SENTINEL WATCH December 29, 2008 Issue

PRAYER IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GOD DEBATE

TONY LOBL

RECENT BUS ADVERTISEMENTS in London and in Washington, DC, have been carrying the slogans: "There's probably no God" or "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake." At the same time, religious ads have been running that claim the importance of believing in God.

British writer Ariane Sherine, who initiated the London bus campaign, explains, "I was just keen to counter the religious ads running which featured a URL to website telling non-Christians they would spend 'all eternity in torment in hell ... in a lake of fire.' "

Overall, the ads seem relatively tame. However, they lead to messages from both sides, expressed in harsh and strident pronouncements on life and its prospects. The messages from atheists, for example, highly publicized in London and Europe in best-selling books and on TV shows, don't preach a "fire and brimstone" fate for opponents, but they do assert God's presumed unreality and the insignificance of individual identity as a random byproduct of a vast universe of chance.