Non-Believers Giving Aid

If you haven’t already donated to disaster relief in Haiti, here’s your chance: a new umbrella organization to coordinate charitable giving for the godless has been set up. In the first two hours that this was created, over $11,000 has been donated. Get on the bandwagon!

Non-Believers Giving Aid: a religion-free way to help disaster victims

Washington, DC January 17, 2010

In response to the tragedy in Haiti, several organizations representing ‘non-believers’ and others have set up a disaster relief fund called ‘Non-Believers Giving Aid’. In an appeal for donations, the website of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science states (http://givingaid.richarddawkins.net/):

Spurred by the horrific suffering in Haiti, the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS) has set up a dedicated bank account and PayPal facility to collect donations to non-religious relief organizations. This new account is in the new name of Non-Believers Giving Aid, with all of the money donated being distributed to disaster relief.

Clearly the immediate need is for the suffering people of Haiti, and all the money raised by this current appeal will go that cause, but the new account will remain available for future emergencies too. There are, of course, many ways for you to donate to relief organizations already, but doing it through Non-Believers Giving Aid offers a number of advantages:

100% of your donation will be go to these charities: not even the PayPal fees will be deducted from your donation, since Richard will personally donate a sum to cover the cost of these (Capped at $10,000). This means that more of your money will reach the people in need.

When donating via Non-Believers Giving Aid, you are helping to counter the scandalous myth that only the religious care about their fellow-humans.

It goes without saying that your donations will only be passed on to aid organizations that do not have religious affiliations. In the case of Haiti, the two organizations we have chosen are:

Doctors Without Borders (Médecins sans Frontières)

International Red Cross

You may stipulate using a dropdown menu which of these two organizations you want your donation to go to; otherwise, it will be divided equally between them.

Preachers and televangelists, mullahs and imams, often seem almost to gloat over natural disasters – presenting them as payback for human transgressions, or for ‘making a pact with the devil’. Earthquakes and tsunamis are caused not by ‘sin’ but by tectonic plate movements, and tectonic plates, like everything else in the physical world, are supremely indifferent to human affairs and sadly indifferent to human suffering. Those of us who understand this reality are sometimes accused of being indifferent to that suffering ourselves. Of course the very opposite is the truth: we do not hide behind the notion that earthly suffering will be rewarded in a heavenly paradise, nor do we expect a heavenly reward for our generosity: the understanding that this is the only life any of us have makes the need to alleviate suffering even more urgent. The myth that it is only the religious who truly care is sustained largely by the fact that they tend to donate not as individuals, but through their churches. Non-believers, by contrast, give as individuals: we have no church through which to give collectively, no church to rack up statistics of competitive generosity. Non-Believers Giving Aid is not a church (that’s putting it mildly) but it does provide an easy conduit for the non-religious to help those in desperate need, whilst simultaneously giving the lie to the canard that you need God to be good. 

Please help us to help the suffering people of Haiti.

The organizations and supporters actively involved in this effort include:

Atheist Alliance International
Atheists United
The British Humanist Association
James Randi Educational Foundation
Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers
Pharyngula
The Reason Project
The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science
The Skeptics Society

Quoting Richard Dawkins, “The merciless power of tectonic plate movement has conjured a disaster of epic proportions and all of us, whether religious or not, must do all in our power to help.”

Author, scientist and Founder of the Reason Project Sam Harris said, “ It is widely imagined that, in times of crisis, religious people render aid in disproportion to their numbers. Richard Dawkins has now created an opportunity for nonbelievers, who are rightly focused on the welfare of their fellow human beings in this life, to put the lie to this myth.”

The President of Atheists United commented “The indiscriminate consequences of earthquakes, floods, fires and such remind us that there is no god to protect us, and that humankind must come together to do what we can to help and protect each other.”

Michael Shermer, the Executive Director of the participating Skeptics Society, notes: “It’s all well and good to say that we nonbelievers are just as moral as believers (we are, but that’s a philosophical point)–actions count more than words and real donations are where the theoretical rubber meets the practical road. This is our time to pony up and show the world our true character.

