An organization called the American Humanist Association is spending $40,000 to place ads on Washington D.C. buses with this picture. The ad asks "why believe in a god?" and answers with "just be good for goodness' sake." The ad completely misunderstands the purpose of religion in general and Christianity in particular (the target of the ad) and creates a caricature view that religion exists to make people good. The marketing personnel of the AHA would have been better served consulting something like the Westminster Shorter Catechism to find out what the chief end of man is in regards to a relationship to God, "Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever." Goodness is an outworking or byproduct of religion, not the goal of it.
A quick visit to their website reveals plenty of irrational and condescending thoughts on religion. For example, they reason that because there are many definitions of 'god' from many varying faith groups, one therefore ought not to believe in god. There are many people that dress up like Elvis Presley and some might actually believe they are Elvis reincarnate. Does that mean Elvis doesn't (or didn't exist)? Of course not. Neither does it mean he did or that God does exist, the point is that people believing in various things about a particular subject does not mean that none of them are true. Here is another argument offered,
"Human beings are social primates. So they have basic feelings of empathy and sociality built in, just as do other social primates like chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, baboons, and the like. These animals don’t get their social behavior from Scripture and neither do you. Morality finds its roots in human nature."
What these folks clearly don't understand is that such comments unwittingly argue for a Biblical view of morality as stated in Romans 2:14-15 (NASB),
"For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them." (emphasis mine)
At least we can agree that we all have a basic sense of right and wrong, whether you believe it's a construction of society or a law implanted by God. My only question is, if the goal of the ad is to promote goodness and they believe that's the point of religion, why spend $40,000 and develop a website dedicated to discouraging religion? My hunch is that their ad is born more out of animosity towards religion than out of a desire to promote goodness.
