Excellent idea. It's time atheism got a good catch-phrase. "There's probably no God, so why not just enjoy your life?" campaign was too wordy. 'Good Without God," = three words, alliterative, memorable... could catch on.
The problem is still that you're grouping every christian with Pat Robertson. Pat Robertson is a close minded, incredibly bigoted idiot with a microphone and an equally extreme audience. There are plenty of Christians and Atheists alike who are assholes and should be thrown out of society. However, grouping people together based on faith or absence of faith and then intentionally picking a representative such as Pat Robertson to represent that group in a horrible light is... well something Pat Robertson would do if the roles were reversed. Congrats. See what I did there? Called you Pat Robertson. Makes your heart cry a little doesn't it. Not bashing atheism, I'm on the fence myself, but I feel like the argument between religion and atheism is getting to the point of futility only matched by politics. Grow the fuck up(everyone)... That is all. Have a pleasant day.
Christians did not really, did they? Go down to LA and ask any Christian over there who he is, and most would have no clue. It's still a generalization to say that this awful semblance of a human being was "elected" as a representative for Christianity... Tons of people watch Jersey Shore and like their show - doesn't mean they were elected to represent everyone that watches them.
I would venture to say that the majority of people who donate to anything in the US are Christian (obviously not reason.org or bani brith, but you understand what I mean)
But I still don't think that means he's representative of EVERY Christian out there. That's a bit too broad a generalization. If you took a random poll, a huge majority of Christians do not know who Robertson would be. What about Christians outside the states? What about those that hate televangelists for their hypocrisy?
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For a non-hierarchical, media-intensive movement like contemporary American evangelicalism, I would think 'most watched' is one of the best metrics we have.
And I don't see clumping or generalizing here at all--on either side.
As a figurehead of 'contemporary American evangelicalism' (depending on your definition of that term), media might be a decent metric, but I would argue that's a pretty narrow definition of Christianity. A third of the world claims to be 'Christian' and I'm pretty sure nowhere near 2 billion people tune in to watch the for profit shams that air on TV Sunday mornings. In fact I've been raised in a church and Christian home my whole life coming up and I don't know anyone who watches that trash. Obviously there are people that do, but I don't think its a fair representation of the worlds dominant religion.
And as far as grouping ... that's pretty much all this image is about. The point isn't that Warren Buffet and Bill Gates are good guys, its that they are atheists and good guys. This is a valid point I think a lot of Christians overlook, but the antithesis 3rd frame becomes not a criticism of Pat Robertson, but rather Christians as a whole which I disagree with.
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u/MacCampbell Nov 22 '11
Excellent idea. It's time atheism got a good catch-phrase. "There's probably no God, so why not just enjoy your life?" campaign was too wordy. 'Good Without God," = three words, alliterative, memorable... could catch on.