For Goodness Sake?

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It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

The inflatable Frosty the Snow Man displays are popping up in front yards.

The occasional Christmas carol is being worked into elevator music.

Pre-Thanksgiving Holiday Bonanza-thon Sales Blow Outs are being staged at the mall.

And, of course, the godless set is already offended.

To whit-

'Why Believe in a God?' Ad Campaign Launches on D.C. Buses


WASHINGTON, D.C. — You better watch out. There is a new combatant in the Christmas wars.

Ads proclaiming, "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake," will appear on Washington, D.C., buses starting next week and running through December. The American Humanist Association unveiled the provocative $40,000 holiday ad campaign Tuesday.

In lifting lyrics from "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," the Washington-based group is wading into what has become a perennial debate over commercialism, religion in the public square and the meaning of Christmas.

"We are trying to reach our audience, and sometimes in order to reach an audience, everybody has to hear you," said Fred Edwords, spokesman for the humanist group. "Our reason for doing it during the holidays is there are an awful lot of agnostics, atheists and other types of non-theists who feel a little alone during the holidays because of its association with traditional religion."

To that end, the ads and posters will include a link to a Web site that will seek to connect and organize like-minded thinkers in the D.C. area, Edwords said.

Edwords said the purpose isn't to argue that God doesn't exist or change minds about a deity, although "we are trying to plant a seed of rational thought and critical thinking and questioning in people's minds." http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,450445,00.html

"Rational thought and critical thinking", eh?

Let's examine this ad campaign by its' own standard for a moment.

The first question that runs through my mind is pretty basic - What does the American Humanist Association mean by the word "good"?

No doubt, they take the general societal consensus that defines being "good" as having compassion and consideration for others, particularly those who are strangers, physically hurting or generally on the losing end of things.

But what if my culture says that being "good" is helping humanity perfect itself by culling out such "human weeds"?

What if my perspective states that the sick and the slow should not be allowed to survive and pass their inferior genes on to another generation who will only suffer the same fate.

What if I believe, for the greater evolutionary good, all welfare, social assistance and health care should be denied those who simply fail to measure up to a pre-determined genetic standard. In fact, unless certain individuals meet that standard they should not even be considered human beings.

I'd be in some pretty impressive company if I held those views.

Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood believed the first statement. http://www.spectator.org/archives/2004/06/23/maggie-sanger-and-the-human-we

Nobel Prize nominee Herbert Spencer believed the second. http://www.iep.utm.edu/s/spencer.htm

Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of DNA held to the third. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3798/is_/ai_n9036015

The ultimate questions the American Humanist Association raises with their amazingly superficial ad campaign is simple - Whose definition of good are you using? And why should I listen to you?

The main problem we run into when we remove God from a discussion of morality is this:

If there is no God, we are simply an accident. A nice roll of some chemical dice.

If we are an accident, there is no ultimate purpose to our lives beyond following our drives for survival and reproduction.

Morality is simply a social convention. It is enforced by the consensus and will of the controlling leaders of the majority of humanity.

And if morality is merely a power game, the only difference between Hitler and us, is that he lost a war.

To answer the question on that cheery holiday billboard - why believe in God?

Because "goodness for goodness sake" is both incomprehensible and irrational without Him.

A far more consistent ethic is rooted in the truth that our inherent desire to "be good" is a reflection of the fact that we are made in the image and likeness of the Author of goodness.

As a fairly intelligent man named Solomon concluded at the end of his life -

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:

Fear God and keep His commandments,
For this is man’s all.
For God will bring every work into judgment,
Including every secret thing,
Whether good or evil. (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14)