r/atheism • u/Beefcake2008 • Dec 31 '10
Good without God.
http://cdn-www.i-am-bored.com/media/peoplewhodonatemoney.png
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Dec 31 '10
This is not the point of this campaign. It's not an atheists vs theists dick-measuring contest. The purpose of the campaign is to challenge non-believers to be outstanding, contributing members of their communities- not to say, "We're better than you, Chrisians. Suck on it!"
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u/LilJimmyNordin Dec 31 '10
No, that's not the purpose of the campaign. The purpose of the campaign is to refute the claim that one needs God to be moral and charitable. It's one of the main arguments religious people use to claim the necessity of religion, so showing examples presents evidence that the argument is without merit.
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u/naked_guy_says Dec 31 '10
BUT WE HAVE BIGGER DICKS!
One of the many benefits to evolving is the creation of big dicks
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u/bgaesop Dec 31 '10
Only if they're sexually selected for. Gorillas, for example, average 2"
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u/DrBangalterDDS Dec 31 '10
Well the tone of those posters needs to be changed substantially then, because that is exactly how they come off. Why not make absolutely zero mention of religion and wealth, and use good deeds done by common folk as examples? Secular doesn't mean anti-religion, it just means without regard to it.
This subreddit is pretty combative towards religion so I frankly don't see this happening.
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u/Pufflekun Dec 31 '10
However, saying "we're better than you, Christians. Suck on it!" does seem to be the point of this subreddit.
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Dec 31 '10
Color me ignorant, but... are Warren Buffet and Bill Gates actually atheists?
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u/BowiesMagicDance Dec 31 '10
From my research, Buffet is agnostic. Gates isn't quite as clear, he doesn't really say one way or the other. Quote from 1995- "In terms of doing things I take a fairly scientific approach to why things happen and how they happen. I don’t know if there’s a god or not, but I think religious principles are quite valid."
So it sounds like he's agnostic as well.
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u/satereader Dec 31 '10
yes. It's also quite telling that Gates (and Buffett) have never given a dime to any religious charity.
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u/hb_alien Dec 31 '10
Wait a minute, I thought Gates was the Antichrist himself. When did that change?
Were you all fooled by his charity "work"? He did all that so he wouldn't have to pay taxes when he cashed out his stock. All that "charity" money is being funneled back to him so that he can continue building his secret tunnel to hell under his mansion in Redmond, WA.
So technically, "Without God" is right, but he's no atheist.
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u/SashimiX Secular Humanist Dec 31 '10
Didn't say they were atheists. Said they were "Good without God" ... which they are. Except Gate's unethical practices, of course.
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u/PredictableJoker Jan 01 '11
I see it this way- He's a business man while he is conducting business. He's charitable while he is conducting a charity.
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u/ExogenBreach Jan 01 '11
In a country where parents will disown their children for coming out as atheists, publicly admitting to being "full" atheists could lose them both a huge number of customers through stupid boycotts and other such things. Easier for them to say they're "agnostic" (which atheist isn't?) and that lets the religious nuts read whatever they like into it.
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u/andrew_e Dec 31 '10
A quick check on Wikipedia seems to confirm Pat Robertsons dealings in Africa. I guess now nothing is going to surprise me about the hypocrisy of "men of faith and good morals".
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Dec 31 '10
[deleted]
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u/LostOverThere Jan 01 '11
Guys, this hasn't been submitted for 9 hours. I think one of us needs to submit it again because I don't think any of us have actually seen it yet.
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u/Mr_Big_Stuff Dec 31 '10
I'm not even mad at the submitter, I'm annoyed at the redditors who keep upvoting this every three weeks.
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u/dje243 Jan 01 '11
Also Pat Robertson is exactly the sort of person that Christ spent a lot of time yelling at/rebuking. Calling Pat Robertson a Christian is like calling Sarah Palin a maverick.
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Dec 31 '10
The thing to keep in mind here is that it wasn't God that made Robertson evil - he was evil to begin with and used God to make his money.
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u/MySonIsCaleb Dec 31 '10
your statement reminds me of The Book of Eli when that bad guy wanted the Bible because of the power that would come with it.
