Atheist bus advertising skips logic, goes for polemic
There is so much illogic — and then in just two short sentences! — in this latest example of bus-side advertising for atheism in Britain.
Where to begin?
Let’s pick apart that first sentence. Does “science” really fly us to the Moon? Well, various avenues of research and development did develop the technology used to get astronauts off the ground, get them out of Earth’s atmosphere, land them safely on the Moon, and then bring them safely back the way the came. So it could be argued that “science” played a role.
But then, by that same logic, “science” also gave us the airplanes that Mohammed Atta and his cohorts used against the Twin Towers…so if science can take the credit for landing us on the Moon, surely it must also take the blame for the just-shy-of-3000 Americans who perished on that cold September morning seven and a half years ago?
Ah, but there’s the second sentence to consider! Those airplanes weren’t flown into the buildings because of science, but because of Religion! It was because Atta and his accomplices were carrying out what they felt was a religious mission that they used those planes to fell the Twin Towers!
As Robin Williams might say: Really!
Because by that same logic, then, it wasn’t science that flew us to the Moon, either; it was politics (the space race, and in particular the race to the Moon, must be understood in the context of Cold War-era competition between the United States and the Soviet Union), it was economics (John F. Kennedy’s “We choose to go to the Moon” speech included a large section making rather a big deal out of the job creation potential of the space program), and it was…well…because the Moon was there.
As noted: there’s a lot of error in just two sentences, some of which has been enumerated above. However, it should be noted that perhaps the biggest error is in the second sentence, with its blanket statement that “Religion” is what flies planes into buildings.
As Robin Williams might say: Really!
Which religion? When was the last time nineteen Amish men hijacked a plane and flew it into a pair of skyscrapers in New York? When was the last time a handful of Baptist churchgoers orchestrated and pulled off a devious plot involving numerous bombings in the London Tube? When was the last time a Catholic blew up a bus during rush hour?
There are two errors at work here. The first is one that Christopher Hitchens, in particular, has been guilty of in the past: drawing specific examples of violence perpetrated in the name of Islam and using this as an example with which to broadly condemn all religions (even though most other religions — Christianity being no exception — simply do not have the necessary theological basis for preaching or justifying an agenda of violence, which Islam does).
This would be a little like condemning all men as violent misogynists because one deranged male (himself the son of a wife-beating Algerian Muslim, incidentally) once shot up a class full of female engineering students and…oh…wait, yeah. Anyhow…
The second error is what blogger Shawarma Mayor notes is wrong with the advert: it scrupulously avoids any mention of Islam, despite invoking the image of an event that was perpetrated by Muslims, and which has not even been attempted, on any scale or in any locality, by adherents of any other faith, because of that faith.
But then, it’s easy to condemn religion in the broad sense than specifically condemn Islam. It’s easier to condemn Christianity, if one wants to be specific, than to condemn Islam…even if one must use the crimes of Islamic fanatics in order to illustrate one’s polemic against Christianity. But then, Rome does not issue fatwas. Nor does Canterbury, come to think of it.
Scratch an atheist, find an illogical coward.
Hmmn…looks like Calgary is apparently “next in line” for these atheist advertisments.
Heh…I wonder if PZ Myers would suggest that the organizers of this campaign keep their disbelief to themselves? You know…because that sort of thing would be…logically consistent, and non-hypocritical, on his part, given his comments on Caroline Petrie.
Yeah…I thought not.
Kenneth Hynek » Blog Archive » Halifax transit system declines to run atheist ads (February 6, 2009, 1:15 pm).
[...] And I really don’t get what Halifax’s Metro Transit is doing by refusing to run the ads. It smacks of censorship to me — personally, I think the ads should run. As has been recently demonstrated, they make for great opportunities to examine the fundamental unreason of atheist rhetoric. [...]