AtheistTV Craters

Atheist TV’s Livestream Will Come to an End Tomorrow

It's back to YouTube for Atheists. One might suspect that there are actually not enough paying Atheists to support such an enterprise. It did last a whole 12 months...

Atheist Activists Can Get Scholarships From AA

American Atheists is offering 7 scholarships totaling $4,000 to student Atheist activists. There are one $1,000 and six $500 scholarships available.

This suggests to me that Atheists, and the national American Atheists in particular, are actually hard up for cash on the one hand or are stingy on the other. Either way, advertising such paltry scholarships seems like an exercise in triviality. Still, cash is cash, so apply soon if you qualify. It would buy pizza and beer for the entire frat house this Saturday.

Hemant Mehta, Eight Years as the Friendly Atheist

An excerpt from an interview with Hemant Mehta (aka, the Friendly Atheist):

”HM: I love how certain issues that are controversial everywhere else in the country, like marriage equality, comprehensive sex education, and science in schools, are almost non-issues within our community. Where can we improve? In many ways, we act like there’s an atheist orthodoxy everyone must follow. As the demographics shift and atheists increase in number, we have to realize we won’t always agree on every issue.

So how will be treat other atheists who happen to hold other controversial positions? There are atheists who are pro-life, Republican, gun owners, or home-schoolers. When I talk to them, they often tell me they feel unwelcome in both worlds—“I’m too atheist for the pro-life group, and too pro-life for the atheist group.” We have to ask ourselves: Are we united by our atheism or is it really more than that? Is it possible to be a rational thinker who holds contrary views on controversial issues? Will we allow ourselves to even have those sorts of debates or are they off-limits? Right now, those conversations are off-limits with many atheists and that’s a problem.”

Hemant admits to the Leftist, totalitarianism bent of Atheism, which cannot even accept the brother Atheists who don’t hew the Leftist line. Yet they still claim to be the tolerant, rational, and intellectual brotherhood. And even Hemant has shown his intolerance of the opinions of the Other, so the barriers are definitely up. For example, when he says the buzzword, “marriage equality” he doesn’t mean the marriage of just any individuals to each other, only homosexuals – the favored Victim group du jour.

Likewise “comprehensive sex education” doesn’t mean male/female sex taught to 12 year olds, it includes LGBTQLHFDOUHBF, the Kinseyan idea of morals-free sexual experimentation of all types, taught to preschoolers and up as normal sexual behaviors.

And “science” doesn’t mean physics or chemistry to Atheists, it means just one thing: the Truth of the True Story Of Evolution as Truly True Truth Because: Scientists, which he thinks annihilates religion and proves that Atheism IS the Truly True Origin Axiom which is to be installed as Truth in the minds of all government school children.

Hemant wants to be called the “Friendly Atheist”, when in fact there is no possibility of Atheism, as dogma, or Atheists, as dogmatics, being friendly with a differing worldview. No chance. None.

”CS: You’re speaking at Foundation Beyond Belief’s first conference next month. Why are you passionate about nontheistic charitable giving?

HM: Giving to charity is one of the ways that Christians are just flat-out better than atheists. But is it because they’re more generous or because churches make it really easy to give away money? I believe it’s the latter, and Foundation Beyond Belief offers atheists a simple way to donate to wonderful causes. It’s a group that really steps away from the “Does God exist?” question and asks instead: “Okay, we’re atheists. Now what?” I’m proud to have been with Foundation Beyond Belief since the beginning and I plan to be a donor for a long time to come.”

It will be interesting to see how the naturally totalitarian and self-focused Atheists respond to voluntary giving out of their own pockets, rather than increased taxes on everyone else. They are historically very tight with a buck, in fact, miserly.

In the second section of the interview, Mehta is asked how the negative stigma Atheists carry is to be reversed. His answer is essentially valueless: if we Atheists show that we are nice, then the stigma will go away.