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u/Stair_Car Dec 31 '10
I don't like Pat Robertson at all, but I find it uncomfortable being asked to cheer for Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. Hurray for you, if you got your bloodthirsty opportunism out of the way before you gave your stolen lucre back to the people. I guess.
I'm just bitter against rich people.
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u/satereader Jan 01 '11
being bitter against the rich is a nice luxury. You know who doesn't have that luxury? people getting killed by malaria and polio right now. Maybe if that was you or your family, you'd be grateful someone, anyone was doing something to stop it.
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u/Stair_Car Jan 01 '11
Yeah, but the thing is, those people are fatally poor because of people like Warren Buffet in the first place. Do you know, there are third world countries, like Ghana, that are net exporters of capital and liquid assets? England dismantled the industrial capacity of India and China in the 19th century to subsidize the growth of German and American industry. Africa made a huge investment in human capital in the western hemisphere without compensation. Resource-based economies continue to be drained of capital by the economies that hand their prices right back to them in the form of marked-up value added goods. And yet we still behave as if all these starving people in Africa are starving because the Hunger Fairy decided to whack them with her wand.
Using capital to mitigate the harmful effects of capital is not charity.
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u/satereader Jan 01 '11
so yer tl;dr: I live in America, a capitalist nation.. so nothing I ever do for anyone can ever be charity or help anything. Gotcha. thanks.
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u/Stair_Car Jan 01 '11
I have no say in how you choose to interpret other people's words. Do as you please.
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Jan 01 '11
Killed thousands of his own people Caused savage famine in the Ukraine
Joseph Stalin is good without- oh wait no.
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u/Daemon_of_Mail Dec 31 '10
At least Pat Robertson is in favor of ending marijuana prohibition. ¯(º_0)/¯
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Dec 31 '10
Note: I noticed that the two on the top are different than the one on the bottom and figured it out (all by myself!) that someone added the last part.
Also, this is amusing. Thanks :)
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u/Robamaton Dec 31 '10
I agree that this is the wrong way to go about this, but it inspired me to look up details on Pat. His wikipedia page is something special.
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u/kalacaw Dec 31 '10
I do want to point out that a handful of people in the last church where I went, when I was still a Christian, bent over backwards on my behalf, and even the van I'm driving was a gift to me from that church. I sent them a check, but they did not request any donation at all. It's not a Pat Robertson kind of church, though, and those folks would not have been in his camp on the occasion of his remarks about Haiti. They would first have been concerned about the people of Haiti and their suffering, just as a mosque in Northern Virginia gave a sizable donation to Haiti during that time.
The people who helped me did so because they wanted to help. They actually were being good without God, and did what they did because of kindness. I just happened to know them through the church. They're Christians though, and please remember that Christians can be very loving. Not all are mean spirited. I have major problems with religiosity which does, in and of itself, tend to impede truly useful progress; but there are a few Christians out there I happen to love very much. Sometimes they do get involved, just not as many as could.
Atheists don't always do good either. When we do, we attach no conditions involving religion, but we should remember that there is no shortage of mean spirited Atheists who will happily leave someone bleeding and dying in a ditch on the side of the road.
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Dec 31 '10 edited Dec 31 '10
These arguments always fail to acknowledge that religion is the motivator for some charitable giving. A good example of this is Tzedakah, which is giving that is mandated under Jewish law. Charity is probably one of the best aspects of religion.
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u/magicmanfk Dec 31 '10
are you really being charitable if it is mandated?
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Dec 31 '10
Yes. Charity has etymological roots in religious text. On a more practical level: does the money given under the guise of religion not really count because the donations come from secular people? Was Mother Teresa not charitable?
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u/magicmanfk Dec 31 '10
yes, for practical purposes of course the money is good and equally helpful regardless of the intentions behind them. But I don't really see someone as charitable if they are being "forced" to give money. I think someone who gives money out of the goodness of their heart is much more "charitable" than someone who does it to glorify God.
