Congratulations To 2013's Atheist Of The Year, Sarah Morehead

Despite having a day of heavy people interacting while tabling for Apostacon, I picked the wrong night head out of the convention to have some introvert time.  I say this because after getting to my hotel room, I saw this posted.

My bias on this issue is all over this blog, in the form of my support for Recovering From Religion.  But even with that, and having not yet learned American Atheists' stated reasons for choosing Sarah Morehead for this award, I feel safe saying this award was well deserved.

Sarah Morehead has worked tirelessly to make Recovering From Religion grow into an international organization that provides real help to real people suffering real harm from religion.  I can think of no group that is more underrated than Recovering From Religion.

On top of that, they've got the Hotline Project coming soon, which will give people in the middle of a faith crisis a place to call, where they will receive support without proselytizing of any kind.

In addition to that, while Apostacon was/is mostly definitely a large team effort, Sarah was a driving force in the success of Apostacon last year, which has received high praise from several of our speakers.  Most of those speakers were people we were only able to get because of Sarah's involvement in Apostacon.  Without Sarah, Apostacon may have remained as good as it was before the name change form Midwest Freethought Conference, but it wouldn't have been become great.  And that's definitely where we're headed with Apostacon.

And then, as a side project, she stepped up to settle the Matt Dillahunty, Sye Ten Bruggencate back and forth debate challenges and got the damn thing scheduled.

So, if you want to be Atheist of the Year, that's what it takes.  Be a Getting Shit Done Machine.

Sarah with her award & Dan Fincke

I can only imagine how much more she'd be able to get done if she could keep her cell phone charged.

Edit:  Fixed the year

I'm With JT Eberhard, Who Is With Ed Brayton

Joe Klein's Time cover story^[1] took a cheap shot^[2] at atheists, claiming there are no secular people doing charity.  Ed Brayton wrote to them^[3] about it.  So has JT Eberhard^[4].  And so have I:

I cannot help but be disappointed by the recent remarks in your publication by Joe Klein regarding atheists and charity^[1].  He wrote: 

"But there was an occupying army of relief workers, led by local first responders, exhausted but still humping it a week after the storm, church groups from all over the country — funny how you don’t see organized groups of secular humanists giving out hot meals — and there in the middle of it all, with a purposeful military swagger, were the volunteers from Team Rubicon."

On top of this being a demonstrably untrue statement , it's unnecessarily hurtful.  Atheists face enough problems^[6] without a cover story from one of the world's most respected publications taking cheap shots at us.  Nearly all of us have been told we deserve to burn in Hell forever.  Many atheists have a justified fear of their family or employers knowing of their lack of belief.  I've had friends disowned from family solely due to their atheism.  Others have lost jobs.

The word "godless" has as a listed definition^[7]:  "wicked; evil; sinful."  In other words, people treat atheism as synonymous with being evil.  We are constantly faced with claims that we cannot be moral without a god.

Atheists are often prohibited from holding public office in a variety of ways.  The US Constitution states^[8] "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States," but several states still have laws specifically prohibiting us from qualifying for elected positions.

The general electorate often refuses to vote for anyone who doesn't profess a belief in a god.  While people recently have become more willing to vote for an atheist for President^[9], we've still got a long way to go^[10].

Atheists face these issues and many others^[11].  We don't need a voice as prominent as Time making things worse.  That's why I'm writing to ask you to make up for it by doing a story on atheist charities such as The Foundation Beyond Belief^[12] or Recovering From Religion^[13] & their Hotline Project^[14].  Because the Klein article was a cover story, I think it's fair to ask that this story be given equal treatment.  Plus, it's not like they're not worthy of such coverage.  

Foundation Beyond Belief recently reached the milestone of a million dollars raised^[15].  That amount includes more than $45,000 related to the Oklahoma tornadoes, the very disaster Klein accused atheists of not helping after.  And Recovering From Religion helps people negatively impacted by religion, because of attitudes expressed by Klein, the other issues I listed above, and various others.

I hope you'll make things right rather than let Klein's slap in the face go uncorrected.

Time should make up for giving that bigotry the credibility that comes from a cover story in their publication.  And it's not outside of the realm of possibilities.  The more requests they get, the more likely they are to do a story on atheist charity.

So, please write to them and politely request they do so.

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1.  http://nation.time.com/2013/06/20/can-service-save-us/print/
2.  http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/06/25/joe-klein-offers-a-pathetic-rebuttal-in-response-to-criticism-of-his-attack-on-atheists-in-time-cover-story/
3.  http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2013/06/27/tell-time-to-stop-dismissing-secular-generosity/
4.  http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wwjtd/2013/06/im-with-ed-brayton-its-time-to-email-time/
5.  http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/05/30/what-are-atheists-doing-for-the-victims-of-the-oklahoma-tornado/
6.  http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2011-12-10/religion-atheism/51777612/1
7.  http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/godless
8.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Religious_Test_Clause
9.  http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2012-07-26/athiest-poll-president/56516466/1
10.  http://abcnews.go.com/politics/t/blogEntry?id=16623786
11.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination_against_atheists
12.  http://foundationbeyondbelief.org/
13.  http://recoveringfromreligion.org/
14.  http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/06/04/atheists-to-start-1-800-hotline/comment-page-8/
15.  http://foundationbeyondbelief.org/node/1867