Atheists, Humanists Take Up Slain Chapel Hill Muslims' Cause

[hrmjustin]

Kimberly Winston

(RNS) Atheists and other nonbelievers have pitched in more than $20,000 to support the pet charity of one of the three Muslim students slain in North Carolina last week, allegedly by a man who harbored anti-theist sentiments.

One of the slain students, Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, was a graduate dental student at the University of North Carolina and planned to travel with the Syrian American Medical Society Foundation to Syrian refugee camps. He was shot and killed along with his wife, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21, and sister-in-law, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, in what police say may have started as a neighborhood parking dispute.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/17/atheist-humanist-chapel-hill-shooting_n_6700896.html?utm_hp_ref=religion

[carolinayellowdog]

1. What is "community"? This story reminds us of what matters.

Thanks for posting this, which restores some of my faith in community. Being familiar with Chapel Hill, having spent much time there, this story has been especially hard to process in terms of DU-- some people already outraged by hundreds of recent abusive remarks about Muslims in general and ready to blame an Islamophobic cultural environment for this massacre, others hyper-defensive of atheists in general and ready to dismiss all evidence of a hate crime in favor of the "parking dispute and nothing more, move along" narrative.

Meanwhile, in the "real world," in the beautiful and diverse community of Chapel Hill, these LOST LIVES ARE NO ABSTRACTION but a tragic loss for everyone. So it is a relief to learn that the atheist/humanist community locally is not reacting with defensive distraction, but with support for the cause that the victims cared most about.

The real world of real communities of diverse people is a far more beautiful place than the virtual world of virtual communities segregated by beliefs-- and antagonisms among them.