The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. |
Welcome, freethinkers!
Central Minnesota Friends Free of Theism is a nonprofit educational organization created to foster a community of reason in Central Minnesota. We are atheists, agnostics, humanists, secularists, and freethinkers in and around St. Cloud. We live our lives happily free of dogma and the constraints of religion.
Monthly membership meetings are now held at 7:00 p.m. on third Mondays (except December) at either the new public library in St. Cloud or the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Hall. Social gatherings are held at various locations throughout the year. We also get together occasionally for coffee on Saturday mornings. Members receive notice of meetings by mail or email, or check the events calendar.
Contact us at info@freeoftheism.org for more information.
Thanks for visiting!
February Membership Meeting
We'll hold our monthly meeting February 15 at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Hall in St. Cloud. The public is invited. We're a very casual group and will discuss a few freethought initiatives including a Camp Quest sponsorship and our new annual blood drive.
We hope you can join us.
Secular avenues for helping Haiti
From the Red Cross newsroom:
(1/13/2010) You can text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to American Red Cross relief for Haiti.
I've done this. You get a confirmation text along with links to more information. It's very well executed, and it's extremely convenient.
Of course, you can also donate by conventional channels:
There are many ways you can support the American Red Cross.
Help people affected by disaster like the recent earthquakes and floods by donating to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund. On those rare occasions when donations exceed Red Cross expenses for a specific disaster, contributions are used to prepare for and serve victims of other disasters. Your gift enables the Red Cross to provide shelter, food, emotional support and other assistance to victims of all disaster. Call 1-800-RED-CROSS (1-800-733-2767) or 1-800-257-7575 (Spanish). Contributions to the Disaster Relief Fund may be sent to your local American Red Cross chapter, or to American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, D.C., 20013. Internet users can make a secure online donation by visiting www.redcross.org.
You can help the victims of countless crises around the world each year by making a financial gift to the American Red Cross International Response Fund, which will provide immediate relief and long-term support through supplies, technical assistance and other support to those in need. Donations to the International Response Fund can be sent to the American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, D.C. 20013 or made by phone at 1-800-REDCROSS or 1-800-257-7575 (Spanish) or online at www.redcross.org.
For volunteer opportunities, contact your local chapter.
Display and share Online Tools to help spread the word about Red Cross Relief.
There are also the secular organizations Partners In Health and YeleHaiti. Here's a good SSA article on those and others.
Update: Jen over at The Atheist Experience has written a nice in-depth article on secular charities.
January newsletter
Giving beyond belief
There's a new humanist charity organization that offers a novel way of selecting your recipients--you choose from ten categories and decide what portion of your contribution goes to each.
I. Love. This. For a number of reasons.
First, I'm sick to death of people saying the religious are more giving and compassionate than we are. Boloney. Sure, they have an established system dedicated to fleecing them tax-free without really telling them where the money is going. And they offer salvation and to put a word in with "the man upstairs" if you give.
But none of that means they're better people. It just means that they're more likely to drop a couple bucks into the basket to save face, or that they think they're buying their own eternity in the clouds. I'm not saying that believers are never truly compassionate, but that the money is extracted by other than truly ethical motivation.
Second, one of the reasons religious people seem so charitable is because they have this massive institution to track and display all the money that's processed, whereas nonbelievers give to many less well-known and less organized causes. Foundation Beyond Belief is a new way to present the public with the good that people do, be they superstitious or not. It's a small way to help heal the image of atheism.
I'm suffering in the pocketbook as much as many are after being off work for a year and taking a job with lower pay, but I'll be trying hard to send a few dollars to this when I can. And I'll feel great about doing it, eternal salvation or not.
SCSU SSA has its ducks in a row
Already, only a few weeks after gaining official organization status at SCSU, the new Secular Student Alliance chapter has a great website, a Facebook page, a YouTube channel, a Twitter profile, and a weekly meeting agenda. Great job!
What can you do to help? Join! Become a member of their Facebook group. Follow them on Twitter. Donate. Participate!
We have their blog feed on the front page, and we will also show their Google calendar with ours.
Best of luck to the new team, and thanks for your hard work!
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