By Slugsie, on November 23rd, 2009This is just shoddy journalism of the highest order. I had considered The Times to be a reasonably balanced and reliable news source, but if this article is anything to go by that perception is well off the mark.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6925781.ece
BHA Please Dont Label Me poster
First off, this is not a campaign by Richard Dawkins. Prof Dawkins was a prominent supporter of the original “There’s Probably No God, Now Stop Worrying And Enjoy Your Life” advertising campaign. It wasn’t his campaign, he just provided some money and lent his support. I too provided money to that campaign does that mean it’s mine too?
Secondly, the article basically proves the point of the advert, but completely fails to realise it. Those kids are the children of “Evangelical” parents, they aren’t evangelical kids. Not yet anyway. Maybe they will grow up to be evangelical, and that’s fine. Or maybe they’ll grow up to be Buddhist, or Muslim, or maybe even atheist. But foisting a world view on them when they are far too young to make an informed choice is infringing on their rights to self determinism.
I am a Sci-Fi fan, but no one would label my daughter as such as a result. I am a software engineer, but that doesn’t mean that my daughter is too. My daughter is an atheist, but she told me that.
Thirdly, this campaign is not in any way shape or form about infringing on the rights of the parents to raise their children under the umbrella of the parents faith, nor to restrict their ability to teach their children about their particular brand of religious dogma. So all the commenter’s on the article really need to learn to read and comprehend.
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November 23rd, 2009 | 
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The premise that one can keep a child as a blank slate regarding the parents’ values and morals is patently ridiculous. Children learn, that is a basic thing they do, so if you don’t teach your children the values you consider to be so important and proper that you have based your life on them, you are only leaving it up to someone else to teach your kids the values they consider to be important. Your child is an atheist because you have imparted atheistic values on her. Unless you have been getting up every Sunday morning and happily driving to church so you can attend services while she goes to Sunday School, or you have been kneeling down in prayer 5 times a day facing Mecca, or showing her any other of the myriad of religious practices and your appreciation for them, you have been teaching her atheistic values, so stop fooling yourself, and admit you want to be able to impart atheistic values on other children.
You too have completely missed the point. Firstly, there is no such thing as atheistic values. Humanist or secular values maybe, but not atheistic. Secondly, the campaign is in no way attempting to prevent any parent from imparting their value system onto their children. As you rightly say, that would be ridiculous. It is all about the automatic presemption that children – who are usually too young to be able to make an informed choice on thier own – can be labelled with the value system of their parents. Children of christian parents are not christian children, they are children of christian parents. They may well grow up to become proper christians in their own right, but that should be a matter of their own choosing. Obviously parental guidance will be a heavily influencing factor, but every maturing human must have the right to determine their own identity without arbitrary labels being applied.
I am a software engineer, would you for one moment label my daughter as such? No, that would be patently ridiculous. It’s the exact same principle. For any matter of personal choice (and religion or irreligion most definitely is a personal choice) each and every one of us must be free to label ourselves.
I actually agree with you, I’m not sure that at this point in time and advert of this nature is the best use of our funds or effort (I was an early contributor to the original bus campaign, the over contribution to which has helped pay for this campaign). There are so many more pressing issues that need to be brought to the forefront first. Still, as the message is out I do think that it is important that the message is understood correctly.