Stop Worrying: There's Probably No God ???

Ruth Gledhill reports:

Richard Dawkins is helping fund a campaign by the British Humanist Association to persuade people that God does not exist. Posters are to be placed on 30 bendy buses in London in January with the slogan: 'There's probably no God. So stop worrying and enjoy your life.'

Ruth points out that this assumes that thinking there is a God would cause people to worry and not enjoy life. But, that's not the way most Christians actually experience faith.

The assumption that others are worrying and not enjoying life may be a case of projection. Perhaps the people who are worrying and not enjoying life are Richard Dawkins and the other members of the British Humanist Association. As Ruth puts it:

This could be a classic case of what psychotherapists describe as 'transference'. I take some delight in learning from this that Richard Dawkins and the small number of people who belong to the British Humanist Association have clearly been worrying about the existence of God.

(I think she meant projection, not transference.)

But what are they worried about? Could it be that if there were a God, then that God would not approve of their activities?

I notice something else that Ruth didn't mention -- "probably". Probably? This is not a confident statement.

So they can't stop worrying because ... they are really not sure. Their incisive logic refuses to let them claim absolutely that there isn't God. Could it be that they think there isn't a God but they can't stop thinking about God, the idea keeps nagging at them, worrying them and keeping them from enjoying life.

So, maybe they thought that if they post big signs that will move around and catch them unawares it will help. Perhaps they think that by seeing the signs on buses it will comfort them to be reminded of their belief at those moments when they are falling into a moment of thinking "Well, possibly there is God."

The problem with this signs on buses scheme is that their internal integrity requires that "probably" on the signs, and really, wasn't it the lack of certainty that was the problem all along.

(Anyway, that is what popped into my head when I read it.)