Humanism vs. Epicureanism

Roger Scruton in the American Spectator objects to the "new humanism":

The British Humanist Association is currently running a campaign against religious faith. It has bought advertising space on our city buses, which now patrol the streets declaring that "There probably is no God; so stop worrying and enjoy life." My parents would have been appalled at such a declaration. From a true premise, they would have said, it derives a false and pernicious conclusion. Had they wished to announce their beliefs—and it was part of their humanism to think that you don't announce your beliefs but live them—they would have expressed them thus: "There probably is no God; so start worrying, and remember that self-discipline is up to you."

I sometimes find Scruton's religiosity annoyingly smug, but I agree with him here. The bus ads are stupid, and the "humanism" of the British Humanist Association (vice president: Richard Dawkins) is appallingly negative. They spend all of their energy attacking religion and have trouble saying what they area for, other than freedom. All of the crap about what a great force for evil religion has been is completely spurious. Sure, religious people do bad stuff, but so do atheists. The only possible conclusion is that neither the presence of religious belief nor its absence makes us good; we have to look somewhere else for answers to our ethical and political problems.