Now would be a great time for atheists to improve their public image

Let's face it atheists: you all suck at public relations. I have an idea that will help you improve your image: gather money from your fellow atheists (much like you do for ads on trains, buses, and billboards), buy mass quantities of relief supplies, and drive them down to Alabama for tornado victims. Put a placard on the side of the trucks you drive down there so people know who is helping them. In addition, gather together groups of people to volunteer to do clean up work, rebuilding people's homes, and helping at relief centers. I can assure you there are hundreds of churches that are already doing this. Are you willing to hand people of faith an uncontested victory in this sphere of public relations?

The idiocy should have ended with this post.

:shrug:

and don't bother them with philosotrivia right after their lives have been smashed to pieces?

I'm from the Mississippi Gulf Coast originally, as is my wife, and between us we have scores of friends and relatives in Mississippi and Louisiana. You know who helped them rebuild after Katrina? Religious groups. Baptists, Catholics, Mennonites, Protestants...without exception, every person we know who received volunteer help rebuilding their home after the storm was helped by a faith-based group. They didn't require the person to convert, listen to a sermon, or agree with their beliefs. They just helped. The people would tell our friends and family who they were and where they were from, and none of them were atheists.

People you know never had anyone hand them things and say "I'm an atheist, lol"?

I mean, why is that important?

I know my mother and I have both spent time rebuilding in NO and we are both atheists. I guess we should have worn a shirt (or at least a hat) for this guy.

How very, very sad for you.

See there's the glaring part for me right there. I'm an atheist. I don't, and most atheists I know don't think of this as a war. Most christians (note I said Christians because the Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists I know don't think in those terms and also don't have a problem at all with my atheism and don't judge me because of it) I know do think of it that way.

I'm not out to win a war, or fight a battle or whatever. I just want to live and to not have to have laws that impact my life be based on other people's religions. And that's pretty much what most atheists I know believe. I'm not out to convert anyone or win any public relations campaigns. I know there are some who do that. But that's another big difference: Most atheists don't think the same things or act the same way. We just don't believe in God.

And like a poster above me implied, if we do help someone or donate to charity there are no ulterior motives. We do it because we want to. Not because we want to convert anyone and not because we think it's going to get us into some mythical kingdom in the afterlife.

am immoral, unethical, dishonest, and corrupt just because I refuse to pray before their god, it takes a big person to do what you ask.

I am not a big person.

Answer me this, Rage. If the shoe were on the other foot, and a community of agnostics and atheists were hit by tornadoes or a hurricane, what response would we see? Honestly.
What would be their initial smug response? Aid, comfort, support, shelter, food donations? BULLSHIT. Instead we'd have that Graham shithead preaching that we deserved it, that this was a message from god - a miracle by any other name.

Just last month, before the tornados bashing the bible belt, I asked a religious acquaintance of mine whether they would consider donating blood for shipment to Japan (the woman of my dreams hails from there) and they said no. Not only are they not christian, they are "little yellow people screwing up the US economy."

You are dealing with massive amounts of irrational behavior. Do you really think that one act of kindness will open their minds? No way. To the contrary, your suggested course of action will result in the following:

a. they will take your donations.
b. upon learning that you do not share their faith, they will either preach to you or shun you.
c. instead of thanking you, they will pray for you to be converted. AND they will be sure to tell you about it.
d. they may even refuse help from unclean hands, because theirs is the righteous way, while ours is filled with sin and damnation and hell.

But the vast majority would be grateful for the help. What was the reaction from the US when Indonesia, India, Thailand, and Japan were hit by a tsunami? What was our reaction when Iran and Haiti were hit by earthquakes? Sure, there were a few assholes who didn't want to help, but the vast majority of US citizens (and our government) sent what help we could.

When Cuba offered to send help to New Orleans after Katrina?

I thought so.

I do not seek to be with other athiests, there is no need for PR. There is none, but us (you and I). If I feel like giving a buck or volunteering I will. I will leave all the pomp & circumstance to those who feel the need, it comforts them in what they do not understand. And now for the ripping and flaming.

:popcorn:

we just tend not to go for the showy "look at us we're helping others aren't we so nice" trumpery that many religious charities do. That's not sucking at PR - that's refusing to confuse genuine empathy with (d)evangelism.

that we do not feel the need to organize and prove anything to people who believe differently than we do. We do give to charity. We do volunteer. We just don't have to yell it from the rooftop.

Organized anti-religion. Hmmmm.

And if I said Christians generally do this or that, you would be among the first to object to the broad brush treatment.

For the record, by saying that neither I nor most athrists had anything to do with such advertising does not mean I am opposed to it. People have to know that they have a choice not to believe if they have doubts. Some people really do need some reassurance that such doubts are normal and that the problem is not their weak faith, but the implausibility of religious claims. I spend my teenage years lying awake at night wondering if by thought (thought!), word or deed I had offended the Holy Spirit somehow and doomed myself to eternal damnation. I would have appreciated someone saying that doubts are normal, unquestioning faith isn't.