Jason Torpey, President of Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers stated, “As they have done with the Out Campaign, Non-Believers Giving Aid continues the RDFRS tradition of positive, community-centered atheist coalition building.”

A spokeswoman for the Richard Dawkins Foundation noted, “While those of us who do not believe in a god or gods might identify ourselves as ‘atheists’, ‘humanists’, ‘non-theists’, ‘skeptics’, ‘Freethinkers’, or other label – the term ‘non-believer’ has been brought into the public consciousness by President Obama and is easily identifiable. Independent of whether we are non-believers or not, the tragedy of Haiti pulls at everyone’s heartstring. All of us are unified in our humanity.”

Non-Believers Giving Aid
http://givingaid.richarddawkins.net

The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science is a 501(c)(3).
www.RichardDawkinsFoundation.org
www.RichardDawkins.net

Contact: Liz Cornwell, rec@RichardDawkins.net
719.351.6324
Mailing Address: 11605 Meridian Market View, Unit 124 PMB 381, Falcon CO 80831

Photo downloads: http://richarddawkins.net/media

Contacts for participating organizations

Atheist Alliance International
http://www.atheistalliance.org/
Contact: Stuart Bechman, President email: president@atheistalliance.org
Tel: +01-866-HERETIC.

Atheists United
http://www.atheistsunited.org/
Contact: Bobbie Kirkhart, President email:e-mail  president@atheistsunited.org
Tel: 323-229-5500.

The British Humanist Association
http://www.humanism.org.uk
Contact: Andrew Copson, Chief Executive email: andrew@humanism.org.uk
Tel: 020 7079 3584 or 07534 248596.

James Randi Educational Foundation
http://www.randi.org
Contact: D.J. Grothe, President email: idjgrothe@randi.org
Tel: 954-467-1112
Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers (MAAF)
http://www.maaf.info
Contact: Jason Torpy, President email: president@maaf.info
Tel: 614-329-1776

Pharyngula
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/
Contact: PZ Myers, pzmyers@gmail.com
Tel: 320 589-7116

The Reason Project
http://www.reasonproject.org/
Contact: Sam Harris email: contact@reasonproject.org

The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science
http://www.RichardDawkinsFoundation.org & www.RichardDawkins.net
Contact: Liz Cornwell, Executive Director email: rec@RichardDawkins.net
Tel: 719.351.6324

The Skeptics Society
http://www.skeptic.com/
Contact: Michael Shermer, Founder email: mshermer@skeptic.com
Tel: 626/794-3119

For information on the Disaster Relief Agencies:

Doctors Without Borders (Médecins sans Frontières)
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/

International Red Cross
http://www.icrc.org/

Commenting problems?

The buggy software is better now, but some people are still completely unable to comment — and the primary complaint I’m getting is that the confirmation email needed to register never arrives. One possibility is that somehow, your domain or name or something is blocked by some systemwide filter.

If that’s your problem, send me a note using the same email address you used to register. I’ll forward those to the people in charge so they can dig through the system and discover why ScienceBlogs hates you. Then we’ll slap it silly and tell it to love you instead.

Distracted at #scio2010

I am going against the herd here at ScienceOnline 2010 — I am not tweeting and blogging throughout the event, but am just sitting back and enjoying the talks, while all the nerds are pounding away at their keyboards. (Note sneaky implication that I am not a nerd with the rest of ’em.)

However, I did just do my interview with Reddit, so it’s all recorded and done with and merely awaiting editing and publishing. It will probably be available online on Tuesday — be patient, I’ll put up a link when it is available.

I will remind you also that tonight at 9pm EST I’ll be helping to raise money for relief in New Orleans by battling a preacher on BlogTV. This is a great sacrifice for me, since I’ll be dragging myself away from the bar and the lively group of people here at SciOnline to answer a pile of questions from a well-meaning but entirely delusional fellow. Tune in, cheer and howl, and kick in a few bucks if you can to the effort.

