Tag Archives: hypocrisy

Interesting Links, July 29, 2011

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Here are links I found interesting on July 29, 2011:

  • The Speech Obama Could Give: ‘The Constitution Forbids Default’ – "Imagining a presidential address confronting Republicans who want to risk the nation's credit for political reasons." I wish he WOULD give this speech so we can get on with our lives. And I'd like to see every single sitting senator and representative get voted OUT over the next four years.
  • Tea Party Rep. Joe Walsh sued for $100,000 in child support – "Freshman U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh, a tax-bashing Tea Party champion who sharply lectures President Barack Obama and other Democrats on fiscal responsibility, owes more than $100,000 in child support to his ex-wife and three children, according to documents his ex-wife filed in their divorce case in December." You can't make up stuff like this.

Non-Believers Giving Aid

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A religion-free way to help disaster victims.

Like thousands (I assume) of Americans, when I first heard of the tragedy in Haiti, I felt a need to help. The obvious solution was to give money to a charity that would be providing aid directly to the Haitian people. But the question was, which charity?

In the first day of the situation, choices weren’t readily apparent. I went with the good old standby: the American Red Cross. Because I wanted my aid to go directly to Haiti and not be used for anyother purpose, I wrote a check, marked it “Haiti Aid”, and mailed it to American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, D.C. 20013. According to the Web site’s Donate Now! page, this was the best way to ensure donations went to the cause I wanted to help.

A few days passed. Pat Robertson made his asinine comments about the Haitian people having a pact with the devil and then had the nerve to start collecting money to help them. It made me sick. I wish there was a hell just so these self-serving, religious fanatics could rot there.

I wanted to give more to help the Haitian victims, but I certainly wasn’t about to donate to any charity that was in any way related to any religious organization. The Clinton Foundation was one very good option. So was the International Red Cross. And Doctors without Borders.

But another one came to light this morning: Non-Believers Giving Aid. This organization is sponsored by Richard Dawkins and serves two distinct purposes:

  • To send 100% of donated funds directly to two non-religious charities giving aid in Haiti: Doctors without Borders and International Red Cross.
  • To provide an easy conduit for the non-religious to help those in desperate need, while simultaneously disproving that you need God to be good.

As the Non-Believers Giving Aid home page declares:

Preachers and televangelists, mullahs and imams, often seem almost to gloat over natural disasters – presenting them as payback for human transgressions, or for ‘making a pact with the devil’. Earthquakes and tsunamis are caused not by ‘sin’ but by tectonic plate movements, and tectonic plates, like everything else in the physical world, are supremely indifferent to human affairs and sadly indifferent to human suffering. Those of us who understand this reality are sometimes accused of being indifferent to that suffering ourselves. Of course the very opposite is the truth: we do not hide behind the notion that earthly suffering will be rewarded in a heavenly paradise, nor do we expect a heavenly reward for our generosity: the understanding that this is the only life any of us have makes the need to alleviate suffering even more urgent.

Thus, I sent my second contribution for Haiti Earthquake Victims to Non-Believers Giving Aid, with an equal split between the two non-religious charities they support.

I’m pleased to hear that so far over $180,000 has been raised by this organization — an average of over $35 per donor.

Have you given a charitable contribution to help the people of Haiti? Tell us about it in a comment on this post. If you haven’t done so yet, please do consider it. An amount as small as $5 can really help make a difference.

Just please — don’t send it to Pat Robertson.

Nasty, Angry Christians

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Sure wish they knew how to practice what they preach.

Last week, one of my blog posts, “The Bible in the Refrigerator,” was stolen and printed word-for-word, almost in its entirety, in an RV blog. Closer examination of that blog showed that the blogger has built his site primarily by stealing content from other bloggers and newspaper Web sites and reprinting it on his site. He uses about 75-90% of the blog text and puts a “read more” link at the end. He seems to think that this is “fair use” and was very nasty to me in e-mail message when I asked him to take it down. At least one of the other victims I exchanged e-mail with has gone after him. I’m not quite done with him yet, either. I’ll likely start legal proceedings and sue both him and his deep-pocket sponsors. As a writer, I don’t take copyright infringement lightly.

But that’s not what this post is about. This post is about the mean-hearted, nasty comments posted on his blog and mine by “Christians” who felt offended by my post.

Evidently, freedom of speech does not extend to the freedom to voice your own opinion in your own blog unless that opinion matches those of the angry, close-minded people who read it. The comments ranged from polite attempts to get me to read the bible — which I have, at least in part — to the funniest of all, which told me I’d burn in hell.

It seems to me that if people are seriously following the teachings of their lord and savior Jesus Christ, they should think twice before spewing hatred toward their fellow humans. Not only are they exposing themselves to ridicule for being hypocrites, but they’re making their fellow Christians look bad, too.

What would Jesus do? I don’t know, but I don’t think he’d act like the nasty, angry Christians who commented on my blog.