His right hand gave to the needy, and even his left hand didn't know about it.

You may have just won this thread.

That's what one could interpret in this discussion.

Not me.

and I would classify Neitche as agnostic (just wholly pissed at christianity). Besides, Rand wanted to prove an economic point of humanity through existentialist philosophy - and failed, logically. So, obviously you don't comprehend Atheism.

Some of them must have offices or at least meeting places.

The Atheists of Florida are collecting funds to build a building.

It's like it's 'turning' into a religion.

chew on that one

That isn't to say that their atheism or their skepticism is the motivation for their actions. The desire for acceptance drives the group to be noticed. The desire to help people drives the group members to volunteer with any number of organizations that already have a secular support network in place.

As an atheist, I know I'm in the minority, so if I were to round up a posse and drive to Alabama with whatever we could carry to help out, I wouldn't restrict the membership. I also wouldn't tell people I help down there "remember, Jesus doesn't exist" as I handed them bread or clothes. I also wouldn't pass out copies of The God Delusion or other literature.

I'd say that puts my imaginary ad hoc charity at least one rung above the Salvation Army.

We do donate, however, both time and money, in all sorts of areas. We don't necessarily feel the need to put a sign on a truck so others will know what we're doing, though.

Unrec. This is unworthy. It's also unseemly, and Jebus wouldn't like what you wrote. Matthew 6. Read it.

When groups of people get together and help others, http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/jasper/article/Mennonite-Disaster-Service-building-Katrina-763202.php">word gets around whether that group is trying to garner publicity or not. The problem atheists have is they never get any good press, so most people assume they're assholes (I am not in this camp, btw). Most people don't hear about atheists unless Michael Newdow is suing to have "In God We Trust" removed from our currency, elementary schools are being sued not to sing Christmas carols in school Christmas recitals (and you can't call them "Christmas recitals" anymore either), or people are suing to have crosses removed from the side of highways where people died in accidents and their family members set up a small memorial.

People telling everyone how charitable they are is annoying. People being charitable with their deeds is not.

"The problem atheists have is they never get any good press, so most people assume they're assholes (I am not in this camp, btw)."

I am not a racist, but...

BTW: The privileged are always incensed when the playing field is levelled even a little bit. Tough shit. This democracy was founded on equality, and anyone who thinks that Newdow is an asshole can pound sand.

Some believers, all brands - Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu - are assholes. I freely admit I don't like militant atheists, and I also detest fundamentalist Christians. Both have a smug, self-righteous air about them that comes from the unbreakable belief that they're right and everyone else is an idiot.

When was the last time atheists got any good press?

And this has been explained to you several times in this thread.

all flavors, from far right to extreme left. There is nothing they have in common other than disbelieve in deities and other such supernatural entities.

Anytime you lump atheists together and try to make any statement about them as a group, you fail.

all flavors, from far right to extreme left. There is nothing they have in common other than belief in deities and and other such supernatural entities. Anytime you lump theists together and try to make any statement about them as a group, you fail.

How about Southern Baptists? Catholics? Pentacostalists? Can I make any statements about those groups of theists? I believe I can.

Religionists form groups. Atheists don't, for the most part. I know very few atheists who are part of any atheist-centric organization. I know many who are not.

Your parallel fails on several counts.

Baptists, Catholics, Pentecostals, etc are all the same so you can make a group identity for them, but atheists are so different for each other that the same test just can't be allowed.

Lest all those Christian privileges be revoked.

<http://yashwata.info/2011/03/15/charity-paper-preview/>

The myth of Christian charity: Preview of the paper

Last year I heard some atheists say that Christians are more charitable than secularists. My gut told me that this could not be accurate, so I investigated. This investigation resulted in two blog posts: The Myth of Christian Charity, part 1 and part 2. After these were published, Gregory Paul alerted me to a book published in 2006, Who Really Cares, in which Arthur C. Brooks makes extremely strong claims about religion and generosity. Late in 2010 there appeared another book, Robert Putnam and David Campbell’s American Grace, which makes similar claims. I decided that, since the findings in these high-profile books were supposedly based on the statistical analysis of large-scale survey data—that is, they looked like science—they should be rebutted (if they are false) in the scientific literature. I did a ton of research, verified that they are false, and wrote a paper, which is now under review by a scientific journal. While we wait to hear about the paper, here is a layperson’s summary.

More at link -

And who says they don't donate to charities that go out to help victims of disasters? And why should PR be so important?

I agree that people of faith win in the sphere of public relations. But then these people of faith use their influence in elections to make sure certain groups of people can't have their civil rights. Not to mention the fact that the PR winners go out and support candidates who have plans of taking away benefits and social safety net that keep the poor, the elderly, and the disabled from being thrown out in the cold.

