Atheists Unite, an indiegogo campaign started by Atheist comedian Doug Stanhope, has just raised $100,000 and counting for Rebecca Vitsmun's family, a victim of the Moore, OK Tornado, made famous by an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, in which he inadvertently caused her to reveal her atheism. Despite his faux pas, this was some much needed exposure for the Atheist community, who have done their best to make the most of it.
The amount reached is awe-inspiring because it is twice the amount of the original target of $50,000, and while the campaign was originally set for 60 days, the target was reached in 17 hours, and $100,000 was reached with 56 days left. There are so far over 3500 donors, meaning the average contribution is less than 30 dollars, which makes that 100k all the more amazing.
This is just one of the ways that the secular community has aided the recovery efforts in this tragedy, and just another example of a growing trend of charity within the community.
At the same time, this side of the Atheist community often gets overlooked. In a recent blog post, Hemant Mehta described the efforts of Penn Jillette to get scenes of Atheist charity onto television on Celebrity Apprentice.
It turns out Penn tried really hard to get positive atheism on the air — multiple times — only to have his efforts squashed by the editing crew.
This is not to criticize the producers of Celebrity Apprentice or Donald Trump for editing these references out. They are making an entertainment show, and it is not their responsibility to take up the cause of positively portraying Atheists, and there are probably far more ways to find fault with that show anyways. That they allowed Jillette to acknowledge his Atheism without many overtly
negative connotations shows refreshing progress for mainstream media. As Mehta says,
Even though the producers may not have wanted atheism to become part of the show’s storyline, Penn’s openness about his beliefs practically forced them to at least mention it on occasion and that’s a huge bit of positive publicity.
But that just goes to show how hard it is for Atheists to highlight the better qualities of the community and the positive value we provide to society. Without people like Vitsmun and Jillette as our outspoken ambassadors, the rest of the religious community would likely go on perpetuating stereotypes and perceptions that the secular community is incapable of such displays of humanity.
Now, without a doubt, the contributors to these campaigns include more than just Atheists, and the message here should not take away at all from all the good that the religious donors and charities and organizations do. However, this goes a long way toward showing the beneficial aspects of the Atheist community, unlike the religious community that already enjoys the privilege of being synonymous with charity in most peoples' minds. Besides the direct effect of Secular charity, it also has the added advantage of showing one of the many ways that the Atheist and Secular community provides benefits to society in much the same way as religious organizations do, and providing a valuable way for people within the religious community to empathize with this community and find ways to cooperate for the common good.
And really, the fact that the Secular community can also show such generosity only does more to validate the charity of religious groups. Always connecting charity to religious motivation, as people in this country often do, implies that people are only being charitable because the laws of their religion require them to be charitable. This is an oversimplification of what motivates people to do good. This is also the type of thinking that allows people to propose that human beings are inherently evil, and are only good because of the threat of some divine adjudicator. This is an insult to the religious, but it is an insult to the nonreligious as well.
Let's not forget, though, that Rebecca Vitsmun is just another human being who had the world come crashing in on her and her family. Were it not for Blitzer's brusque questioning, she likely would have been fine with just ending the interview without ever identifying herself as Atheist, and probably had no intention of becoming "another object, human meme, being used as fodder for atheists and believers to pontificate."
Regardless, so long as we approach this situation as a chance to advance our goals positively and highlight our qualities that make us a valuable component of society, deserving of acceptance and respect, I think we will be able to maintain the message the Rebecca tried to send in her short response,
Yeah, yep. We are here! And, you know, I don’t blame anybody for thanking the Lord.
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