Tag Archives: atheism

Non-Believers Giving Aid

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A religion-free way to help disaster victims.

Like thousands (I assume) of Americans, when I first heard of the tragedy in Haiti, I felt a need to help. The obvious solution was to give money to a charity that would be providing aid directly to the Haitian people. But the question was, which charity?

In the first day of the situation, choices weren’t readily apparent. I went with the good old standby: the American Red Cross. Because I wanted my aid to go directly to Haiti and not be used for anyother purpose, I wrote a check, marked it “Haiti Aid”, and mailed it to American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, D.C. 20013. According to the Web site’s Donate Now! page, this was the best way to ensure donations went to the cause I wanted to help.

A few days passed. Pat Robertson made his asinine comments about the Haitian people having a pact with the devil and then had the nerve to start collecting money to help them. It made me sick. I wish there was a hell just so these self-serving, religious fanatics could rot there.

I wanted to give more to help the Haitian victims, but I certainly wasn’t about to donate to any charity that was in any way related to any religious organization. The Clinton Foundation was one very good option. So was the International Red Cross. And Doctors without Borders.

But another one came to light this morning: Non-Believers Giving Aid. This organization is sponsored by Richard Dawkins and serves two distinct purposes:

  • To send 100% of donated funds directly to two non-religious charities giving aid in Haiti: Doctors without Borders and International Red Cross.
  • To provide an easy conduit for the non-religious to help those in desperate need, while simultaneously disproving that you need God to be good.

As the Non-Believers Giving Aid home page declares:

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.

Thus, I sent my second contribution for Haiti Earthquake Victims to Non-Believers Giving Aid, with an equal split between the two non-religious charities they support.

I’m pleased to hear that so far over $180,000 has been raised by this organization — an average of over $35 per donor.

Have you given a charitable contribution to help the people of Haiti? Tell us about it in a comment on this post. If you haven’t done so yet, please do consider it. An amount as small as $5 can really help make a difference.

Just please — don’t send it to Pat Robertson.

Einstein on God

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Contrary to what many people think, he was not a believer.

A friend of mine who apparently lurked in the background during “The Bible in the Refrigerator” and “Angry, Nasty Christians” debacle, sent me a link to a letter written by Albert Einstein and reproduced, with translation, on Letters of Note. The letter was written to the author of Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt in 1954, and says, in part (translated into English):

Still, without Brouwer’s suggestion I would never have gotten myself to engage intensively with your book because it is written in a language inaccessible to me. The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this….

You can read the entire text of the letter — a and see a scan of the actual handwritten document — here.

Oddly, when I tried to bookmark it on Delicious, I discovered that I’d already bookmarked it back in October, after being directed to it by @MrTeller on Twitter.

I didn’t blog it then because I didn’t think it particularly relevant. But since the attack of the Bible-thumping RVers, I’ve decided to be more forthcoming with links to the works of great thinkers who share my religious beliefs (or lack thereof).

Thanks to my shy friend who sent me the link this morning. I’d forgotten all about it.

A word of warning to commenters here: I will not tolerate any abusive comments. If you have something to say, say it politely, in the spirit of intelligent debate. Any comment that I consider abusive will never appear, so don’t waste your time with the usual “burn in hell” crap that so many of you think is the best way to worship your god.

The Bible in the Refrigerator

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And in the barrels.

Welcome RVers!

Thanks for stopping by my blog. I sure do appreciate all the attention this post has been getting lately. It’s helping my site gain the “Google Juice” needed to zip right to the top of search results. I couldn’t do it without your help, so thanks!

Just one thing…before you place a nasty comment on this blog, you might want to read this. And then think: what would Jesus do?

Have a great day and thanks again for stopping by!

Yesterday, my husband and I continued our never-ending search for the “perfect” 5th wheel recreational vehicle. At this point, we’ve visited just about every RV sales lot in the Phoenix area and have seen just about every brand out there.

We visited one of the remaining RV sales lots to see one of the remaining RV brands yesterday. I won’t go into details; it’s not my goal to spotlight a certain dealer or brand. But the brand in question was major and well-known, although the quality of its top-of-the-line model was only about average. And the dealer was relatively large, with three different locations in the Phoenix area. This was the second location we’d visited.

BibleAn odd thing happened when we were looking at a trailer that interested us. I opened the refrigerator to get a feel for how large it was and found a bible inside it. I commented about it, but the salesman, who turned out to be the manager at the lot, didn’t appear to hear me. I closed the fridge and we continued our tour.

Later, Mike told me that there had been a whole barrel full of bibles like that inside the main sales office with a sign that said, “Free! Take One.”

So apparently, this RV dealer doesn’t just sell RVs. It pushes religion. Christianity, to be exact.

Am I the only one who thinks this is inappropriate?

Why would an RV dealer be giving away bibles to the point where it actually puts one in every RV it sells? What’s the purpose? Is the dealership actively promoting a specific religion? Does it think that giving away bibles will help clinch sales with folks who want a bible but don’t actually have one? Is it some kind of code, like the Jesus fish logo so many folks put on their cars? Look, we’re Christians, too! Buy from us!

What’s the purpose?

And how do you think someone who is not Christian feels about it?

I found it a real turn-off. I’d come to the dealership to look at RVs. Religion should not be a part of my shopping experience in any way, shape, or form. I feel the same way when I see businesses with that fish logo in the window (there’s a gas station in Wickenburg with a neon one) or biblical quotes on any signage.

I’m actually offended when the owner or manager of a business so obviously pushes a religious agenda.

In this case, it doesn’t really matter. The product line the dealer represents is not of sufficient quality to meet our needs. In other words, we wouldn’t buy one of its RVs anyway.

But I don’t mind admitting that I really wouldn’t want to do business with anyone who can’t keep personal religious matters out of everyday business. After all, if religion is that important to the sales organization, what kind of customer service can someone who rejects that religion expect to get?

The Bible and Science

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PZ Myers explains; I agree.

Just a quick blog post to give you all something to read and think about. Not here. On The Humanist Web site.

That’s where you’ll find an article titled “Comes a Horseman” by PZ Myers. In it, you’ll find this paragraph, near the end, which (to me) sums up why we should all be concerned about religion, especially in our schools:

And this is why I oppose religion. It’s not because it kills people, although it does. It’s not because it poisons everything, although it does. It’s not because it is nothing but a philosophical construct even though that’s all it is, and I actually kind of like philosophical constructs. Even moderate religion is an exercise in obscurantism, the elevation of feel-good fluff over substance. I oppose it because it is a barrier to understanding, a kind of simplistic facade thrown up to veil knowledge with a pretense of scholarliness. It’s an imaginary shortcut that leads people astray, guaranteeing that they never see the real glory of a cell or of the stars. And I honestly hope that once people see the creation story for what little it is–one thin sheet of tissue paper–they will be able to crumple it up and toss it aside.

Read the whole thing.

Why Isn’t “Childhood’s End” in my Local Library?

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But boatloads of religious and mystical crap are?

Sir Arthur C. Clarke died in 2008. He was an award-winning science fiction author — and that’s an incredible understatement given the number of awards and his impact not only on science fiction but science itself. Most people know him for his novel 2001: A Space Oddyssey, which was made into a ground-breaking science fiction film in 1969.

Childhood's End CoverOn the day he died, Twitter was filled with commentary about his work. But it wasn’t 2001 that came up again and again. It was his 1953 book, Childhood’s End.

From Clarke’s Wikipedia entry:

Many of Clarke’s later works feature a technologically advanced but still-prejudiced mankind being confronted by a superior alien intelligence. In the cases of The City and the Stars (and its original version, Against the Fall of Night), Childhood’s End, and the 2001 series, this encounter produces a conceptual breakthrough that accelerates humanity into the next stage of its evolution. In Clarke’s authorized biography, Neil McAleer writes that: “many readers and critics still consider [Childhood’s End] Arthur C. Clarke’s best novel.”

Indeed, Childhood’s End is so outstanding among Clarke’s work that it has its own Wikipedia entry.

I’m pretty sure I read the book, but I honestly don’t remember it. My science fiction reading was done mostly in my late teens and I consumed a lot of Clarke’s work. Rendezvous with Rama remains my favorite of his books. But when so many people on Twitter were raving about Childhood’s End, I made a mental note to track it down and read it (again).

Time passed. I’ve halted all book buying in an effort to stem the tide of incoming clutter at my home. I wanted to read something other than the books on my reading pile. Something to escape the real world. And I remembered Childhood’s End.

So I visited Wickenburg’s Public Library to pick up a copy.

And was surprised to learn that they didn’t have it.

Not that it was simply out on loan. They just didn’t have the book in the library.

They had 2001, 2010, 2061, and even 3001 (which I didn’t even know existed). And there was another Clarke title on the shelf — although it wasn’t listed in the computerized card catalog. But no Childhood’s End — which many consider his best work. No Rama, either.

I was disappointed, but not terribly surprised. They didn’t have Carl Sagan’s Contact, either. That book had been made into a movie starring Jody Foster. You’d expect it to be present on the shelves, but … well, I’ll get to my reason why in a moment.

I looked around the library for what they did have. The New Arrivals section bore little resemblance to the New Arrivals tables at the Barnes and Noble I visit near our Phoenix place. Those were new, noteworthy books. I only found one of them in Wickenburg: The Murder of King Tut by James Patterson. I grabbed it. There was very little fiction and much of the fiction they did have had Christian crosses on the binding. That’s Wickenburg’s way of noting that a book is Christian literature. They do the same thing with mysteries and science fiction, but the New Arrivals area had far more crosses on bindings than other symbols.

I wandered back to the paranormal section of the nonfiction shelves, hoping to find some of the books I’d seen listed on various skeptics sites. To their credit, they had Flim Flam! by James Randi — an excellent read that I reviewed here. But that was the only title for skeptics. Meanwhile, they had over two dozen titles by Sylvia Browne. And the health section was stuffed with books about unproven remedies and health regimens.

I wandered back toward fiction and started actually looking at the bindings. That’s when I started noticing that there was an unusually high percentage of books with that Christian cross on it. Christian fiction. The library was full of it.

But it only had four books by Arthur C. Clarke.

I looked around. Other than a young woman surfing the net on her MacBook Pro, I was the youngest patron in the place. I’m in my 40s. The rest of the patrons were 60+.

I went to the desk and asked if the library could get books from other libraries in Maricopa County. I was told no, the library is run by the Town of Wickenburg and is separate.

I asked why the library didn’t become part of the Maricopa County library system. I was told that then Wickenburg would be told what books it had to carry.

“Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing,” I said.

“Yes, it would,” the librarian replied. “We know what our patrons want to read.”

They do? Sure fooled me.

I’m a patron, but I don’t want to read any of the Christian fiction and pro pseudoscience crap that fills the shelves. I want to read bestsellers, the classics, and award-winning fiction. I want to read non-fiction that educates me about science and philosophy and opens my mind to critical thinking.

Clearly, I’m not going to get any of that at Wickenburg Library.

And that brings me back to my suspicions on why Contact and more books by Arthur C. Clarke and other thought-provoking authors are not in the library: the themes of these books have the audacity to suggest that there might not be a God. That the meaning of life might be something beyond what’s in the Bible. That science and a reality based on known facts are important to our survival as a species or civilization, more important than man’s religions.

Censorship at our local library? I’m convinced. Why else would they refuse to be a part of one of the biggest library systems in the state?

And my tax dollars are paying for this?

When I asked whether I could get a Maricopa County library card, the librarian confirmed that I could — but not there. “Aguila has a branch,” she told me.

Aguila is a farming community 25 miles west of Wickenburg. I’d estimate that at least 25% of the population doesn’t even speak English. Most people live in trailer homes. It’s a sad, depressed community with nothing much to offer. The possibility that it might have a better library than Wickenburg boggles my mind.

“If you get a Maricopa County library card, it’ll cost us money,” the librarian said. It was almost as if she were asking me not to, just to save them a few bucks.

What she didn’t realize was that she gave me even more reason to get one. I think my husband will have to get one, too.

Fortunately, there’s a branch of the Maricopa County Public Library walking distance from our Phoenix place. I guess I’ll be getting my reading materials there, on Wickenburg’s dime.