Atheists Raise $180,000 for Doctors Without Borders. - Polidicks

[quote=Reuters]Dec 9 (Reuters) - Atheist bloggers have shown their charitable side by swarming to donate money to Doctors Without Borders, in what turned into the humanitarian agency's biggest online fundraiser. Doctors without Borders (DWB), also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres, gets about 4,000 hits on its U.S. website on an average Sunday. Last Sunday that number ballooned to 50,000 as a horde of redditors, subscribers to the social media site reddit.com, thundered across the DWB homepage. Thousands more clicked through from the atheism sub-reddit, a site normally given over to finding holes in religions and picking fights with creationists, and headed for a dedicated site at firstgiving.com, where they have so far given $180,000. "It's amazing, what's going on. The amount being raised is amazing, definitely," said Natalie Favre, an MSF spokeswoman in Geneva. "We don't control any of this." Many donations were tagged with messages such as "Because god won't", "Good without god" or even "Good without Zeus". "I WAS gonna buy some Taco Bell... but screw it," wrote DJW3NCH, who donated $5.00 via firstgiving.com. Reddit's atheist page, [URL="http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism"]www.reddit.com/r/atheism[/URL], boasts more than 300,000 subscribers while the Christianity page has 20,000. One atheist reached across the divide to ask what the Christians thought about the donation campaign. A redditor calling himself Duke_Newcombe replied: "What do I think? Praise God. And thank you, r/atheism." Reddit is owned by Conde Nast, better known as the publisher of Wired, Vogue and GQ. Unlike Twitter or Facebook, it thrives on anonymity, fostering a creative chaos which is divided up into "subreddits" and largely self-policing thanks to guidelines known as "reddiquette" and the desire to collect "karma", the points earned and lost from upvotes and downvotes. A similar reddit drive raised about $50,000 last year. This year, donations picked up as many redditors promised a few cents for every upvote they got, and then sought to outdo each other by upping the cash value or matching what others gave. Jennifer Tierney, who is in charge of fundraising at DWB, said the money from reddit was not earmarked for any particular project and could be used for any of DWB's work, which this year included fighting cholera in Haiti and the Democratic Republic of [URL="http://www.reuters.com/places/congo"]Congo[/URL] and responding to emergencies in Libya and Ivory Coast. A big priority will be to fill the gap left by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which is cutting grants because of economic problems faced by donor countries. DWB normally gets a few million dollars a year from about 250-300 third party fundraising events, anything from reddit to a child selling home-made lemonade on the street corner. Reddit has contributed about 10 percent of that total in a few days. "Things are looking good. Our donors have been really, really loyal to us, which is wonderful. I know it's tough for people out there and it's great that they're continuing to support us," said Tierney. "This is very good example of how the communities online can get together and make a huge difference." Although it welcomes the windfall from reddit, DWB is aware of the dangers of expecting the reddit atheists to donate every year, and it is not planning to chase them for money. "We're not doing a heavy push on fundraising. We're really not trying to overwhelm people that way," said Tierney. "I think the most important thing on social media is you engage people and they get to know you. It's a great space for that, and try not to use it to force a donation. It doesn't work that way." (Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by [URL="http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=myra.macdonald&"]Myra MacDonald[/URL])[/quote] [URL="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/09/atheists-donations-idAFL5E7N94EL20111209"]Source[/URL] I'll let the article speak for itself, but if you want to see how much has been raised so far, or even contribute a little, click [URL="http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/r-atheism/ratheism"]here[/URL]

More propaganda from the LIEberal media. How could atheists possibly be charitable when they don't believe in Christianity where our moral bedrock comes from? [editline]19th December 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=Lolkork;33795520]Why did they have to point out that an atheist did this?[/QUOTE] Because they did? Why did news articles about Kim Jong Il have to point out that he was North Korean?

[QUOTE=Lolkork;33795520]Why did they have to point out that an atheist did this?[/QUOTE] because people still firmly believe atheists are the spawn of satan

[QUOTE=Lolkork;33795520]Why did they have to point out that an atheist did this?[/QUOTE] Can't get views if you don't attempt to piss people off.

[QUOTE=Lolkork;33795520]Why did they have to point out that an atheist did this?[/QUOTE] Because the whole thing started with a small charity drive on an Atheist sub-forum of Reddit, and one of the things that often comes up in religious debates, is whether or not you can be good without God.

[QUOTE=Lolkork;33795520]Why did they have to point out that an atheist did this?[/QUOTE] Because the people were from r/atheism on Reddit for what it's worth, r/christianity raised $15000

[QUOTE=Lolkork;33795587]Philosophy isn't the same thing as ethnicity, and ethnicity is a pretty common way of identifying people while philosophy isn't.[/QUOTE] I wasn't comparing them directly I was just saying that it was a thing that happened. Atheists from a subreddit donated money so logically the article would point them out as atheists. Why else?

