TIME Magazine Just Doubled-Down on Joe Klein’s Inaccurate, Anti-Atheist Statements

[trotsky]

From the Friendly Atheist:

Last week, the cover story TIME magazine, written by Joe Klein, included an unfair and untrue jab at Secular Humanists.

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Of course, atheists were there, and I listed in detail how many non-theistic groups and individuals contributed time, money, and — yes — hot meals to the victims of the Oklahoma tornadoes.

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Klein responded to all of this by offering an awful rebuttal in which he argued that he wasn’t saying atheists didn’t help out; it was *organized* groups of atheists who were absent from the recovery efforts...

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Klein didn’t just choose not to apologize. He made things worse by lying a second time!

You really gotta read the whole thing to see how bad it is - it's not just Klein who is bigoted against the non-believing community, but apparently also the people at TIME magazine who are calling the shots.

[Rob H.]

1. Foundation Beyond Beilef's Exec. Director wrote a great response

The invisible secular humanists: A response to Joe Klein
By Dale McGowan

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A very quick search online would have told him otherwise. In the last several years, some powerful charitable initiatives have been launched with specifically atheist or humanist identities, including several disaster relief programs. It’s not that individual nonbelievers are discovering compassionate action for the first time. As Mapantsula’s response to D’Souza attested in 2007, we’ve always been present and active in response to tragedy and suffering. But these new organizations are focusing that individual humanistic response to human need into collective action, increasing the impact of their generosity in the process.

The response to the tornadoes from the secular humanist and atheist community was organized and overwhelming. The members and supporters of Foundation Beyond Belief, the secular humanist charitable organization I direct, provided 100,000 meals to victims in the wake of the Oklahoma tornadoes through the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma and raised an additional $22,000 for Operation USA. Perhaps the greatest irony of the Klein piece is that Team Rubicon, the outstanding organization he praises in the same sentence that bashes humanists, was the primary beneficiary of Foundation Beyond Belief’s fund drive after Superstorm Sandy.

In addition to FBB, groups including Atheists Giving Aid, Oklahoma Atheists, the Atheist Community of Tulsa, the Lawton Area Secular Society, the Norman Naturalism Group, FreeOK, and the Oklahoma State Secular Organization lent their considerable energies to the effort in Oklahoma. Some raised funds—nearly a quarter million dollars in 10 days—while others gave untold time and energy on the ground. They organized volunteers, resources, and blood drives, teamed with local businesses to feed relief volunteers, and drove bulk donations around the city to distribution centers. They helped clear the rubble of homes, comforted survivors, took people into their own homes, fed them, and clothed them.

But Klein didn’t spend those few seconds checking his facts. He checked only his assumptions and biases, and in so doing reinforced the assumption and biases of his readers. Even the time-honored test of substituting another subgroup—“Funny how you don’t see any organized groups of gays/Muslims/Jews/Hungarians/etc. handing out meals”—should have been enough to wake the sleeping journalist awake in Klein’s head, pushing his cursor the scant few inches needed to open the browser of his choice and see whether that thing he assumed was actually true.

[trotsky]

2. That does kick ass. n/t