{"id":188,"date":"2009-10-21T14:05:25","date_gmt":"2009-10-21T14:05:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/10\/good-without-god.html"},"modified":"2009-10-21T14:05:25","modified_gmt":"2009-10-21T14:05:25","slug":"good-without-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/10\/good-without-god.html","title":{"rendered":"Good Without God?: Atheist Advertising Campaign on NYC Subways Causes a Stir"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div>There is much ado in some circles about a month-long advertising campaign scheduled to begin Monday. The &#8220;atheist ad&#8221;, as the&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2009\/10\/20\/atheist-subway-ads-ny-coa_n_327613.html\">Huffington Post<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymail.com\/ap\/ApTopStories\/200910190389\">Associated Press<\/a>&nbsp;and <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/here-come-the-atheists.html\">others <\/a>tag it&nbsp;poses the question: &#8220;A million New Yorkers are good without God, are you?&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The campaign, which is funded by an anonymous donor, coincides (by design or miracle) with the Tuesday release of<a href=\"http:\/\/goodwithoutgod.info\/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=1&amp;Itemid=30\"> Harvard University&#8217;s Humanist Chaplain<\/a> Greg Epstein&#8217;s book, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Good-Without-God-Billion-Nonreligious\/dp\/0061670111\">Good Without God: What a Billion Non-Religious People Do Believe.<\/a>&nbsp;Epstein, who will be reading from the book at Columbia University on October 28th, describes the book briefly in this video.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><object width=\"425\" height=\"344\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/CDWgSUMw0BA&amp;color1=0xb1b1b1&amp;color2=0xcfcfcf&amp;hl=en&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;fs=1\" \/><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"always\" \/><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/CDWgSUMw0BA&amp;color1=0xb1b1b1&amp;color2=0xcfcfcf&amp;hl=en&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;fs=1\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" width=\"425\" height=\"344\"><\/object><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>As an atheist, turned agnostic, turned Christian at age 37, my response to this ad and Epstein&#8217;s premise &#8211; that of pursuing good in the world without relying on or seeing guidance from God &#8211; is mixed.&nbsp;There are a number of people in my life who do not seek or rely upon God, yet they do good &#8211; in some cases sacrificing their lives for the good of others. I know others who claim to follow Jesus who do little more than serve themselves, their immediate families and perhaps a handful of people who happen across their path &#8211; evidence, it appears, that one can be good without God and not so good with God.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>That said, I cannot deny that my experience of transitioning from non-belief to belief in a power greater than myself in addiction recovery, to an unexpected (and unsought) faith in Jesus has resulted in a transformation that may or may not be quantified using a seemingly simple, yet incredibly difficult word like &#8220;good&#8221;.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>My friend <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beckygarrison.com\/\">Becky Garrison<\/a>, a religious satirist who is working on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.religiondispatches.org\/archive\/rdbook\/1949\/good_without_god%3A_the_ethics_of_atheism\/\">a piece about Epstein t<\/a>ells me that he is interested in creating a dialog across the atheist\/believer divide. I hope to attend Epstein&#8217;s reading with her to learn more.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>So where do you land on &#8220;atheist evangelizing&#8221; and the notion of human beings being good with or without God? People from such a wide variety of &nbsp;traditions visit here. I&#8217;d love to hear what you think&#8230;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is much ado in some circles about a month-long advertising campaign scheduled to begin Monday. The &#8220;atheist ad&#8221;, as the&nbsp;Huffington Post,&nbsp;Associated Press&nbsp;and others tag it&nbsp;poses the question: &#8220;A million New Yorkers are good without God, are you?&#8221; The campaign, which is funded by an anonymous donor, coincides (by design or miracle) with the Tuesday&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spiritual-growth"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Good Without God?: Atheist Advertising Campaign on NYC Subways Causes a Stir - Flirting with Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/10\/good-without-god.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Good Without God?: Atheist Advertising Campaign on NYC Subways Causes a Stir - Flirting with Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There is much ado in some circles about a month-long advertising campaign scheduled to begin Monday. The &#8220;atheist ad&#8221;, as the&nbsp;Huffington Post,&nbsp;Associated Press&nbsp;and others tag it&nbsp;poses the question: &#8220;A million New Yorkers are good without God, are you?&#8221; The campaign, which is funded by an anonymous donor, coincides (by design or miracle) with the Tuesday&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/10\/good-without-god.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Flirting with Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-10-21T14:05:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Joan Ball\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Good Without God?: Atheist Advertising Campaign on NYC Subways Causes a Stir - Flirting with Faith","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/10\/good-without-god.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Good Without God?: Atheist Advertising Campaign on NYC Subways Causes a Stir - Flirting with Faith","og_description":"There is much ado in some circles about a month-long advertising campaign scheduled to begin Monday. 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