Athée Canadien
Posts tagged charity
Vancouver Atheists help the homeless
Feb 3rd
This is really cool.
A group on Facebook called Atheist Republic – which has only been around for a few months but already has nearly 30,000 likes – held its first event last weekend. They went to Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and handed out socks to the homeless.
You can see some photos of the event here (you may need Facebook for this).
Other engagements sadly prevented me from making it out to this event, but I wish them the best in the future.
Atheist Republic has members worldwide and is hoping to launch an international non-profit organization to help organize and rally atheists everywhere. Check them out (their website isn’t exactly ready yet), they’re already off to a great start.
United Church lobbying
Nov 25th
The United Church has sent the prime minister a letter urging the government to rewrite the omnibus crime bill.
The United Church of Canada has urged the government “to reconsider the provisions of Bill C-10 dealing with the imposition of minimum sentences; and to separate the provisions of the omnibus bill to allow for consideration of the potential impacts of its component parts.”
While my position on the bill is irrelevant, it’s important to point out every time religious charities start lobbying because it could mean an end to their charitable status. Registered charities may devote up to 10% of its resources towards political activities so I doubt the United Church is violating any rules this time since a letter doesn’t cost much. Yet, if the Catholic Church wrote a letter urging the government to abolish gay marriage, I’d probably raise a stink so it’s only fair I give the United Church the same treatment. Once churches start devoting more resources (by hiring legal firms, equipping protestors, etc.) they may get close to the limit so they should be flagged an reported to Revenue Canada for investigation.
The real issue is, of course, why religions are automatically given charitable status. Organizations like CFI:Canada and a few humanist groups across Canada are defined as educational charities, much like a library, or under the tricky ‘benefit to the community’ section depending on their mandate. Religions can be granted charitable status simply for promoting the belief in a supreme being and hand out those lucrative tax credits income-earning Canadians crave so much.
How to prevent success from ruining your book club
Aug 15th
This was a good weekend for freethought in Vancouver.
On Saturday morning about 7 people donated blood, which was a slightly smaller turnout than a couple months ago, but on the positive side, we didn’t have anyone get turned away this time. In combination with several other members who weren’t able to make it on the weekend but are going on their own time, CFI Vancouver should reach its goal for donations this year – something few Partners for Life ever achieve!
Vancouver atheists get charitable
Jun 22nd
Over the past few weeks, which have been quite busy for me as evidenced by my absence, CFI Vancouver has gotten involved in a couple of really great acts of selflessness (except for the selfish self-promotion reasons).
First, we kicked off our Partners For Life challenge with Canadian Blood Services with a blood drive a couple weekends ago. And while not everyone was eligible to donate (for a variety of reasons), we did manage to donate enough blood to save at least 12 lives!
Then, this past weekend, more members of CFI Vancouver raised funds for our Relay for Life team to raise money for the Canadian Cancer Society. The entire event raised over $188,000, with CFI members raising $1685 between our 11 team members.
Both of these events are the kick-off to much more charitable outreach, with blood drives scheduled for every two months and the Vancouver Pride Parade (with the BC Humanists and CFI Vancouver working together), atheists in Vancouver are proving how good you can be without god.
Credit for both photos goes to Fred Bremmer.
‘Tis the season… to shove it in their faces!
Dec 13th
This one will brief, since Hemant over at Friendly Atheist has already given us all the relevant information:
The Atheism subReddit has taken up the cause to raise $42,000 for Doctors without Borders — the amount is an homage to Douglas Adams.
This is a friendly competition with the members of the Christianity subReddit, who are donating to the World Vision Clean Water Fund. Much like with Kiva, we’re crushing them with our generosity
(I should’ve pointed out that this is hardly a fair fight because the Atheism subReddit outnumbers the Christian subReddit by a longshot. There’s waaaaay more of us. So the “competition” is all in good fun. Still, Christians are more than welcome to try to beat us
As I write this, the atheists have already raised $30,000. The Christians have raised a little over $10,000.
Let’s help the atheists reach their goal (and, as a bonus, give more than the Christians).
If you’re in the U.K., you can give here.
If you’re in America (or elsewhere), you can give here.
I just gave $10. What are you donating?
Personally I think this is an awesome idea. Despite being at odds with a large segment of the atheist community with my stance toward religion, I think this is the kind of collaboration and friendly rivalry that the “accommodationists” are talking about most of the time. I’m happy to channel some of my vitriol (and one night out’s worth of cash – I donated $50) into a cause that sees real and positive results for someone else on the planet.
So put down your deep-fried baby sandwiches, click on the link, and cough up whatever dough you can spare to finally destroy Christianity once and for all! Or, get a poor kid some medicine. Whatever lifts your luggage.
The Salvation Army destroys books
Sep 1st
An interesting email exchange was passed along to me that I’ve been given permission to publicize regarding books that are sold at Salvation Army Thrift Stores.
Over the course of the exchange (which lasts several months and includes many non-responses from the Army), it is admitted that the Salvation Army occasionally censors donated books that they receive that do not fit their Christian worldview. The censored books are then destroyed.
I’m not going to post the entire exchange here, or give out names or emails, but here’s some choice snippets (Salvation Army spokespeople in bold):
The Salvation Army store staff do their best to screen books so that we don’t sell books of a pornographic nature, or those that promote promiscuity.
If you find a book that you feel falls into the above categories, please don’t hesitate to bring it to the attention of the store Manager.
Regarding books that describe various philosophies on creation and evolution, non-Christian philosophies and beliefs, etc. we do sell those, as long as they don’t promote non-Christian beliefs. Again, if you see something that should not be on the shelf, please address it with the Store Manager, who will be happy to remove it if it’s unsuitable.
Does this mean that you will be more vigilant about Shakespeare, Greek mythology, or similar classical literature?
- No, because to meet the criteria which you are advocating, we would have to have staff with a thorough knowledge of every author, their opinions, theologies, writing styles etc and that is possible. We do the best we can with the resources and knowledge that we have available to us. We realize that our system is far from perfect,but we try to screen the books at our warehouse and again at store level, but it is difficult because of the enormous volume we process.What books (besides pornography and promiscuity) are removed from your shelves?
Books that promote any religion other than Christianity. Certain authors who we know use bad language, explicit sex or violence in their books. Again, I repeat our knowledge in this area is limited so it is highly probable that we miss some unsuitable books.What happens to those books? Are they put in a place where others may read them?
Destroyed, not re-circulated.
Of course the Army is not known for it’s progressive ideas, including about homosexuality:
For this reason such practices [as homosexuality], if unrenounced, render a person ineligible for Salvation Army soldiership, in the same way that unrenounced heterosexual misconduct is a bar to soldiership. The Army recognises the strength of feeling about sexual identity, and the difficulty many find in expressing this identity in keeping with scriptural standards.
However, it believes firmly in the power of God’s grace to enable the maintenance of a lifestyle pleasing to him, including a lifestyle built upon celibacy and self-restraint for those who will not or cannot marry. No one who yields to the lordship of Christ and who undertakes by his grace to live in accordance with the teaching of Scripture is excluded from Christian fellowship and service in the Army.
So when donating at Christmas, or giving away used clothes, books, or other belongings, consider Value Village or other thrift stores which donate portions of their profits to secular charities.
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