethical considerations alone. This expensive advertisement is hostile to a specific group, and promotes holier-than-thou mentality. Why target the Bible and Quran while leaving out many secular ideologies?
[Mao Zedong was an intellectual well-read atheist, and his policies have killed around 70 million people.]
The problem is you fail to directly link Mao's atheism as a motivation for his acts.
If anything, the blind obedience that his personality cult generated and the anti-intellectualism of the cultural revolution have more in common with the mindset of theocracies. To quote Professor Rummel, a teacher of political science in the 's analysis of Communism:
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.ART.HTM
[Marx has shown empirically where society has been and why, and he and his interpreters proved that it was destined for a communist end. No one could prevent this, but only stand in the way and delay it at the cost of more human misery.
Those who disagreed with this world view and even with some of the proper interpretations of Marx and Lenin were, without a scintilla of doubt, wrong. After all, did not Marx or Lenin or Stalin or Mao say that. . . . In other words, communism was like a fanatical religion. It had its revealed text and chief interpreters. It had its priests and their ritualistic prose with all the answers. It had a heaven, and the proper behavior to reach it. It had its appeal to faith. And it had its crusade against nonbelievers. ]
Now if you're going to mention Stalin, I will once again cite the above quote – we have been hit with the Mao=Stalin=theism rhetoric multiple times already, and quite frankly, are very tired of it.
It's not a valid case against atheism. Kindly give it up.
You misunderstand me, Twin. You know I'm not a guy who would bash atheists.
I was just saying that atheists can be amoral communists and amoral pragmaticists, as well as kind humanists, just as there are compassionate Catholics and those that cause the Albigensian Massacre.
"The campaign features violent or sexist quotes from holy books, contrasted with more compassionate quotes from humanist thinkers, including physicist Albert Einstein."
Now why do this? Why pick and choose citations just to paint a cleaner picture of yourself at the expense of the dirt of your opponents? It's misleading to cite Einstein but not Machiavelli. If I'm claiming anything, it's that atheists can go whichever way – nice or douche. Claiming the moral high ground is simply whitewashing the diversity of real atheists out there.
It's not a case against atheism, but a case against the misrepresentation of atheism.
I know dude. I may have been a little angrier than I should have been with the reply, but I maintain my point – citing Mao Zedong as an example of atheism gone bad is a poor choice, given how consistently debunked that assertion has been.
As for the ad, keep in mind that it's targeting fundamentalists – the exact sort of people who would resort to cherry-picking the bible to serve their agenda.
Well, at least we agree that Mao's a big douche! Back to the forums, man. 😀
One thing you will probably agree with is that Mao also makes an excellent target for bad puns 🙂
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WJ5A3G_mQXI/SAqLB8MooMI…
"Machiavelli was the Stephen Colbert of the Renaissance."
Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_18787_6-books-ever…
let me try that again.
"Machiavelli was the Stephen Colbert of the Renaissance."
– http://goo.gl/XrSQ –
Anyway, this ad just seems like simplistic propaganda to me, man. 😀
$200,000 for that? I'm sure violence and sexism exist amongst the religious and atheistic alike.
Being an atheist doesn't necessarily mean one is free of prejudices, though in my experience they're simply far less likely to be sexist.
As for violence, well you don't see atheists killing abortion doctors, or sentencing those those who "blaspheme" Dawkins to death, do you?
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/11/christia…
Hey Skies,
I just think that for a $200,000 ad, they should be more careful with their advertising. Seems to me that they're implying a higher moral stance for atheists by cherry-picking sources.
I'm sure there are good humanistic thinkers like you. On the other hand, the most immoral guy I know is an atheist. We can't gloss things over in simplistic dualities such as us=good / them=bad. Especially in an advertisement that introduces the world to the atheistic community.
The only thing that might create is hostility and intolerance. Can you imagine a Christian watching that ad and thinking: "these atheists find us evil." Sends the wrong message, IMO.
[On the other hand, the most immoral guy I know is an atheist. ]
Is he immoral BECAUSE he is an atheist, or is he immoral AND he happens to be an atheist. There is a big difference. 😉
Because he's an atheist (and believes he can get away with murder with simply the right connections).
Then he's a douchebag.
Some people think they can get away with murder and genocide because they believe their god sanctions it.
Atheism simply means a lack of belief in a God. Said person's morals and ethics are something else entirely.