Atheistic Worm Food

I was quite pleased when I saw a new FriendlyAtheist.com post notification pop up in my twitter notification feed, and even happier to find out that the post was dedicated to calling out vandals who defaced the Westside Church & the Christian Life Center, both located in Bend, Oregon. At the end of the entry, Hemant Mehta- the primary author of TheFriendlyAtheist- set up a ChipIn! donation pool to help these churches pay for repairs required as a result of the vandalism.

I know many of you are uncomfortable giving money to a church, but I hope you who can find it in your heart to help them out in this case. They didn’t deserve this vandalism.

Let’s put the Golden Rule to work. When atheist billboards get vandalized, wouldn’t it be a nice gesture if theist groups offered to do the same for us?

It really is quite a lovely gesture on his part, and certainly one I agree with. However, some readers felt quite differently, and expressed that in the comments section. For example;

Ok… sorry, but I truly can’t find it in my heart to donate to this. True, they didn’t deserve the vandalism BUT… by giving my money to them I would be assisting them in their proselytization of others. It’s also why I have a hard time giving business to anyone that I know that is xtian and runs a business, because I know that the money I spend at their business will trickle down to a church and be used for proselytizing.

Hemant’s post specifically stated that any excess money raised will be donated to the Foundation Beyond Belief, a secular charity, and only the cost of the repairs will be given to the church. There will be no money from this fundraiser given or otherwise exploited for the use of church proselytizing.

Another comment;

“But the bottom line is that God is the one that’s going to get revenge — we aren’t.”

For that threatening message alone…for the fact that they believe the vandals deserve eternal punishment in hell…they won’t be getting my help. Sorry. My money, as little as I have, goes only to good causes that truly need it.

To help a church paint over some scribblings and replace bricks? Sorry, I have better things to donate toward.

The fact that one of those churches even made that statement, is- in my opinion- further reason to help them out. If they feel that ‘god is going to take his revenge’ for vandalizing their church, I think a good will gesture from a group of atheists is certainly in order.

‘Good causes that truly need it’- Apparently victims of crime don’t deserve help. I have a problem with labeling this as a “bad” cause, as so implied. I rarely doubt the sincerity of theists, and what they’re doing is “right” in their eyes, so to try to spin it in such a way that these people supposedly don’t deserve our help to recover from a crime just because they believe in something we think is bullshit is a horrible, pompous thing to say.

If you don’t want or don’t have to means to give to the cause, by all means don’t, but don’t try and cite disagreement as your reason for refusing to donate, especially in circumstances where none of the money is going to causes we disapprove of- it’s going to repair a building. Fairly certain the building is neutral to all of this.

Don’t say “oh, we derive our morals from the golden rule” and then refuse to help a victims of a crime on the grounds of disagreement, that’s blind hypocrisy- the same thing we claim theists do everyday.

Let’s not be petty, hypocritical misanthropes, shall we?

I’ll leave now with this;

I disapprove highly of the vandalism, but I refuse to ever give one cent of mine to a church ever again, unless I knew for a fact it was not going to go towards the brainwashing of others. I’m glad that there are better, less angry atheists out there though. Kudos to you all. <3

Tags: Atheism, Bend Oregon, Charity, ChipIn, Church (building), Foundation Beyond Belief, God, Golden Rule, Hemant Mehta, religion, Religion & Spirituality, Secular Charity, The Friendly Atheist, Vandalism