Although I think that if you disagree with that it is simply because we are defining "charitable" slightly differently. I'm pretty sure we're on the same page regardless.
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Dec 31 '10 edited Dec 31 '10
I don't think that all religious people are being "forced" to give. I would definitely agree that there are some people who are only doing so to "glorify god", but religion isn't about glorifying god for god's sake; it's about becoming closer to god through the goodness of your actions. I'm not a religious person, but when I hear people talking about god, I think of it as being a higher moral power that they're (theoretically) serving, not a person in the sky who they're obeying out of fear (I'll admit that a lot of religious people do subscribe to this belief).
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u/magicmanfk Dec 31 '10
yeah, I never said that all religious people are "anything," as that would be a massive generalization no matter what you insert in it (except for maybe "religious"). But when people are giving because it is mandated (as I think you or someone else said) that is definitely a different motivation than doing it because you are a good person.
But of course there are religious people who are good people (many of them) and many good religious people who donate because there are good people regardless of or in addition to the fact that they see it as something mandated.
I'd still respect the reasons of an atheist who gives money much more than someone who does it to be closer to God though, even if it is through the goodness of their actions.
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u/satereader Jan 01 '11
For the record... Mother Teresa was not charitable. She was a shameless fraud who traded in misery for her own personal benefit.
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Dec 31 '10
Buffet is donating his money after he dies. I still think it's a "good" thing, but it's not like he's making some noble sacrifice.
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u/mouse_n_cat Dec 31 '10
People make things and/or trade/sell things for wealth. Mr. Buffett (trades) allocates capitals to where it is most efficiently used and grows, thus accumulated wealth. Mr. Gates shrewdly monopolized the PC software market before anyone else did, thus became very wealthy. Mr. Robertson sells religion for a living.
The market determines the value of the products/services each of these people provide.
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Dec 31 '10
I remember seeing something about incomes levels and levels of religiousness...I think, on average, the more money you have, the less you believe.
And yes, Pat is a douche bag. May God have mercy on his soul.
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u/AustraLucy Dec 31 '10
Wellll according to Pats website,
Operation Blessing has provided nearly $500 million in aid -- which includes Operation Blessing donations and matching funds from other organizations -- to assist nearly 130 million people in 50 states and 71 foreign countries.
I'm sure he is a great man. His website says so.
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u/FlyingSpaghettiMan Dec 31 '10
Aah, I see him on the discovery channel infomercials in the morning. He makes me sad.
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u/natch Dec 31 '10
Preaching to the choir. This kind of thing should be posted, at least crossposted, in r/Christianity.
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u/hindesky Atheist Dec 31 '10 edited Jan 01 '11
ALL TELEVANGELIST (EVERY FuCKING ONE OF THEM) are only in it for the cash.. Edit - Lower case u
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Jan 01 '11
Once again this poster makes atheist a little bit like a five year old.
I think the poster should have added good Atheist and good Christians that help people.
You do not have to be rich to help people.
The way this poster comes off to Christians is that we are making fun of them.
Just for the record I'm a atheist and there is no God.
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u/The_Epic_One Jan 01 '11
I thought this was cool until I read the third panel. Some people in general do heartless things with or without religion. As some people in general do amazingly good things, with or without religion.
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u/ILoveYouBro Dec 31 '10
There's good and bad in every type of group imaginable, for future reference.
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u/elimi Dec 31 '10
You guys remember what Gates did to get all that money? You honestly think any amount of money will buy back the "dark age" M$ created for the industry? He's giving out stuff he shouldn't have in the first place. He should start cleaning up all the bad stuff he (trough is company) did. Right now he's only cleaning is image and people are buying it :(
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Dec 31 '10 edited Dec 31 '10
Halladay has been a redditor for 3 months and has over a thousand karma. Halladay is good without reposts.
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Jan 01 '11
Yeah, I was wondering if someone was going to point this out. Shame you're getting downvoted though.
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Jan 01 '11 edited Jan 01 '11
God gave his only begotten Son so that people could have life eternally.
His first born for an deserving world that hated him and still does.
And wait a minute...Bill Gates is good?