That is not going to happen on a general basis, is it? The media-visible Atheists are aggressively nasty and abusive, and filled with visceral hatred. And there will always be that necessary document, Atheist Moral Principles: there is no such document, and there will never be one. Specific Atheists might be “nice” people, but that merely indicates that they either have adopted Christian moral principles without accepting the moral authority behind those principles, or that they just haven’t been caught yet.

That Didn't Take Long: Atheist "MegaChurch" Splits Up

Because Atheism is based on NO principles save hatred of religion, there is not much to bind them into an ideologically coherent and compatible congregation. In fact, every Atheist is free to determine his own moral system, if any, and to determine just how elite he personally is, relative to the other elites. So the concept of a universal Atheist MegaChurch is immediately on shaky grounds, right from its inception. Personal conflict seems inevitable since there is no core of fundamentals which is not based solely in the individual self.

So here's what happened (apparently). The originators of the Atheist megachurch concept wanted to be at least somewhat friendly to non-Atheists too, so as not to spook them. This apparently enraged the Fundamentalists, who broke away and started a new denomination, called the "Godless Revival".

The originating megachurch, called the "Sunday Assembly" was denigrated by the breakaways as being a "humanistic cult".

Besides dogma issues, the Sunday Assembly also has financial woes:

The Sunday Assembly recently fell short of its £500,000 fundraising goal, only bringing in £33,668. While the founders expressed disappointment, they pledged to forge on.

This bodes ill for the concept of Atheist generosity and empathy. Not to mention the "mega" part of the group. Reaching less than 7% of their financial target should be some sort of clue. At £100 per Atheist, that is 336 Atheists, hardly a gathering worthy of the term "mega". Conversely, if there were 33,668 Atheists, that comes to £1 per Atheists.

One thing about the Atheist "mega"-"Churches": they give some empirical insight into Atheists and Atheism.

ADDENDUM:
Much more here.

The Barna Study Again

The Barna study came up again (on Yahoo I think) so I took another look to refresh my memory. It is really quite interesting.

“In the study, the no-faith segment was defined as anyone who openly identified themselves as an atheist, an agnostic, or who specifically said they have "no faith." In total, this group represents a surprisingly small slice of the adult population, about one out of every 11 Americans (9%). However, in a nation of more than 220 million adults, that comprises roughly 20 million people.

Interestingly, only about five million adults unequivocally use the label "atheist" and, when asked to describe the nature of God, staunchly reject the existence of such a being. In other words, most of those who align with the no-faith viewpoint harbor doubts as to the existence or nature of a supreme deity but do not express outright rejection of God.”

Got that? 5,000,000 adults claim Atheism and “staunchly reject the existence of such a being [God].

I think that it is obvious that the “no god theories” version of Atheism is false. Empirically false.

“One of the outcomes of this profile - and one of the least favorable points of comparison for atheist and agnostic adults - is the paltry amount of money they donate to charitable causes. The typical no-faith American donated just $200 in 2006, which is more than seven times less than the amount contributed by the prototypical active-faith adult ($1500). Even when church-based giving is subtracted from the equation, active-faith adults donated twice as many dollars last year as did atheists and agnostics. In fact, while just 7% of active-faith adults failed to contribute any personal funds in 2006, that compares with 22% among the no-faith adults..”

The idea that Atheists are the empathetic part of society is false.

“Many of the most ardent critics of Christianity claim that compassion and generosity do not hinge on faith; yet those who divorce themselves from spiritual commitment are significantly less likely to help others.”

Much of what Atheists claim about themselves is false. When data shows up, that’s what it shows.

It is already obvious that they are not logic and evidence based. Now it is shown that they really do reject God, and that they are not particularly empathetic, but are pikers.

Atheist Charity in Real Life

PZ has been collecting donations, or at least soliciting for them. And there is quite a dichotomy between PZ's solicitations and those going on locally here in Missouri.