I’ll be back in action tomorrow.

You can’t even trust ELCA

There are a lot of small four year colleges around, and the competition is tough. We feel it at my university, the University of Minnesota Morris, and it’s difficult because we can’t honestly say that all those other colleges are bad — they’re actually very good because they value the same advantages that we do — small class sizes, personal attention to every student, a curriculum that emphasizes breadth of knowledge and the integration of ideas. So it’s always good to see some place where we, as a secular and public liberal arts university, have a clear advantage.

Concordia College is one of our peer institutions, and they certainly do offer a good education. But like many of the small private colleges around, they are affiliated with a religion, in this case the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. Like most of these colleges, though, they’re not dogmatic about their faith, and you can attend no matter what your religion, or lack of it (colleges that demand adherence to one faith are not our peers at all — they tend to be crap colleges anyway). However, sometimes the board of trustees, or whatever organization is managing the place, will meddle. Such meddling has occurred at Concordia.

The college denied the formation of the student organization Concordia Atheists-Secular Students at Concordia College on the basis that atheism is not in compliance with “college standards,” despite the support it received from the Campus Ministry Office.

What “college standards” do atheists not meet? Are we not equal members of the Concordia community? Do we not share the same rights to express our religious views as those that participate in Sunday Night at East or in Tabernacle?

According to the most recent Concordia College Factbook published for the 2008-2009 academic year, upwards of 16 percent of the school population reports no religious affiliation. The group already has 60 members on Facebook, which, just as an example, is 37 more members than the Campus Republicans (a recognized organization) can claim. How can a school deny the recognition of such a sizable minority of its students?

How can they do it? Easy. The college is founded and run by blinkered faith-heads — liberal ones, but still a group with peculiar, irrational biases, and sometimes those biases will flare up and slap students in the face.

The solution is easy, though. If you’re thinking of going to college, or have children who will be going to college, you should look into small liberal arts colleges — they really are phenomenal places for learning. But you should also emphasize that you want to attend a secular, public liberal arts college; one that doesn’t give a damn about your religion. Like (shameless plug) UMM.

We also welcome transfer students.

I had no idea it was so easy

Have you ever seen the True Christian, the kind that will calmly and confidently tell you the most insane and ridiculous things as if he were ordering a cup of coffee? Meet Randy Demain. He has raised the dead, and does it all the time. It’s easy. You just go up to an old corpse and tell it to get up, and poof, it’ll hop up and start running around.

It helps if you annoy him by interrupting his sermonizing, so he’s a bit cranky about the effrontery of the dead person for interfering with his preaching.

The psychology of these wacked out liars and fantasists for Jesus is fascinating. Also creepy.

There’s an app for that

If you ever argue with creationists, you know that the Index to Creationist Claims is an incredibly useful site, as is the book version, The Counter Creationism Handbook. Life just got a little sweeter: it is now available as a smartphone app for the blackberry and iPhone (just get into the App Store and search for ‘creationist’). Well, sweeter for us; creationists will find themselves a little more readily refuted now.

It’s another of those vote-for-the-sexy-atheist-but-NOT-pz polls

They taunt me. Really, I know I’m an old lump, it’s OK, you can stop mentioning how I’m not on the poll but all the young cool groovy atheist kids are. And then Hemant has to gloat that at last he can win without me around — yeah, and Potsie might have stood a chance of scoring when the Fonz was out of sight.

Just for that, I voted for Laura.

Hemant (makes me want to add stuff – like him to me) 26% (33 votes)

Laura (makes me want to play car-wash…with nothing but her hair) 46% (57 votes)

Luke (makes me wish I was cougar….wait a minute) 2% (2 votes)

Skepticcat (makes me wish I was a cat dressed as Princess Leia) 4% (5 votes)
Amanda (makes me wish I was covered in sprinkles and jimmies) 1% (1 votes)

Other (makes me wish you’d done your homework better, Sue) 22% (27 votes)