Too bad these douche bags win the PR war. This country would be in much better shape with the other side winning the PR war I would think.

should atheists be trying to improve our "public image" with? And why does our public image with those people need improving in the first place?

Those who understood it knew nothing more needed to be said.

Atheists roasted for charity! I like it.

Cause as far as I can see, churches are providing assistance mainly because

they are being subsidized by American taxpayers!!

Whether direct subsidy or indirect subsidy, it one way or another enriches

organized patriarchal religions -- and is obviously unconstitutional ....

barring the opinion of perverts on the court like Clarence Thomas and his

alimwy pal, Scalia --

http://www.secularal.org/donation-var


And many more are VERY easy to find.


Take your sanctimonious bullshit and hit the road.

Too bad your post will be thoroughly ignored.

For now you can keep being our jester.

Oh well...people with homes, children eating a meal and be able to go to school, fresh water wells....these are their own rewards. If you still feel the need to attack my lack of beliefs because I don't put a big A on the help I give, then fuck you.

:thumbsup:

We're not motivated by fear of punishment or promise of reward. If I give to charity, I'm not trying to score Brownie Points that'll get me a good seat in heaven. I'm not a child, you don't have to guilt me into action--if I see people suffering, I react from empathy. You know: that feeling of compassion you get when you want to help your fellow human cuz you know what s/he is going through?

One thing I do NOT understand: People on DU brag about being nuanced as opposed to simple-minded Freepers. Well, seems to me the believers, even here, see it all in black and white. No grays allowed. Some of these posts stun me in their ignorance about Atheism. Proving once again that humans are no better than any other life-form, we merely have Big Brains and walk on two legs.

People, seriously! If God was gonna make a species in his own image, d'ya think he'd pick this flawed, hairless primate? I'd say a bird would be far more likely--you know, the animal who can fly and eat just about anything on the planet, as opposed to one who is so vulnerable death could be brought about by choking on a ham sandwich???

And the big bang was just him trying to find a way to perform the Heimlich on himself and bumping into shit.

But then, wouldn't a god want his favored species to be designed a little BETTER than sticking a trachea right next to an esophagus? Not to mention the sex/waste part of us...or as someone here once said, what idiot would put a sewer right next to a playground?

I think thats the punchline to that joke :D

...when I volunteered, or when I gave til it hurt, it really didn't count because I didn't identify myself as an atheist?

Well...shit.

(EDIT: Consistency in verb tense, Iggo. Consistency.)

Number one: atheists give plenty to charity. It's more than a little insulting to assume they don't

Number two: the point of charity is not to make yourself look good. The notion reminding everybody where the charity is coming from is fucking appalling.

True charity involves helping people without giving a damn who knows..anything else is a form of egotism and selfishness. "Hey look what a GREAT person I am" sort of thing.

Atheists aren't some all-encompassing group that share beliefs. We are simply people who don't believe a god or gods exist. Should people that don't believe in the Easter Bunny improve their image too? I would imagine everyone on this forum (and most likely the entire world) is an atheist when considering 99% of gods. I've simple added the Christian god to that list.

I know a bunch of atheists that are in the same field of study as I am. Disease research...Looking for new meds and treatments for chronically ill people. But umm why the fuck should I have to justify my work to people like you? Or anyone for that matter. Maybe I just give a damn about my fellow man.
BTW, you do know that there are lots of secular based charity groups like the Red Cross (that ain't a religious symbol really believe it or not) Red Crescent, Doctors without borders that have lots of agnostic/atheistic volunteers who don't THINK YELLING THEIR LACK OF BELIEVE MATTERS A FUCK.
If you don't know that they are already doing humitarian work without being asked you are an idiot.
But then again, its so easy to prejudge atheists right? Clearly we are all selfish pricks who have no morals or compassion. SHIT I hate ignorant posts like this. :nuke:

You assume atheists or non-religious people (I'm not atheist but identify closer with them than the religious) don't already volunteer.

Save the Children Fund; Oxfam; Red Cross; Doctors Without Borders; Age UK; Care International; etc.

There are certainly also some very good religiously-based charities - Christian Aid, World Vision, Tzedek, Islamic Relief - but it's certainly not the case that all charitable work is based on religious identity, or indeed on any sort of group identity.

I'm happy to give where it's needed, without checking religious affiliation (though I prefer charities that give to all without checking religious beliefs, or proselytizing). But there are certainly humanist and explicitly non-religious charities and donation outlets:


http://www.kiva.org/team/humanist

http://humanistcharities.org/

http://givingaid.richarddawkins.net/

Also, while it's better to give than not give, whatever the motive, I think it cheapens altruism a bit to use it for public relations - whether for a firm, a faith, or a non-faith. The best motive for giving is simply that you want to help other people who need it.

I have given significant amounts of money to Doctors without Borders and have contributed heavily to liberal political candidates.

Sorry, we won't go away because we are tired of having Christianity's superstitions shoved in our faces every day.