A thing isn't the absence of that thing

Now, as you who know me well already know, I'm a Catholic. And those of you who know me better will also know that it's a personal thing, and I'm not really interested in participating in mass-scale conversion of people to the flock.

But today I'm going to take up the flag for my people, and also people of all religions.

A story in The Spencer Street Soviet (otherwise known as The Melbourne Red, or The Age) today, which it has picked up from it's sibling newspaper in Britain, The Guardian, informs one that double decker buses in London now carrying advertising for atheism. They read "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life". You can find the article here.

Now, while I agree with the sentiment of the latter part of the message, I'm not happy with the advertisement. In fact, I'm not happy with atheism in general. Recently, it's been charting an interesting course.

Due to people like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, atheism has received plenty of publicity. Both agree that religion is the basis of most of the world's problems, and because God plainly doesn't exist, this is a problem that can be easily solved by the eradication of religion.

I call this "fundamentalist atheism". Just as other fundamentalists in other religions want to eradicate all the other religions (and atheists for that matter), these people want only atheism to survive.

There is only one problem with my analogy - atheism isn't a religion. It's the absence of one.

When the Church of England publicises Christ or God, it is publicising something. Atheists are publicising the absence of something. It's like selling an empty coke bottle.

I know plenty of atheists. Hell (not a swear word when talking about atheists as they don't believe it exists), I'm even marrying one. But they don't promote atheism. In fact, they talk little about God of their own accord. They may talk about the evil in the world that organised religion is responsible for, and that is fair comment. But they're not actively recruiting people to be Godless.

Paul Keating is quoted as saying (and this is about the only time I'll quote PJK in an argument I'm making), "If God doesn't exist, why isn't everyone just chasing women and antiques?", these being the two most desirable things in his mind, apparently.

Organised religions, or "faith traditions" as some people call them (urghh), have been responsible for, how does one put it, some bad shit. But they're also responsible for some incredible goodness as well. Personally, I think that is how God works on Earth, through people doing good works and being charitable. Jesus didn't call on us to be good to the poor because he wanted to change the world order or bring about social equity: He called us to do good works because it brought us closer to God. But that is another story for another day and another audience.

A few weeks ago a story ran in the local papers that the Humanist Society was about to receive permission from the Department of Education to run a "religious" education course at state primary schools that advocated the absence of God.

Now, I'm a secularist, and I don't believe religious education should be taught at schools operated by the government. But they certainly shouldn't be permitting what amounts to a "non-religious" education course to be run at a state school. It should be up to parents to provide guidance with regards to religious beliefs and greater meaning. It should also be noted that relying on parents to do parenting isn't exactly the most successful strategy at the moment.

Simply put, I don't think atheism should be put on the same level as religious belief. Actually, I think on the census the box you tick should just be " No Religion". If you don't believe in a religion, then you have no religion. Atheism is not a religion. It's the promotion of nothing. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.