Jeune Street

Radcliffe Observatory, Green College, Oxford

The atheist bus saga continues: in Genoa, Italy, the buses are banned. Perhaps it has something to do with the more provocative message, "The bad news is that God doesn't exist. The good news is that you don't need him." Perhaps it's the political sway of the Catholic Cardinal and head of the Italian Bishop's Conference who lives in Genoa. Probably some combination of the two.

As a Baha'i, I've been trying to consider how my own religion deals with the question of free speech in the public sphere. The Baha'i writings offer lots of affirmative guidance about speech. For example, Baha'u'llah says:

An enlightened man of wisdom should primarily speak with words as mild as milk, that the children of men may be nurtured and edified thereby and may attain ... the station of true understanding and nobility.

There isn't much about constraints on freedom of speech, however, except where Baha'u'llah writes that "excess of speech is a deadly poison." This quotation refers both to gossip and "idle talk," which he warns are obstacles in the search for truth. It's still in the form of spiritual guidance rather than legislation about what can and can't be said in the public sphere. There's nothing in the Baha'i writings, as far as I can tell, regarding banning religious defamation -- apart from observing a general ethic of respect towards others.

So, I'm generally inclined not to have a huge problem with atheist advertising, even if I think it's a bit petulant and silly. The ads break with the general advertising convention of telling people what to do, believe or buy; instead, they tell people what not to believe. I mean, you wouldn't see an ad that says: "Coke invented Santa Claus. He doesn't exist, and you can't trust them. Buy Pepsi." The closest thing to popular negative advertising are the "I'm a Mac" skits, which actually have a sense of humour about teasing the other side.

Perhaps that's what makes the atheist ads so childish; they take themselves far too seriously in trying to prove religions wrong. Lighten up, guys. No one has all the answers.