I made a donation today to help Haiti

[catsittingstill]

I found an article about the Richard Dawkins Foundation's collecting paypal donations to send to Doctors Without Borders and the International Red Cross, and made a donation.  No big deal, except in the process of finding it I came across another article.

It's what I've come to think of as typical--saying basically that if an atheist gives to an atheist charity the fact that there is some faint hope of fighting the pervasive prejudice against atheists by donating means that donation doesn't count, and besides, your conscience comes from God and how can atheists be so dumb that in spite of experiencing their conscience they deny God.  The usual.

He's got me all wrong.  I gave through an atheist organization because I turned down the heat and gave up soda pop to scrape together money to be able to help people out.  I emphatically don't want it squandered on gilding and limousines, or--God help us--on solar powered talking bibles. 

Your mileage may vary.  If you feel that what a Haitian child with two broken legs who hasn't eaten in  week really needs is a solar-powered talking bible, by all means fund it.  But I hope that I--and most people!--have better sense.

Comments

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

My sense of right and wrong comes from my membership in a social species, and my ability to reason out the implications of what that means I owe the rest of my species.

My choice of where I donate depends on whether they do with the money what I want done. Some of my charities are religious-run, and as long as they spend their money on effective assistance for people I want to help, I don't mind that. Some aren't. I give to Doctors Without Borders. I also give to the Heifer International Foundation.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

They both have good reputations, as far as I know. Is Heifer International religious? I thought the idea behind it was very clever (this is the one where you donate X amount and buy a cow or a goat or some chickens or a donkey, right?)

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Heifer International as an organization is Christian in its philosophy and the motives of its founders (and, as far as I know, its current administration) for doing what they do. But it does not evangelize, or as far as I know, speak at all of religion to the people it helps. It just sends them geese, or whatever, and teaches them how to take care of same. I don't have any reason to care whether the folks who are shipping my geese to somebody and training them in the upkeep of their flock are doing so out of their own faith, or their own atheistic consciences, or any other motive, so long as that is what they are doing with the money I give them.

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

The article is, as you say, bilge.

But the fact that Dawkins couldn't do this without making a debating point out of it, and thus laid himself open to having his priorities called into question, was, I think, an error of judgment on his part.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

The mere fact that it was Dawkins that did it would have turned it into a debating point whether he said a word on the subject or not.

And it is worthwhile to note that prejudice against atheists is such that many people say we don't give to charity like religious people. So attempting to inject some real-world evidence into the debate seems like a good idea to me, even though only a portion of the people involved accept real-world evidence as valid. Diluting that prejudice even slightly is worth doing.

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

The mere fact that it was Dawkins that did it would have turned it into a debating point whether he said a word on the subject or not.

You're right, of course. Poor man, why can't they just leave him alone... :)

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

"Where does our sense of right and wrong come from?"

Erm...the desire to help someone in need comes from our ability to imagine being in need ourselves. It's this fascinating concept called "empathy". We don't reach out to help people because we think the Sky Father will give us candy afterward (or at least not spank us); we do it because we know how much it sucks to need help and not get any.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Well, this is my thought too.

Plus, we arise from generations of beings who where more likely to have grandkids if the tribe thrived than if it failed. Tribes with many empathetic members were more likely to thrive so any genetic component for empathy or valuing empathy in others was selected for.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

That's a toxic conservative RC site.

I think the impulse to send bibles is not entirely negative. People need dreams as well as food. Maybe they need dreams more when they don't have enough to eat. That said, meals and medical care first!

The question of where ethics come from is in fact a very significant and difficult one and not, I think, so easily answered by the claim of evolutionary sources. (Is there any human attribute for which this claim is not made?) Yet Christian philosophers seem to know no more than anyone else, despite all claims to the contrary, and most of their arguments seem to come from the pagan philosopher Plato, anyway.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

The news stories I have seen suggest the Haitians are very religous and probably have all the bibles they need. Some new dreams might be both more entertaining and more helpful.

(Is there any human attribute for which this claim is not made?)

Why would there necessarily be any human attribute for which no stripped down, primitive precursor can be found in animals? We're not magic, after all.

Though it would be interesting, in some story of humans with magic, if some animals also possessed a rudimentary magical ability. :-)

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

It's hard to say what's a stripped primitive precursor and what's just a different thing that looks similar: are we looking at a kitten and a housecat, or a housecat and a tiger? Or are we comparing a cheetah and a wolf? Conservative Christian philosophers usually come down on the cat & tiger side; materialist evolutionary philosophers on the kitten and cat. Truth of the matter is no-one knows, though.

Actually, Barbara Hambly actually did cat magic once, in Dog Wizard, I think it was. But it was a throw-away. Hmmm.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

remember that housecats and tigers are related too. Just more distantly.

You might better ask "are we looking at a housecat and a tiger, or a housecat and a rock?"

At which point I would think it would be easy to tell whether something is a precursor or not.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Good point. I was trying to suggest there's probably a relationship, but it might be a more complex one. I suppose I was being too complex!

Ideas, I've got. The ability to put them across, not so much.

[kittyguitar.livejournal.com]

It seems to me tht id Christians want the quake survivors in Haiti to hear the Bible's message they'd do better to follow the advice in the Bible itself--give the folks the practical help they need to put their lives back together, and then, if asked, explain how their faith inspired them to do this. Hopefully with the words of their own mouths, not some silly gadget.

Similar advice would well serve Dawkins. Give the aid with no strings, then when asked why, say, "Because this life is all we have and I can't bear to see my fellow humans spend it in suffering." Because I suspect that's why most atheists who do such things do them.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

"...I can't bear to see my fellow humans spend it in suffering." Because I suspect that's why most atheists who do such things do them.

I suspect this part of it is why most *people* who do such things do them.

atheist donations

[patternbuilder.livejournal.com]

I donate through Kiva.org. They have an atheist lending team that is the largest and I think has lent over a million dollars so far. Their stated purpose is to refute the idea that only churchy types do good works. Seems the issue is that secular giving isn't aggregated by a known agnostic group.