Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Athiests' Good Works-Part 1

Quoted from a reply to my other blog:

From www.positiveatheism.com, in a conversation on the topic:
~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.positiveatheism.org/mail/eml9553.htm

Atheist Centre of India
The Atheist Centre was founded in 1940 by the Gora family, who were associated with Ghandi and the nationalist movement for freedom. They provide counseling, are fighting against the caste system and for the abolition of child marriages, helping ex-prostitutes, and protecting widows from inhumane customs. They also dispell superstitions by scientific demonstrations, and are asked to calm witchcraft hysterias. They provide sex education and family planning, are carrying on a rural development program, and have a center for free cornea grafting operations which is giving sight to the blind.
http://www.positiveatheism.org/tocindia.htm

Atheist Charity
This is a new, small charity run by atheist volunteers. They currently give money to other charities for the poor, are involved in forming a non-discriminatory alternative to the Boy Scouts, and later will start natural disaster relief projects.
http://www.atheistcharity.org

EARTHWARD, Inc.
Earth's Atheist Resistance To Holy Wars And Religious Devastation gives humanitarian aid to victims of religiously motivated violence.
http://earthward.net

Humanitas
Dutch organization for social care an community development, based upon humanistic principles with projects in the fields of child-care, elderly homes, support for the homeless, care for the disabled, visiting and empowering the lonely, and grief counseling.
http://www.humanitas.nl

Humanist Institute for Cooperation with Developing Countries
Hivos is an organisation working to promote: democracy; economic development; cultural development; human rights, including equal rights for women, in the developing countries of Africa, Asia, Latin-America and South-east Europe. It also combats poverty and the spread of AIDS in those areas.
http://www.hivos.nl/

Furthermore, humanist organizations such as the International Humanist and Ethical Union at
http://www.hivos.nl/
have been cooperating with the U.N. in promoting global human rights and social progress. Several people named Humanists of the Year by the AHA (American Humanist Association) at
http://www.humanist.net
have been leaders in the U.N. and/or helped draft human rights documents.

~~~~~~~~~~~
They raise the idea that there are few athiest charity organizations for the several reasons. A) Religious charities utilize their works as prolethetizing and recruitment/conversion opportunities, and thus are very vocal about them (And they are self-perpetuating for this reason.) B) The lack of belief in a diety does not bond individuals together in the same way that an organized religion does, etc.

No comments: