— Madalyn Murray O`Hair (via a fantastic short post on ProudAtheists) 

goodreasonnews:

christiannightmares:

Bill O’Reilly explains why he believes atheists are “jealous” of Christmas.

“Why does the American Humanist Society, who wants to be good for ‘goodness sake’ LOATHE the baby Jesus, HE’S JUST A BABY!”

man, oh, man.

There is just… so.. much.. wrong here… I think I just have to write it off as Fox News doing what it does best: presenting a single bigoted and ignorant side of a story.

by Robert Green Ingersoll (1833–1899), from The Works of Robert Green Ingersoll Vol IV

When I became convinced that the universe is natural — that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom.

The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts and bars and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf or a slave. There was for me no master in all the world — not even infinite space.

[..]

I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds.

And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love…

(via godisnotgreat)

Take a full read of this.  It’s short, but appropriate and poignant.  Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

THE war of words between atheists and religious believers has entered a new chapter with the launch of Northern Ireland’s first ever humanist advertising campaign.

The British Humanist Association (BHA) yesterday unveiled a billboard with the slogan:

Please Don’t Label Me. Let Me Grow Up And Choose For Myself.

Located on one Belfast’s busiest routes, the poster is a follow-up to its atheist buses campaign that ran earlier this year in parts of the UK.

[..]

Reverend David McIlveen from the Free Presbyterian Church ranted:

It is none of their business how people bring up their children. It is the height of arrogance that the BHA would even assume to tell people not to instruct their children in their religion.

What Reverend McIlveen is missing is that this campaign isn’t telling people not to teach their children their beliefs, but rather to leave the labeling and indoctrination out of their childrens’ lives.  It’s a fine line to draw, for sure.  I liken it to teaching historical religions (I think most of us learned of the Greek gods in school, no?).

I don’t feel as if it’s wrong to tell a child, “Mommy and Daddy believe X, but we want you to decide for yourself what’s right.”  Yes, of course the child will likely seek to emulate his or her parents, but keeping this open line is important in development, always reinforcing the child’s individual right to choose.

This is all secondary to the campaign’s primary message: Stop labeling children for something that they cannot have decided that they are.  It pigeonholes social and mental development in the worst way, forcing children into particular lines of thought before allowing their own powers of reason to decide what’s right for them.

Austin Atheists Helping the Homeless is a new, and still very small group of Atheists who are helping the homeless here in Austin, Texas, by giving them free items that fall into the category of toiletries. Not food, mainly because that’s already well covered by other help groups. Very few groups around here give out free toiletries, so we focus on filling that gap in help.

We’ve received donations of money and items to give away from all over the nation, but we need more. We need to let more Atheists know about this project, so we can help more homeless folks.

The goals of this project are, in order of priority:

1. To help some folks in need
2. To show by example that the idea that Atheists don’t care and don’t help people in need, is very very false, and
3. To have fun.

We’ve already succeeded with all three of those goals with the three giveaways we’ve done so far. We’re now doing them once per month, and the biggest challenge has been to spread the word about this all over, so we can get more donations, and help more people in need. 100% of all donations go to paying for these items we give out.

I think this goes along well with my previous post.  Though charity like this isn’t really speaking towards atheism, it does play into the idea that many atheists are also secular humanists, doing what they can to help mankind because without a god, we’re all each other has.

Charity and Religion

Last night, I went with a coworker to a local pub which was running a charity event.  For every $5 glass of Coors Light purchased (yech), you received a pint glass in addition to the $5 being donated directly to support St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.

I drank two beers, and walked away having made eight $5 donations.  Not only do I have some pint glasses at home now, but my $40 went directly (or so I’m told) to helping kids, since Coors absorbed the cost of the beer and glasses.

I wonder sometimes if even small donations like this would feel as rewarding if I were religious.  Would I have done this in name of “looking good” in the eyes of a deity, rather than for the sake of helping another person?  Do actions like this mean more when you’re not trying to impress an invisible man?

I’m not trying to make a superiority issue out of this; it’s just a question.  I can’t honestly say that if I were a religious person, I would have donated for entirely selfless reasons.  If I were somehow accumulating points towards gaining entrance into an eternal heaven, I would have probably donated the same, but in the end who would I have done it for? I’m not sure.

I’m not claiming that religious people are selfish when they do otherwise seemingly selfless acts, only that there’s some possible motivation there which doesn’t strike me as pure.

Does it matter? Probably not.  The hospital received the money all the same, and that’s what seems important here, though it still makes me wonder…