Trying to be as happy as Mary Kenny

The Atheist Bus Campaign, kicked off by Ariane Sherine, has been raising money to put ads on the sides of buses saying: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”


I think that’s a cracking idea. It probably won’t create all that many converts, but it should start a few conversations and raise a few smiles and/or eyebrows. It may well also offend some of those religious types who seem to take grim pleasure in being offended (it’s almost like self-oriented schadenfreude), but that’s their call.

But Mary Kenny, while not disapproving of the exercise of free speech by atheists, finds the “stop worrying and enjoy your life” slogan a bit incongruous:

Far from relaxing and enjoying life, most atheists I have encountered are gloomy blighters with a depressing and nihilistic message that there is no purpose to life so where's the point of anything?

To which I can only recommend that Mary tries to meet a wider range of atheists.

I might have responded that most religious people I have encountered are fearful, blinkered blighters with a depressing and dehumanising outlook that we cannot create purpose in our own and in each other’s lives and that there’s only any point to anything if a being who has no detectable contact with humanity says so – but that’s just not true. Most religious people I know are every bit as lovely and fun as most atheists I know (there are exceptions in both groups).

Whatever Mary gets up to this weekend, and whomever she spends it with, I hope she has an enjoyable and worry-free time. Likewise to all of you.