Most excellent news: Foundation Beyond Belief is going international, opening a new chapter in Australia. If you’re interested in making charitable donations, and resent the idea that your money might be used to sponsor superstitious dogma, Foundation Beyond Belief is the organization to consult for secular charities.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
As soon as they promise to recall Ken Ham back to Australia, they’ll receive an overwhelming amount of donated funds.
Glen Davidson
Potential donors & supporters should be aware that FBB does give some of their money to “secular” projects carried out by religious charities.
From what I’ve read, you can choose which of the charites they support to donate to if you don’t want your money to go to a religious group.
@ringo
True, but I’m sure there are some people who would rather give to secular charities directly rather than support a foundation that gives money to “sponsor superstitious dogma” even if their own money would be diverted elsewhere. I just think it’s fair to be up front about it and let people make an informed choice.
@Ibis3, denizen of a spiteful ghetto
The category you’re referring to is called ‘Challenge the Gap’.
In the words of Dale McGowan (Founder of the American FBB):
Full disclosure: I’m the guy setting up the Aussie version.
Done.
The sooner we break the paradigm that it is the religious that run the charity world, the sooner there can be charitable help without the need to “save” people at the same time…
As for sending Ken Ham back to Oz (@Glen Davidson), be nice or we will hatch and export another one! I believe the 2.0 version will be even more hug-able, and may even have basic logic skills as well.
I’m an anti-theist, but even I think it’s pretty fucking stupid to not support an organization because they allow you to give your money to religious charities that do purely secular work.
I apologize for going off topic twice in one day, but nothing much is being said about Denzel Washington’s bigoted comments about atheists last week on “Today with Matt Lauer.
Talking about how he prepared for the role he plays in his latest film “Safe House,” Washington said this:
Washington: Actually, I read this book, “The Sociopath Next Door,” and that was like my bible. The traits of a sociopath are no conscience, no sense of remore, usually atheist
http://todayentertainment.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/08/10350591-denzel-washington-dips-into-sociopath-mindset-for-safe-house
And later that same day on “The Late Show with David Letterman” there was this:
Washington: I’m sociopath. I play a … he’s an atheist, he’s a traitor. He wants to dominate everyone. He’s sick, he has no conscience, no remorse.
Letterman: Amoral.
Washington: Thank you. He’s that. He’d just as soon kill you as have lunch with you.
I goofed above. The link for Washington on “Today” is:
http://todayentertainment.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/08/10350591-denzel-washington-dips-into-sociopath-mindset-for-safe-house
And for Letterman it’s:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYKFm7bsPwY
I didn’t mean to bold that entire section either. Regrets.
Yay!
I am so excited FBB is coming to Australia – I just moved to Sydney and would love to volunteer when it is all set up.
When do you think that will be aussieseculardad? and will there be a chapter in Sydney? I checked out the website and not much info there yet.
> Full disclosure: I’m the guy setting up the Aussie version.
Nicely done. I await. :)
@palefury
We’re a national organisation with members spread around the country. When we go live, it will be simultaneously around the country. I hope to be live on April 1st, though there’s a strong chance that it won’t be until July 1st. I hope to generate some serious word-of-mouth through the Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne, though I’m open to ideas on precisely how to do that.
I think it’s great if you want to help out. Besides the collection and disbursement of donations, we will also have a program called Volunteers Beyond Belief. This will allow teams from around Australia to join up under the VBB banner to do humanist volunteer work. If you know others in Sydney who are interested in this, perhaps you can start a Sydney team for us!
In the long run, I’d love to see us expand into areas traditionally run by churches, such as soup kitchens and the like. But right now, our legal status is such that we can pass donations onto certain groups and we can organise volunteers to operate in our name, but we cannot funnel donations directly to those volunteer efforts. I hope to tackle that legal hurtle once we’ve tackled the hurtle of getting set up in the first place.
Full disclosure: Obviously, I disagree with Dale McGowan.
But it’s not my intention to argue the point here. I just don’t want people to get the wrong idea about FBB and donate money to it when, if they knew about “Challenge the Gap”, they would opt out.