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Will,

You're too polite! "Adventurous"; and maybe, "Horrendous." Nevertheless I agree with you - the questions are decent!

Will those who said the atheist bus campaign as waste of money, it should have been spent on a soup kitchen, etc now be as vocal in criticizing the church ad?

Ach, William, grammar is probably not as important as you think, now stop worrying and enjoy your life!!!!!!!

Peter

Would you quit moaning, you guys started it!

"Ach, William, grammar is probably not as important as you think, now stop worrying and enjoy your life!!!!!!!

"Would you quit moaning"

Sorry to moan, but what did William say about stacking up exclamation marks like dominos?

He said he was worried about it. I told him to stop worrying.

I was being ironic.

Like this:

Exclamation mark, exclamation mark, exclamation mark.

and like this,

'You guys started it.'

:-)

But this is on a Church blog, not the side of a bus; and posted 24 hours ago - and with not a comment in response from the congregation 24 hrs later, despite it being a discussion starter.

And only 'probably'. . .

What odds are the local bookies giving on the existance of god this week?

I think in this case the Church is definitely wrong about probably.

The use of the indefinite article eliminates doubt - gods abound.

There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Kathmandu... but one doesn't have to go outside our own society to find gods a-plenty.

First of all, apologies about the grammer, but it has never been my strong point. And as for the !!!! that's another one of my wee faults,

But the picture painted of a God that causes you worry and no enjoyment causes me problems.

I know my grammer ain't great, but what do people think. It's surely worth more than a billboard and silly arguements in reply. I do welcome comments on the Church site

That was gentle teasing about the grammar. The questions are very relevant, though. I don't understand why the humanists think atheism makes people happier when all the science suggests the opposite.

Hi congregationalrev

Grammar isn't as important as many people think, but I need to be careful when and where I say that, cos I'm a teacher, so in the spirit of being careful with my words, I'll just go public with my thoughts on the www.

I agree that the picture of a God who causes worry and no enjoyment is something worth responding to. You should be aware though, that as atheist criticisms go, from some on this blog anyway, this humanist ad is pretty tame. Among other things, the God of the bible has been accused of genocide here, and even when we get to a discussion about the cross that is misinterpreted in terms of a vindictive Father.

What I like about your response to the initial ad is your willingness to engage in debate, as you said, "I think it's an amazing talking point, and I can't believe Christians are complaining about it!!!!"

The interesting thing from my point of view is that the Humanist Association seems to have spent a lot of money initiating a discussion about the word probably, but when the ad itself is just a blatant rip-of from Carlsberg, it's not surprising that it sort of crashed and burned!

You might like to pop back here from time to time, sooner or later somebody's going to put God in the dock again.

Just reading through some of the back comments. Just a couple of comments, I kinda hoped the grammer thing was teasing, but you should have seen some of the comments I got at uni.

As for the cost of this ad, it is only on our church website, so cost us nothing.

And Peter, do you think that it is really God in the dock, or the Church? Or even our interpritation of the Church. We live in changing times. Craig has an interesting comment on the Church blog about this.

Hi congregationalrev

I see the distinction you are making, and yes you are correct, it is often the church which fails to accurately demonstrate God, and the church which often gets in the way of God. All I was saying is that every once in a while both God and the church get it in the neck, and as I have said before on various threads, it is often the case that the God who is being attacked is not the God of the bible, but a caricature of him.

I have to agree Peter, which is why we started this thing, not really aimed at our church folk, but to have the wider debate.

And, yes I know we all end up in the dock, and I have to admit to quite like being in the dock, that way we can see the evidence and have the case presented.

'The interesting thing from my point of view is that the Humanist Association seems to have spent a lot of money initiating a discussion about the word probably, but when the ad itself is just a blatant rip-of from Carlsberg.' petermorrow comment 12

I think you鈥檒l find that the word 'probably' was added on the advice of the advertising agency that placed the ads, they originally said 'there is no God. . . '

There's also a complaint made, for the ASA to adjudicate upon, that Christian churches should use 'allegedly' in future when claiming that God exists.

Congregationalrev - I do not want to divert this thread on to a complete tangent but there are some (and indeed I am one) who would argue that the function of grammar is to describe and not either to prescribe or proscribe. Those holding this view assert that a native speaker of a language cannot make a mistake!!!!!!!

From the outset, the wording used in this ad was always going to be 鈥榩robably鈥�. It was never going to say 鈥淭here is no God鈥�, because apart from anything else even atheists can鈥檛 prove this, making their whole argument and advert null and void:

"Unsettled that religious groups were allowed to advertise websites which warned that the non-religious would face torture at the end of their lives, Sherine pitched and began to write a comment piece for The Guardian鈥檚 Cif (Comment is free) website, called Atheists - Gimme Five. As part of her research for the piece, she called the Advertising Standards Authority, but was told that the website advertised wasn鈥檛 part of their remit. At the end of her article, keen to suggest a solution, she proposed:

[if all atheists reading this] contribute 拢5, it鈥檚 possible that we can fund a much-needed atheist London bus ad with the slogan: 鈥淭here鈥檚 probably no God. Now stop worrying and [enjoy] your life.鈥� Source: www.atheistbus.org.uk


Allegedly, however, God does exist. And this is the point of the thread, not the language or wording used in the ad.

Hi folks, thanks for the comments. Just some thoughts back.

I didn't really want to get into a debate over 'probably' or even 'allegedly' we are at the end of the day talking about belief and issues of faith. Does God want you to worry? Or not enjoy life?

The Jesus that I know seemed to enjoy life, plenty of eating and drinking and indeed tells us not to worry.

Can we move on a wee bit from the English?

But to portwyne. was that a defence of my grammer? If so, thank you, if not you will need to explain in English. lol

I don't believe that God does want his children to worry, and I certainly don't believe that he wants them to not enjoy their lives! I believe that Jesus came to show people a better way - a way where there is no worry as Jesus is there to provide strength when you need it and joy in the hearts of His people.

As it states on your Church blog by another guy, I think the reason they used "stop worrying" and "enjoy your life" was because atheists are often told by so-called Christians that they will go to hell for not being a Christian or believing in the Good News. They are not to worry as, if there is no God, the above wont matter anyway!

As atheists believe there is no life after death or eternal life, this is why they are urging people to enjoy their life NOW while they have the chance and to make the most of it NOW, as there is nothing after this.

I don鈥檛 think the advert is saying that if there is a God, he wants you to worry or to not enjoy life. It鈥檚 merely suggesting that if there is no God, then you are to stop worrying about all this stuff Christians are saying and enjoy your life as normal.

The question of whether God wants us to worry or to not enjoy life is not applicable here as I don鈥檛 believe this is what the advert is actually saying!

Plus, if you look at the advert that was placed by a supposed Christian, loving, Church (that the atheist advert was in response to), I know which advert I prefer. And it鈥檚 NOT the Christian one鈥O wonder so many people are put off by Christians spouting their mouth!

This is the Christian advert that I referred to.

You see, Super kid, not all Christians wander round condeming people and that's the thing that probably gets to me a wee bit about this. We are all ebing lumped in one big basket and the church isn't like that, there is a whole variety of views out there.

Still not sure about the agruement about worry and living life. If there is a God, why should that cause worry? Why should people worry about that? It paints a picture of this big judge ready to smite people. The mighty smiter (ala Bruce Almighty!)

I agree what you say about the advert, it doesn't really strik of 'Love thy neighbour.' DOes Christians a dis-service.