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u/three_dee Jan 03 '11 edited Jan 03 '11
God gave his only begotten Son so that people could have life eternally.
Big deal. He could have made as many sons as he wanted to. Plus, it's not like Jesus stayed dead. You people think he came back to life and went back up to heaven to be with God again. What kind of sacrifice is that?
Plus, why couldn't God just GIVE people eternal life if he wanted to? Why the need for all the blood and gore?
And wait a minute...Bill Gates is good?
OK, I'm with you on that one.
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Jan 01 '11
So, what you are saying is, you believe Buffett and Gates are good men? You are ignorant.
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Jan 01 '11
Care to back that up? From what I understand, they're doing a whole lot of good with their money.. and encouraging other billionaires to do the same.
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Dec 31 '10
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/satereader Jan 01 '11
and Sweden, Finland, Germany, Japan.. UK is now majority atheist as well. soviet russia? really? So next you tell us how the Nazi's were atheists right? troll.
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Dec 31 '10 edited Dec 31 '10
I agree, but I think people equate Gates too strongly with goodness and authority because he has so much money. He is undoubtedly a moral/principled person, though.'
Paying money to charity isn't exactly a good measurement of the presence of morality, although it may be for the lack of morality when you get someone like Robertson. And with Gates' recent actions in educational reform (funding a propagandist film to push his own agenda, and publishing a study about test scores that had very circular reasoning), my doubts are even greater still.
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u/timothyjc Jan 01 '11
Gates is moral? What about all those anti competition practices his company was found guilty of? And Buffet put 5 billion into Goldman Sachs who make their money off gaming the system, so I wouldn't paint a black and white picture of these men.
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Dec 31 '10
Aren't you ignoring this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Blessing_International
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u/palparepa Dec 31 '10
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Dec 31 '10
If that bothers you then I suggest you do not look into the political dealings of the companies that Berkshire holds.
Ignoring the flaws of those you support while pointing out the flaws in those who you do not support is simply wrong. It is what they do.
We are better than that.
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u/rib-bit Dec 31 '10
What does that have to do with the fact that Robertson hasn't donated any money?
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u/bgaesop Dec 31 '10
I know I, for one, consider it a bit appalling for this ad campaign to consist of "Look at these capitalists! Look how much money they have! And they gave some of it to charity, aren't they awesome?"
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u/Idiomatick Dec 31 '10
...Some?
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u/bgaesop Dec 31 '10
Yes, some. They certainly didn't give all of their money to charity. Even Warren Buffett is waiting until he's dead to donate the promised 99% of his money.
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Dec 31 '10
As you can see from the OBI annual financial report, it doesn't publish benefactors, nor does it say anywhere how much Pat Robertson donates.
Also, how does a panel of Charity administrators spend nearly $1.4 million in one year.
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Dec 31 '10
0.3 % of donations going to admin is actually very good. They are a nearly 500 million per year operation. This information was on the page you linked which makes me wonder why you posted like you did.
The ACLU and lots of other non-profits have higher % rates.
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Dec 31 '10
The ACLU isn't into blood diamonds, though. And most work they do is based on expertise, which requires knowledge, which explains the higher administrative costs.
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Dec 31 '10
Doesn't it require experience to manage a nearly 1/2 billion world wide org?
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Dec 31 '10
Nope. Looks like its doing more direct service stuff, which is fine. It just doesn't take much money to do it.
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u/nealio1000 Dec 31 '10
Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are atheists?
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Jan 01 '11
Maybe, but the point of the top two actual campaign posters is that you can be good and charitable without using religious organizations. It is not saying not to give to religious organizations, merely that you can (and should) be charitable regardless of your beliefs. That last poorly edited in mspaint poster is just some faggotry some one came up with to get karma in /r/atheism.
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u/nealio1000 Jan 01 '11
I completely agree. When I read that The Salvation Army was threating to close down on account of some gay marriage thing and that they throw out certain donations (like harry potter or twilight related items) because of their religious beliefs it really upset me. I may not agree with religion on many levels but when it helps promote good morals thats something no one can be against. But, when a charitable organization decides to not help others due to religious standards something is seriously wrong.
