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Atheism on a bus (part two)
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PHOTO: INDIANA ATHEIST BUS CAMPAIGN
Yesterday, in response to the ad crusade recently waged by the Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign on Chicago city buses, I asked what atheism has to offer me that transcends my own self. Today, I’d like to ask a second question: Why do atheists so often experience the need to persuade me that there is no God? If, as most of them say, God is a fantasy, why can’t they just cluck once or twice in sympathy, pat me on the head, and then leave me to my delusion?
I’ve often wondered why this is so frequently the case, and each time I do, I think of the Flat Earth Society. Yes, Virginia, there is a Flat Earth Society (or was, until about the year 2001). The Flat Earth Society, as the name suggests, believes you and I inhabit a round, but decidedly flat, earth, i.e., that the earth, while it may be circular, is not spherical. Charles K. Johnson, the last president of the FES, died in 2001, and since then not much has been heard from the organization . . . at least not in an official capacity; individual “flat-earthers” are still out there on the web should you care to check.
Now, I happen to believe Charles K. Johnson, rest his soul, was deluded; I think anybody who thinks the earth is flat is deluded. But I have never (until now, I guess) took the time to tell anybody that the earth is not flat but is, instead, a sphere. It has never come up in conversation, I have never written a letter to the editor in earnest opposition to the notion of a flat earth, and I for sure have never entertained the idea of slapping signs on Chicago city buses in order to tell the world (or, at least, the city) that a flat earth does not exist.
Most atheists, I presume, would have no difficulty equating my belief in a transcendent God with Charles K. Johnson’s belief in a flat earth (assuming, of course, that most atheists do not belong the FES). In their eyes, the notion of a transcendent God is every bit as fantastical as is the belief in a flat earth. And yet, while I am not in the least constrained to tell anybody in Chicago that there is no flat earth, members of the Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign are perfectly willing to spend not only time and effort, but money as well, to inform Chicago that there is no God. Why is that?
If it be argued that Christians spend a great deal of time, effort, and money to tell the world that there is a God, I simply reply that Christians believe in an afterlife, participation in which is dependent upon how we conduct ourselves in the here and now, and that it is a matter of no small significance that this message be proclaimed. Atheists do not believe in an afterlife (at least not in the same sense as do Christians) and, accordingly, have no concern for eternal consequence. So why all the signs on buses?
I have often wondered if the answer might not be found in Gen. 1:27: “So God created man in his own image; in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” Might there not be some reason to suppose that, because we are created in God’s likeness, when we deny his existence, there is a part of our nature that, understanding the denial to be invalid, seeks to deafen conscience by the noise of slogans, placards, and signs on buses . . . all of which protest the affirmation that God exists?
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
Admittedly, this is an argument only a Christian could make. No atheist thinks along these lines, and I do not presume to think on any atheist’s behalf. I may, after all, be grievously mistaken in regard to the entire matter. Perhaps there is no God, or, if there is a God, perhaps what I've just said about my being created in his image and the consequences that follow may be sheer nonsense, nothing more than a pound of theological poppycock. If what I propose is true, then the reason for the bus campaign may have been given at least a partial explanation. If I’m wrong, nobody, in the end, will know the difference.
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