Seen this ad on TV?

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/01/scientology_television_ad_golden_globes_miss_america.php

Perhaps this is what Alain de Botton has in mind and JT’s observation profound, perhaps even a little prophetic. Might Atheism become a Cult and the perception of pure Science become a blur? That seems to be the forced strategy that all but the most fundamentalist notions of religion is taking.

Comments?

JohnTaylor=PlayTOE - 25 January 2012 04:16 AM

We all require some sort of a social group in our lives. Many people use work relations, others use family and some have a local bar they regularly frequent. But to a great extent, social relationships are most often met in churches. Getting people to move from a religion to an absence of social interaction is requiring a greater leap than many are willing to make.

Now sure, the fully independent thinkers easily toss religion and the groups that sheeple stupidity as a trade off for social acceptance, but this is only a small subset of humanity. If we want to let an extended mass of people understand and adhere to a rational way of life, then we need to teach this just like churches are teaching the irrational mythology of their religions.

Can we do it? Yes. If Lafayette Ronald Hubbard could be successful pushing his fiction, then we could be at least as successful, and hopefully far more successful if we begin teaching about reality.
Should we do it? Yes, we have had about 300 years of science progress this time, and historically we see that the religions eventually refocus and bounce back whenever science and rational thinking triumphed over religion.

I always think that the use of the word “Scientology” tends to give the false impression that it is based on a scientific approach, all you need to do is check out their history and woo woo thinking to realise this isn’t the case, their views on alien origins and the evils of psychiatry is a good indication.
Still I suppose many could be deceived into thinking it had some credibility, like the blog suggests, it could be the ad campaign is just a knee jerk reaction to bad press and a decline in favour and numbers since it’s peek in the 80s, an attempt to raise profile and tap their big hitters for cash.

It’s easy for organisations such as Scientology to rally their members to raise money with a mixture of carrot and stick tactics, saying “we need your help and if you do our god will be pleased, if you don’t our god will be angry”. This is the trump card religions can use to their benefit that any secular group can’t. We can’t rally our members with the promise of reward or threaten them with damnation either, for flips sake we don’t even have an organised membership and how could we, we non-believers are different creatures altogether.

Yes Martin, unlike the article that states it’s geared toward attracting more money from existing members, I think it’s obviously a new recruitment campaign as well, and strongly so just from looking at it. They are extreme nut-bags alright, but the “What is Scientology” ad is extremely well done and deceptive. I saw it last night on TV. For anyone that doesn’t know any better, it looks like something that is based on legitimate science and could very well be along the lines of what was discussed on Atheist 2.1 as far as offerings and exposure of Atheism in competition with religion. It struck me as “beating us to it” or easily substitutable for an Atheist campaign. Also, it illuminates the lengths now that religion through the back door is taking, such as Intelligent Design and the approach of using the inabsoluteness or fallibility of science in order to bolster the credibility and validity of the religious alternative.

I guess my initial thought was if we did something like that, would we be mistaken for something like that? They might say “the study of knowledge,” but we would have to explain what knowledge is and its difference from belief. We have “The Man” in our corner who is committed to documenting it and explaining it, but there’s still debate among philosophically oriented Atheists as to the different perceptions of it.

Answerer - 14 February 2012 07:20 PM

I guess my initial thought was if we did something like that, would we be mistaken for something like that? They might say “the study of knowledge,” but we would have to explain what knowledge is and its difference from belief. We have “The Man” in our corner who is committed to documenting it and explaining it, but there’s still debate among philosophically oriented Atheists as to the different perceptions of it.

I see what you mean Ans, I feel uncomfortable seeing religious ads like this one, but I suppose that’s because of my own bias. I think promoting reason would be a simpler task, all we are really saying is “look at the facts” and then leaving it to people to decide.

Do you remember the “Get Wise, Read Books.” ads years ago. A message with humour…

MARTIN UK - 14 February 2012 11:29 PM

Answerer - 14 February 2012 07:20 PM

I guess my initial thought was if we did something like that, would we be mistaken for something like that? They might say “the study of knowledge,” but we would have to explain what knowledge is and its difference from belief. We have “The Man” in our corner who is committed to documenting it and explaining it, but there’s still debate among philosophically oriented Atheists as to the different perceptions of it.

I see what you mean Ans, I feel uncomfortable seeing religious ads like this one, but I suppose that’s because of my own bias. I think promoting reason would be a simpler task, all we are really saying is “look at the facts” and then leaving it to people to decide.

Do you remember the “Get Wise, Read Books.” ads years ago. A message with humour…

Nice. I absolutely agree, Martin. It’s best not to conglomerate or imitate. The best thing is to factually promote the necessary tools and resources at ones disposal that allow them to discern truths for themselves. We need to promote, clarify and distinguish the views of legitimate science and education much more so that people are presented with another way of thinking that may lead to different conclusions than the mystical reliance on traditional religion and their off-shoots, or at least to question it. But it has to be to a wider public, possibly as public service announcements. For instance, rather than letting the religious right own the market on so-called family values on their terms from mass saturation (this ad is one: note a stress on knowledge of ____, family being one and in association with [faux] science), and obscure deceptive tactics that few people hear about, such as when in a senate hearing, a family values organization leader is able to distort scientific research on child rearing and probably get away with it but for the attentive eye of one senator (Al Franken), there could be something like a “Did you know ...?” series that presents research findings that refute and dispel the misinformation of commonly held beliefs. An example would be, “Did you know that children being raised in a two parent household fare better than single parent hh’s, even with two same sex parents, and in some areas fare better than mixed sex couples?” “Did you know that secular organizations do good things too?” “Did you know that the earth is round and not flat?”

Well, I’m not getting much legs out of this topic, but I thought the ad was impressive in a sad way and that even a nut-bag cult can get a leg up on promoting their ideas to the public in an attractive light while we remain obscure and misunderstood, yet an Atheism 2.0 according to my understanding of the lecture would seemingly require the same tactics, exposure and organization with a purposeful message as them and traditional religion (eg, 24 hr Christian TV channels/programs, dating service ads, etc, etc).