Humanist Ads Focus on Just Being Good

Three weeks ago, we reported on an advertisement London buses will soon be carrying: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” The campaign is funded by the British Humanist Association with the support of well-known atheist Richard Dawkins.

Apparently not wanting to be outmatched, the American Humanist Association has now unveiled their own campaign, scheduled to run on Washington, DC, buses over the next two months. Echoing a popular holiday song, the campaign cries, “Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness’ sake.”

According to the Associated Press, the AHA claims humanism “affirms our responsibility to lead ethical lives of value to self and humanity.” But when the Associated Press asked Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association, what he thought of the campaign, he answered:

“How do we define ‘good’ if we don't believe in God? God in his word, the Bible, tells us what's good and bad and right and wrong. If we are each ourselves defining what’s good, it's going to be a crazy world.”

Wildmon is absolutely (pun intended) accurate: neither goodness, nor any other moral absolute, can exist in isolation from God. Otherwise, one man’s “good” may be another man’s evil, and the campaign is essentially saying “Why believe in a god? Just do whatever you want.”

For example, AHA spokesman Fred Edwords commented, “Our reason for doing it during the holidays is there are an awful lot of agnostics, atheists and other types of non-theists who feel a little alone during the holidays because of its association with traditional religion.” But Mr. Edwords, why do you (presumably an atheist) care if other humans are alone?