Christians have No Imagination Whatsoever
6th Feb 2009 23:24:46
The Guardian report on the new Christian bus adverts actually amuses me a little bit, and I think I should nail my colours to the mast here, and declare myself a militant atheist. I don't believe in a God or Gods, benevolent or otherwise, although anyone who gets to the end of this blog post and doesn't get that should probably read it properly.
It saddens me that the ASA are fine with running adverts like:
"There definitely is a God. So join the Christian Party and enjoy your life."
The not worrying and the enjoying your life parts are of course welcome, but the adverts, by the Russian Orthodox Church and the Christian party respectively, claim something with no proof. The existence of a God. Obviously, proof for a claim can't be located within every advertisement, or else they'd just be meaningless lists of scientific studies.
A scientific theory must be three things:
- Accurate. It must agree with observation. This is the most important requirement. If it disagrees with observation, it's wrong. End story.
- Useful. It must make quantitative predictions, which can be tested and verified. The theory must have measurable consequence.
- Falsifiable. There must be a way of proving the theory wrong.
For example, the Theory of Gravity is all three. It agrees with observation of things on a human level, right up to supermassive stars and incomprehensibly tiny particles. It is useful, it tells us qualitative information about how satellites, cars, planes and stars behave, and it is falsifiable. If you had a fork that was hovering in mid-air, or juggling balls that continued upwards when thrown, and never returned to Earth, the theory would be wrong. Note that just because we DON'T have levitating forks, or flying juggling balls, doesn't mean the theory is a bad theory. It means it's clearly right.
To move back to the issue. The ASA says all claims made should not mislead, cause harm, or offend. On the Atheist Bus Adverts campaign, the ASA ruled as such:
Quite where the ASA gets the idea that the existence or non-existence of God is beyond the realms of objective substantiation is beyond me. Let's attempt to do so now:
- Accuracy. OK, evidence for the existence of God... *Looks around* I see a bed, a pile of maths papers and various strewn clothes. No God there.
- Usefulness. "God exists, therefore..." well, what? If God exists, what can I tell about the world more than him not existing? Therefore I should behave morally? Well, what's morally anyway? Therefore I should be good else I'll go to hell? Proof? I certainly won't find anything out by praying. Try it next time instead of a major operation. Triple heart bypass or prayer? Perhaps it could be tried instead of maths. I won't bother actually engineering this bridge, I'll just pray, and go on what God puts into my head.
- Falsifiable. How could I theoretically show if God doesn't exist? Well, I don't know. Would things be different?
Failing the three tests means far more than a simple "God doesn't exist". It means that the theory is absolute junk itself, and shouldn't even be considered. Russel's Teapot is an analogy designed by the great logician and philosopher Bertrand Russel. It says:
Russell meant to show that the onus is on someone to prove something exists, not on someone to prove it doesn't exist. If I told you there was an elephant behind you, you'd think I was a liar the second you turned round to see there wasn't.See the Flying Spaghetti Monster for further discussion.
It's not that I don't believe God exists. I don't, but that's not the point. I don't believe that placing unprovable, junk theories on advertisements is anywhere near the ASA's code.
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