posted
Ad campaigns from atheist, skeptic or humanist organizations have been discussed before on the board, so I'd like to get some opinions on this latest one.
quote:A national multimedia ad campaign – the largest, most extensive ever by a godless organization - launches today and will include a spot on NBC Dateline on Friday, November 12, as well as other television ads, that directly challenge biblical morality and fundamentalist Christianity. The campaign, sponsored by the American Humanist Association, also features ads in major national and regional newspapers and magazines demonstrating that secular humanist values are consistent with mainstream America and that fundamentalist religion has no right to claim the moral high ground.
In general I've been unhappy with the ads and billboards that have appeared. Mainly because I've found them to be too mean-spirited and negative. These, however, I like because of the way they're worded: "What some believe..." and "What humanists believe..."
It's being pretty specific and doesn't seem to be painting all religious people with the same brush. Which I like.
I don't expect everyone on Hatrack to like the campaign, but I'm curious if you think this is a better way of going about it than how other ads have presented themselves.
Posts: 3852 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
I like that print ad at the bottom right. The one with quotes from "Some People" and "Humanists" to contrast their beliefs. Since they're kind of text-heavy, they bolded one word in each. The bolded word in the "Some" section is DEATH, and the bolded word in the "Humanist" section is GENOCIDE.
Hmmm... If those are the only two options, I guess I'll go with death. Posts: 563 | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
I think attempting to promote humanism by doing a compare-and-contrast campaign vs. the Bible is doomed to fail, because there are very few people who'll be receptive to it. On this board alone, we've seen the reaction of religious people when fairly common but unpleasantly fraught bits of opinion or doctrine are held up to criticism: that opinion isn't theirs; that interpretation of doctrine isn't one they follow; they don't know anyone who really believes that, as presented; that portrayal lacks nuance. The conclusion they take away is that humanists are forced to resort to straw men attacks against the fringes of their belief -- and, hey, why do their beliefs need to be attacked, anyway?, they ask. It's not like they go around attacking and insulting humanists, right?
And that's not even getting into the people who do believe those offensive doctrines, are absolutely steeped in them, and don't feel the slightest bit of guilt or cognitive dissonance.
Humanism is its own philosophy, if not quite its own faith, and offers advantages which don't need to be contrasted against the perceived weaknesses of the local majority religion. I mean, no one tries to talk someone into being Hindu instead of Muslim because, hey, Diwali's really fun and you can wear less clothing.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:It's not like they go around attacking and insulting humanists, right?
I assume this is sarcasm.
quote:why do their beliefs need to be attacked, anyway?
I find that even in situations where a theist has asked out of genuine curiosity: "Why don't you believe in God?" that when the atheist answers the question, the theist feels they have been attacked. The fact is that we didn't start this. Atheism only exists in the context of theism. Positive assertions of atheism are, necessarily, reactions to theism. So while I believe politeness is necessary, walking on eggshells is not.
And as to the "very few people" who will be receptive to this message, that number will increase as atheism comes further out of the closet, and society recognizes it as normal. Just think how far we've come with race and sexual preference.
Oh, and I like "Godless" in part because it's the word that's been used to describe us, and in part because it's accurate. For everybody.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Are they trying to win people to the cause, or simply affirm how the existing humanist base thinks? I think it's a little adversarial as a "proselyting" tool. I can see it starting exactly the kind of arguments Tom is modeling, which isn't going to win anyone over unless they were already teetering toward the humanist side of the fence anyway. The objective and audience of this campaign seems a bit murky.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
Frankly, I think an effective humanist campaign would include brief personal profiles of humanists doing important jobs -- doctors, soldiers, cops, firemen -- and explaining why they do them, and how they still consider life precious despite (or perhaps because) they don't believe there's anything after it.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Based on my conversations with believers, here are the issues (perceived or actual) that some of them find most problematic about atheists which I, in turn, find most problematic for co-existence as peers:
1) They believe there can be no underlying morality without a divine basis for that morality.
2) They believe that, without a promised eternal -- and regularly reinforced, via church or other social mechanism -- incentive for good works, people (with or without an understanding of morality) will be more easily tempted into bad choices.
3) They think atheists are uppity, smug know-it-alls who have based their lives on rejecting "traditional" ways and aren't interested in or capable of doing anything constructive.
4) They believe atheists, by pushing for specific secular policies, are undermining certain dogmatic religious requirements or recommendations for society, and thus endangering society in a way that might have supernatural consequences.
5) They think of atheism as a competing religion in its own right, with consistent belief structures and reverence for some sort of monolithic "Science" or "State" (the distinction is not often clear) which serves as a replacement for divine authority.
Note that not all of these miconceptions are far off the mark, in the same way that the cartoonish stereotype of the Bible-thumping redneck isn't exactly rare in the wild. Addressing them should be, IMO, the priority of any atheist group that actually wants to try to establish itself as a social peer.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I think this ad campaign would probably do more harm than good for the same reasons Tom pointed out. The "What Some Believe" part seems to consist of quotations placed in a context that misses the larger point of religion, and thus comes across as a straw man. Questions like "Is God permitted to commit Genocide" make good topics for theoretical debate, but those aren't the sorts of things that religion is concerned with in practical life. So raising an issue like that as a reason to change religion is only going to feed into the idea that humanists are bending over backwards to find things that portray religion in the most negative light possible.
The problem is that humanism is very similar to religion on the practical matters that religious individuals turn to religion to help them with. Humanism agrees with religion on the value of life, the need for character and ethical behavior, the importance of community, etc. And Humanism is essentially neutral on the importance of ceremony and tradition. The major disagreement it has with major world religions is that Humanism tends to support the notion that God is not a necessary requirement for having character, valuing life, etc. That means an honest ad campaign is going to have to focus on that notion - which is hard, because there's not many simple emotional ways to get people to jump to that conclusion with a simple ad, especially if they are already strongly wedded to the reverse idea that rightful living is inseperably linked to God.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
I think the contrasting of beliefs is fine as a separate link for the website. For the ad campaign, I think just printing some of the humanist quotes by themselves would be fairly successful in promoting a positive message and addressing a lot of the issues that people may have regarding atheism.
Posts: 161 | Registered: Aug 2010
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quote:which isn't going to win anyone over unless they were already teetering toward the humanist side of the fence anyway
I think that the people who post in the religious threads on this board are quite strong in their beliefs and this type of ad campaign would hardly be effective on them.
However, I think that the average religious person is very loosely religious and would likely find the types of quotes used in this campaign to be a little troubling. I could see this ad campaign encouraging some to learn a little bit more about humanism.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
As an RE teacher, I find that teaching people the Bible is an excellent way to start them questioning.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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