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Jan 18, 2009 
There has been a lot of discussion recently regarding the ‘Atheist Bus’ campaign set up by Ariane Sherine. The campaign was originally set up to raise a small amount of money in order to counteract some religious ads that kindly advised us non-believers that we would all burn in hell. The British buses sport the phrase ‘There’s probably no God so stop worrying and enjoy your life’. I actually prefer the one put out just before Christmas by the American Humanist Society which said ‘Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness’ sake’. I think that’s a much more positive message.
A lot of the discussion has been around the use of the word ‘probably’ in the ad. Some people said that this showed a lack of conviction and was really a statement of agnosticism. Actually the truth was that the word had to be added to satisfy the advertising authorities. I think most of us have come round to accept ‘probably’ as it is logically correct (you can’t prove that there isn’t a god), but I think it’s going a bit far to say that this makes us agnostics rather than atheists.
I call myself an atheist because I don’t believe in the existence of god, in the same sense I don’t believe in the existence of unicorns or the tooth fairy. I could never claim that I can prove the non-existence of any of these entities.
Some atheists describe themselves as strong agnostics as the argument cannot be proved one way or another. I think this is a fine philosophical point, but the problem is that the agnostic in general use tends to mean someone who is undecided and feels that the argument is evenly balanced on either side. You could be agnostic on the grounds that the evidence is only 99.99% on one side.
Also, theists cannot prove that their particular god exists so, until they start referring to themselves as agnostics, I’m still happy to call myself an atheist.
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