The Offensive Atheist in the United States

I have a close friend who has the misfortune that his beliefs with regard to the transcendent vary between agnosticism and militant atheism — closer, I think, to the latter than to the former. He traveled to the United States for Christmas recently in order to see his grandchildren, and every time we speak on the telephone he repeats, with the sarcasm of one who knows that what he’s saying is irritating: “As they say here, Happy Holidays.”

His visit to America has coincided with a new atheist campaign in Washington, New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Chicago and other cities with an advertisement slogan carried by the buses, “No god? No problem!” Which is, obviously, a continuation of the “atheist bus” campaigns that were seen in Spain not long ago. In Spain, given that we’re not very bright here, it was necessary to make posters with a considerably longer slogan: “There’s probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” What Americans manage to say in four words, we Spaniards can only convey with 11 — almost triple.

I often think that many atheists take Jesus a lot more seriously than a high percentage of the Christians, who are happy to declare themselves as such, even though in reality they are religious more in name than in practice.

What’s certain is that as the great Paul Johnson rightly maintains, it’s much more difficult to demonstrate the non-existence of God than his existence. Some people, however, are happy thinking that while some of us have God, and the Jews may have their prophets, they have Bono — the singer, of course. As popular wisdom holds, José Bono, the Spanish politician, is a Catholic who differs from his fellow believers in that while the majority of them have a lot of belief in God, but little desire to attend church, the Spanish Bono has very little belief in God, but goes to church a lot.

And as the great Taki rightly said in the Christmas edition of The Spectator, “A godless Christmas seems to me a very sad and morbid occasion. For strutting atheists it is a very bad time. And it’s getting worse. The war on Christmas has failed, as stores, schools and public places have had enough of the secular bullies. Christmas trees are now once again called Christmas trees, rather than holiday trees, and you can wish one a happy Christmas without being called an anti-Semite or a bigot.” It’s probably that it’s precisely because of the step forward that the United States has made in the recuperation of the meaning of Christmas that we now have the offensive secularism of the atheist bus. Long may they prosper.