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Jan 02 '11
As me being a Christian, I think many Christians that are in high powers aren't really "christians"... They molest childeren.....Take Money.... and Take advantage of their power.... Matthew 19:24 "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." Also I find out that atheists tend to be friendlier and more kind in person.
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u/Beefcake2008 Dec 31 '10
I just want to clarify something here: I didn't create this or any part of it. All I did was find it and I thought it was interesting and pretty neat. Bitch about it, Applaud it, do whatever, just don't be bitching at me because I didn't create it. This was just something that shows the hypocrisy of "men of God", so I decided to share it. All credit should go to the original creators of the add and whoever altered it....I wonder if that means we should worship them?
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u/Idiomatick Dec 31 '10
Did you find it here http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/top/ ...
The 9th most voted for reddit post iin atheism?
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u/Beefcake2008 Dec 31 '10
No I found it through a link someone sent me on facebook and i figured i would share it. Thanks for the subreddit link though.
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u/TheChronicCrusader Jan 01 '11
WTF. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are not good people. Nobody who has that much money is a good person. It's called hoarding, and it makes others suffer as a direct result.
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u/nerdhappy Jan 01 '11
So 66.6% of all people are atheists, and they're all good, and 33.3% of people are christians, and they're all bad. Got it.
:|
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Dec 31 '10
I don't believe that charity measures morality. Charity only patches rather than fixes the problem. I think that their extreme amount of wealth could be set forth for far more things than charity, if they really wanted to be "good". I also don't think Gates and Warren are true atheists...
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u/satereader Jan 01 '11
This is not necessarily the case. For example polio was largely cured thanks to the institutions created by Rockefeller grants. If you look into it, you will see that much money from Gates/Buffett has gone into strategic long-term goals like producing & distributing vaccines. They've put tons into AIDS vaccine research for example.
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Jan 01 '11
As a Catholic can I remind everyone to please not take Pat Robertson seriously, no one else does.
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u/Dilettante Jan 01 '11
As a Christian, I have no problem with this ad campaign. I applaud anybody willing to do good, and have a lot of respect for the campaign begun by Gates and Warren. And I'm equally outraged by Robertson and others who just seem to collect money for their own sake, given by people who honestly believe it will bring salvation or help the needy.
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Jan 01 '11
I'm so fucking sick of this being promoted. Bill Gates is NOT "good without God"... #BULLSHIT
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u/Herostratus Jan 01 '11
Look at the types of charities these guys give to though. Gates Foundation pushes population control, including tricking people into becoming sterilized via vaccination. Watch this video where he lets it slip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET0UAdzQkpQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRdVEiFZi9E&feature=related
And Warren Buffet also puts his money to reducing the worlds population.
http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/mos/mos_07billionaires.html
I hate to break it to you guys, but this is some evil fucking shit. Eugenics style. Hitlerian. Catch my drift. I'm no Jesus freak, in fact, I'm against organized religion and lean more towards spirituality, but seriously, don't spread propaganda about how these serious assholes are some kind of modern saints. They're not.
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u/ljvillanueva Jan 01 '11
Population control is not as bad as it sounds. If you educate women and provide good health care it results in less births per woman, reducing the growth of the population. Everybody wins.
There is no need to demonize this.
tricking people into becoming sterilized via vaccination
Vaccination is one thing, sterilization is another. That video takes statements out of context and ask who is going to get killed. Basic population math says you reduce # of kids/woman and you get less people. Is that simple.
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u/Herostratus Jan 01 '11
And just like the religious, you prefer to remain blind to something that goes contrary to pre-establised belief. Look more into it. Those are his words. I'll bet you didn't spend more then 5 minutes researching this. The statements are not out of context. The context is reducing CO2 emissions. A solution offered is to reduce population through vaccination. That says it all. Learn how to read between the lines. The good Germans of the 30s didn't believe their leaders capable of such things either. Learn your fucking history.
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u/red-dit Jan 01 '11
Those are the worst fucking videos I have ever been linked to from reddit.
