The board that runs South Bend’s buses has agreed to accept an atheist group’s ad that says “You can be good without God.” A similar ad was rejected for Bloomington’s buses and is the subject of a lawsuit by the ACLU of Indiana.
The ad was rejected by Bloomington Public Transportation Corporation because, as its policy reads, “Statements of position in support of or in opposition to controversial public issues shall not be accepted.â€
I didn’t realize it was controversial that one could be good without believing in God. To me, the acid test is whether or not the Bloomington bus system (or any other bus system that faces this advertising decision in the future) permits religious messages at all. My sense is that the real controversy isn’t whether one can be good without God. The real controversy is that atheism has a stigma about it, and allowing them to say something positive about their beliefs is uncomfortable for people. If the Wiccans wanted to advertise about how the earth sustains us or if Satanists wanted to advertise about how one should believe in one’s self, I suspect they would experience similar resistance. It’s not the particular message that’s objectionable — rather it’s the body of beliefs underlying the message.
Do you really think Bloomington would allow someone to place an ad on there that quotes The Bible?
My guess is that they would oppose that, just as they opposed this. I also think they would accept an ad for a church “Come worship with so-and-so church, Sunday’s at 9” and also an atheist ad like “Bloomington Atheist Support Group, on the web at http://www.website.com“.
As to your confusion about “…controversial that one could be good without believing in God”, it depends on how a person defines “good”. If good = pleasing to God, then, that statement is correct. If good = playing nice with others, then it is incorrect. So, if a large group of people feel that good = pleasing to God, then it would be a controversial move.
That really just doesn’t compute for me — any more than, just randomly, “good = likes chocolate cake.” If one posits a really sadistic God who enjoys human sacrifices (say, one’s eldest son) or the slaughter of unbelievers, to me it’s still ridiculous to think of “good” being what that higher being happens to prefer.
If there is a god, I don’t pretend to know its mind. But the fact that it could have a preference which I would reject — e.g., feed children to the dogs; means that good & evil has to have a value independent of the whimsical preference of a higher being. It does nothing to say that “*My* God would never be pleased by such things” because you still have to answer the question of whether a thing’s goodness or badness hinges on that god’s preferences or on something independent of that god’s preferences. And, incidentally, somewhere in human history, there were probably people who believed in a god that was pleased by whatever atrocity you care to name.
Having spent the past decade or so in Bloomington, I can’t recall any religious messages on bus ads. The only statements on “public issues” (whatever that means) that I have seen on buses are official city programs – mostly about noise complaints.
Our mayor, Mark Kruzan, has asked that the city’s legal department NOT defend Bloomington Transit in the lawsuit, which I think is wise.
BTW, South Bend is now delaying the atheist ads – apparently the ad company approved the ads without consulting the South Bend transit folks.
Actually, I didn’t read the link carefully – I see TRANSPO has now approved the ads. Please disregard the last part of my previous comment.
I doubt that the majority of people would define “good” as “pleasing to god”.
“Be a good boy and clean your room.”
“This pizza is good.”
Etc.
We are capable of accomplishing the many mundane tasks of life without reflecting whether those actions would be pleasing to the invisible man in the sky. If things are pleasing to us, or those around us, is generally good enough.
Even for more major things, we can handle our business down here by ourselves. We don’t prosecute murderers because their conduct is displeasing to God. We do it because it displeases us, scares us, pisses us off. We’ve been able to figure that out all by ourselves. Minus the Ten Commandments, I think we would have been able to come to the same conclusion.