Two girls who took part in Monday night’s riots in Croydon, a town in South London, England, have boasted that they were showing police and “the rich people that we can do what we want.” They said it calmly and matter-of-factly. Has Richard Dawkins contributed to a change in moral philosophy among London’s youth with his atheist bus campaign?

London buses have been outfitted with the following banner ads: “There’s Probably No God. Now Stop Worrying and Enjoy Life.”1 The sponsors hope the postings will get people to question the existence of God: “This campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think — and thinking is anathema to religion,” the promoters argue. “[Richard] Dawkins said that as an atheist he ‘wasn’t wild’ about the ad’s assertion that there was ‘probably’ no God.”2 He wanted them to say, “There is no God.”

If there is no God, then who gets to say what constitutes enjoying life? Are there any restrictions on enjoying life? If there are, then who gets to set the restrictions and why?

Now people are being robbed. Businesses are being burned. Reports on Twitter claimed some people were being stripped, while another shocking video shows a bleeding teenager being robbed in broad daylight by lawless thugs who pretend to help him to his feet. Here’s how one newspaper headline describes what’s going on: “‘Mob Rule’ as London Rioting Spreads.” It seems to me that it’s nothing more than evolution’s “survival of the fittest” in action.

There’s no God, Dawkins and his fellow atheists have been telling Londoners, so stop worrying and enjoy life. The rioters are enjoying life at the expense of others, and who are you or anyone else to say that they shouldn’t be enjoying life this way?

1. See Gwynne Dyer, “The Atheist Buses” (February 8, 2009). [↩]
2. “Atheists Plan Anti-God Ad Campaign on Buses” (October 23, 2008). [↩]