[QUOTE=Lolkork;33795520]Why did they have to point out that an atheist did this?[/QUOTE] because people still believe that atheists categorically never give to charity

[QUOTE=Lolkork;33795520]Why did they have to point out that an atheist did this?[/QUOTE] Because religion in news = massive rage. Let the shitposting [B]BEGIN![/B]

[QUOTE=Hidole555;33795774]Because religion in news = massive rage. Let the shitposting [B]BEGIN![/B][/QUOTE] Or because it was an organized attempt by a group of atheists so explaining as such better describes the situation as per journalism 101. Seriously what is the conspiracy here?

[QUOTE=Lolkork;33795520]Why did they have to point out that an atheist did this?[/QUOTE] Because atheists are evil? \_:v:_/

Religious people could have and must have taken part in this. You shouldn't just say Atheists donated all the money.

Religious people are evil.

[QUOTE=Zeke129;33795580]Because the people were from r/atheism on Reddit for what it's worth, r/christianity raised $15000[/QUOTE] $15,000 / 20,000 Christians = $0.75 per christian $180,000 / 300,000 Atheists = $0.60 per atheist. Looks like the christians have it.

[QUOTE=Lolkork;33795587]Philosophy isn't the same thing as ethnicity, and ethnicity is a pretty common way of identifying people while philosophy isn't.[/QUOTE] Religious views are a common way of identifying people as well

[QUOTE=hegrec;33796132]$15,000 / 20,000 Christians = $0.75 per christian $180,000 / 300,000 Atheists = $0.60 per atheist. Looks like the christians have it.[/QUOTE] I doubt that's what the people receiving treatment would think.

[QUOTE=gazzy_GUI;33796164]I doubt that's what the people receiving treatment would think.[/QUOTE] This is what it all comes down to. Who gives a hairy, corn filled, dog shit who gave the money. People are being treated for many hundreds of diseases and THAT is awesome.

[QUOTE=Zeraxify;33795534]because people still firmly believe atheists are the spawn of satan[/QUOTE] Atheism =/= Satanism The only people who believe that atheists are communist malicious zombie aliens are people who live in the south(or at least that's where most are.)

R/ atheism is one of the worst subreddits on that site. The circklejerks get worst than what you see here on facepunch and this is coming from an atheist.

[QUOTE=Garik;33795891]Religious people could easily have taken part in this.[/QUOTE] They did. [QUOTE=YouWithTheFace.;33796306]R/ atheism is one of the worst subreddits on that site. The circklejerks get worst than what you see here on facepunch and this is coming from an atheist.[/QUOTE] IT doesn't help that reddit automatically subscribes new users to r/atheism, and have to opt out of it manually. In addition to the whole "pushing views on people" argument, that tends to attract a lot of shitposters.

[QUOTE=Strongbad;33796273]Atheism =/= Satanism The only people who believe that atheists are communist malicious zombie aliens are people who live in the south.[/QUOTE] nobody here believes that holy shit. stop spewing bs about the south, you have no goddamn idea what you are talking about.

[QUOTE=SPESSMEHREN;33796309]They did.[/QUOTE] That's what I was implying.

Why do the Christians ect. need to donate money? If people die it's obviously gods will right?

Yea! Fuck religion

[QUOTE=Djessey;33796376]Why do the Christians ect. need to donate money? If people die it's obviously gods will right?[/QUOTE] <sarcasm>People die cuz of homosexuals </sarcasm>

[QUOTE=SPESSMEHREN;33796309] IT doesn't help that reddit automatically subscribes new users to r/atheism, and have to opt out of it manually. In addition to the whole "pushing views on people" argument, that tends to attract a lot of shitposters.[/QUOTE] r/atheism is a circlejerk but it isn't filled with the racism, sexism, homophobia, and other general assholery that's killing the rest of reddit

[QUOTE=Zeke129;33796420]r/atheism is a circlejerk but it isn't filled with the racism, sexism, homophobia, and other general assholery that's killing the rest of reddit[/QUOTE] It's basically a new f7u12 subreddit, with more intolerance though.

GODLESS SCUM they can keep their money which probably got from the devil or OSAMA bin OBAMA

[QUOTE=Garik;33796443]It's basically a new f7u12 subreddit, with more intolerance though.[/QUOTE] We've discussed this issue about having to "respect other peoples beliefs" many times in other threads here. It's not intolerance if someone explains to you why your reasoning process that leads you to believe god exists is flawed. Attacking religious people by saying "they're all dumb" would be intolerant, but the beliefs themselves are fair game to be criticized. If someone is sensitive to having their beliefs about god criticized, then I'm afraid that's just too bad. I'm sure holocaust deniers are sensitive to having their beliefs about history criticized, it doesn't change the fact that what they believe is completely wrong and inconsistent with reality.

[QUOTE=Garik;33796443]It's basically a new f7u12 subreddit, with more intolerance though.[/QUOTE] ffuu is the second worst, behind only r/mensrights