Atheism on the omnibus

Only one aspect of the “God probably doesn’t exist” promotion on buses actually bothers me. It is that Garth George might feel called to leap to the defence of God. Or worse, “Bishop” Brian Tamaki. (For those who don’t know these gents, Garth George is our resident Christian bigot who writes a weekly column in the NZ Herald; and Brian is a self-appointed and anointed bishop who requires his followers to support him even when he’s wrong, which is just as well because it is usually the case.)

The news since is that the local atheists who asked for $10,000 to put their slogan on buses have received a flood of donations. They can now do more buses than they thought, and have other slogans.

C’mon, punish the church, write a cheque... Get right up the nostrils of those sanctimonious hypocritical Christians. It’s also a little sad that their slogan is unoriginal, as though there were no creativity whatever among the godless. They copied it from the London buses.

Well, I saw the leading atheist on TV the other night, and he’s quite a decent bloke who needs to cheer up a bit. He didn’t seem fazed by the observation that he’s actually having a bob each way – “God probably doesn’t exist...” He thought that it was time the rationalists, humanists, agnostics, atheists, got their say, as though the boring monochrome old NZ Rationalist Society has not existed here for about a century already.

How come these atheists think they have some monopoly on reason and rational thought?

I agree with them, however. The god they say doesn’t exist, in my understanding isn’t there at all. Never was. Neither is the god of Garth George, sad old bloke. Garth’s god turns out to be spookily like Garth. I have my doubts too about the gods of Presbyterianism, Anglicanism and Catholicism – although they are so obscured by the churches that it’s difficult to be sure. I suspect that in biblical terms they’re idols.

Faith for me has simplified with age. About all that is meaningful to me is the picture of God that Jesus offers, Jesus the Jew, the person the New Testament calls the “icon of the invisible God”. So it’s just as well perhaps that I don’t have to preach sermons now. Faith and prayer for me are best expressed in silence and stillness, and simplicity. Certainly not chatter or dispute.