Around here there are Christian based organizations of all stripes mobilized and on site at Joplin, as well as supply lines from churches to recovery centers in Joplin. Bass Pro Shop in Springfield has teamed with Convoy of Hope (faith based). Many industries seem to align with faith based volunteer organizations to provide food, clothing, clean up assistance and materials, and so on. It is the main topic in newspapers in the area.

PZ is also soliciting, but not for Joplin. His concern is for Camp Quest. As one might expect, Camp Quest is an indoctrination experience for children. If you are interested, here is the mission statement of Camp Quest:

Camp Quest Mission
Camp Quest is the first residential summer camp in the history of the United States aimed at the children of Atheists, Freethinkers, Humanists, Brights, or whatever other terms might be applied to those who hold to a naturalistic, not supernatural world view.

The purpose of Camp Quest is to provide children of freethinking parents a residential summer camp dedicated to improving the human condition through rational inquiry, critical and creative thinking, scientific method, self-respect, ethics, competency, democracy, free speech, and the separation of religion and government.

Through our programs we seek to:

Build a community for freethinking families
Foster curiosity, questioning, and critical thinking
Encourage reason and compassion as foundations of an ethical, productive and fulfilling life
Raise awareness of positive contributions made by atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers, and other nontheistic people to our society
Promote an open dialogue about metaphysical questions that is marked by challenging each other’s ideas while at the same time treating each other with respect
Demonstrate atheism and humanism as positive, family-friendly worldviews

It would be fascinating to quiz some of these kids on their "critical thinking" after their Camp Quest stay. Not to mention their concern for the kids in Joplin.

Atheist Charitable Giving

There is an idea floating around that Atheists are more generous and caring than Christians because of some verses removed from the context of the Bible. Oddly this is one of those ideas that can be fact checked, but seems not to have been. Here are some facts regarding Atheist charitable giving vs Christian charitable giving.

”One of the most significant differences between active-faith and no-faith Americans is the cultural disengagement and sense of independence exhibited by atheists and agnostics in many areas of life. They are less likely than active-faith Americans to be registered to vote (78% versus 89%), to volunteer to help a non-church-related non-profit (20% versus 30%), to describe themselves as "active in the community" (41% versus 68%), and to personally help or serve a homeless or poor person (41% versus 61%). They are also more likely to be registered to vote as an independent or with a non-mainstream political party.

One of the outcomes of this profile - and one of the least favorable points of comparison for atheist and agnostic adults - is the paltry amount of money they donate to charitable causes. The typical no-faith American donated just $200 in 2006, which is more than seven times less than the amount contributed by the prototypical active-faith adult ($1500). Even when church-based giving is subtracted from the equation, active-faith adults donated twice as many dollars last year as did atheists and agnostics. In fact, while just 7% of active-faith adults failed to contribute any personal funds in 2006, that compares with 22% among the no-faith adults.” Barna Group Poll.

To recap, Christians give 2:1 more money to charity, not counting church donations, than Atheists give to charity. Three times as many Atheists, per capita, give nothing at all.

Even some Atheists admit to the problem. These Atheists have set up an Atheist foundation to encourage giving by Atheists:

“A new foundation in Georgia is urging atheists and secularists to donate more to charity in order to show that their generosity equals that of churchgoers — even if their checkbooks haven't shown it thus far

''The nonreligious are generous and compassionate, but our giving lags behind the religious," said Dale McGowan, executive director of Foundation Beyond Belief. "It's time for those of us who are otherwise engaged on Sunday mornings to have our own easy and regular means of giving."

The recently formed foundation seeks to "focus, encourage and demonstrate the generosity and compassion of atheists and humanists" and also provide "a comprehensive education and support program" for nonbelieving parents, according to its Web site.

The foundation has good reason to be concerned — a 2000 survey by the charitable giving group Independent Sector showed that 87.5 percent of all charitable contributions come from religious donors.”
K. Haus, newsok.com

This Atheist charitable foundation has collected $6,500 from 250 individuals, a whopping $26 average.