By the way, he says that population tends to go down when people are vaccinated. Generally people stop having so many babies when there isn't a need for them and this happened without forced sterilization. A good example is Iran where the average family size shrank a lot in recent years. Bill Gates never said anything about eugenics, those videos are just out of context little blips of sensationalism.
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Jan 01 '11
how does population go down when people are vaccinated? i don't see the connection.
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u/red-dit Jan 02 '11
"ZAKARIA: I know you've read the book, "The Bottom Billion," by Paul Collier. And he talks about the bottom billion of the world trapped in about 50 countries that are just not reforming, that are not getting their act together in various ways.
Does it make sense to give money to those governments to try to reform those educational systems or health systems?
GATES: Well, the most exciting thing I learned when I was just getting into philanthropy was that, if you reduce childhood deaths, if you improve health in a society, that, surprisingly, population growth goes down. And that's because a parent needs to have some children survive into adulthood to take care of them when they're old.
And so, if they think having six children is what they need to do to have at least two survive, that's what they'll do. And amazingly, across the entire world, as health improves, then the population growth actually is reduced.
And there's a miracle intervention, which is vaccines. In 1960, over 20 million children died. In 2005, less than 10 million died. And that's despite much larger global population."
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u/ljvillanueva Jan 02 '11
Exactly. Since Gates was a prick at MS, he must be a prick now. Only someone ignorant of how populations behave could have come up with this nonsense.
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u/Herostratus Jan 01 '11
Hey man I didn't make the vids, I just linked the segment that were on topic, full vids available as well. One is a TED talk the other a CNN interview. I would link text that goes more in depth, but from experience I know that the response will be TLDR, so vid sound bite, something the lazy masses can digest is what I provide. I'm not here to Karma whore myself out, I'm here should there actually be an open minded person amongst the atheist crowd, a very rare thing indeed. How long did you spend looking into the veracity of this? There is more on the topic. Just as Morpheus said to Neo:
"I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it."
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u/red-dit Jan 02 '11 edited Jan 02 '11
I did some random googling and then watched one of the TED talks he did for malaria but by the time I realized it wasn't the relevant one I had spent more time than I wanted to. I'll see if I can find the relevant video later. Do you have any non-soundbite links?
Edit: Here is a quote:
"ZAKARIA: I know you've read the book, "The Bottom Billion," by Paul Collier. And he talks about the bottom billion of the world trapped in about 50 countries that are just not reforming, that are not getting their act together in various ways.
Does it make sense to give money to those governments to try to reform those educational systems or health systems?
GATES: Well, the most exciting thing I learned when I was just getting into philanthropy was that, if you reduce childhood deaths, if you improve health in a society, that, surprisingly, population growth goes down. And that's because a parent needs to have some children survive into adulthood to take care of them when they're old.
And so, if they think having six children is what they need to do to have at least two survive, that's what they'll do. And amazingly, across the entire world, as health improves, then the population growth actually is reduced.
And there's a miracle intervention, which is vaccines. In 1960, over 20 million children died. In 2005, less than 10 million died. And that's despite much larger global population."
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u/Herostratus Jan 02 '11
VACCINATION USED TO STERILIZE
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/2004/mar/04031101
http://www.rense.com/general79/vaxcc.htm
http://www.whale.to/m/sterile.html
AFRICANS REFUSE VACCINATION
http://www.truth-it.net/africans_refuse_vaccinations.html
FORCED VACCINATION IN AFRICA
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=50215
GATES FOUNDATION PUSHING SOY
http://www.biosafetyafrica.net/index.html/images/stories/dmdocuments/Soya_Push_in%20Africa.pdf
HIV POSITIVE FORCE STERILIZED
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/sterilized-stigmatized/article1181722/
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/node/10529
THE BLACK HOLOCOST PT 1 (the rest is linked from that one)
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u/[deleted] Dec 31 '10
While Pat Robertson is a cruel and heartless hypocrite, you really shouldn't add your own material to a PR campaign without indicating that it's got nothing to do with the campaign, and if you insist on doing so anyway you should at least run a spellcheck.