It’s bad taste for people to flaunt wealth in an economic downturn, whether they be CEOs of major US automakers, executives at AIG, or a church. It’s in even poorer taste to use perceived wealth, and the promise of wealth, to attract followers to a religion. Tax-exemption is best reserved to support non-profit organizations dedicated to the public good. Though there are organizations with religious affiliation that engage in charitable work, the propagation of a religious belief is not charitable in and of itself.

Since the definition of a tax exempt religious organization is very broad and there is little oversight of their activities, many churches continue to maintain tax-exempt status and huge incomes. While it is not the place of government to endorse or oppose religion, this obligation of neutrality does not logically extend to giving religious organizations a special exemption from taxes. Whether a community organization is educational, charitable, or social, its income should be reported and subjected to oversight if it wants to remain tax-free and accept tax-exempt donations—or it should pay taxes like any other private corporation. The Christian Faith Center is spending its money on a helipad, a luxury; other religious organizations have funneled ridiculous sums of money to provide personal luxury (and legal defense) to charismatic preachers or even to provide aid to terrorist organizations, all while remaining tax-free and largely un-scrutinized. Laws prohibit any private individual from benefiting from tax-exempt earnings, but these laws are unenforceable on religious organizations due to other laws limiting civil tax inquiries of churches.

While we don’t wish to interfere with the Christian Faith Center’s community building efforts, we think that their plan for a helicopter pad demonstrates poor taste given the current economic climate, is a misuse of their tax-exempt status, and wastes the hard-earned money of their donors. We would like to encourage the Christian Faith Center to scrap their plan of unneeded air transportation and instead donate the money to a local charitable organization that does not discriminate on the basis of religion, such as Seattle Atheists did when they raised nearly $1000 for Seattle Children’s Hospital by wrapping presents this holiday season.

— Lex Maxwell

Consider the following analogy:
Given world-wide shipping and the tenacity of Arthropods it is entirely possible that no matter where you live and given any typical means of storage there may be highly venomous spiders in your shoes when you go to put them on the in the morning (If this idea doesn’t cause you concern go watch the movie Arachnophobia). For most people the probability is low but the possibility is entirely supported by evidence and you don’t know for sure until you check. Most people do not check their shoes for spiders every morning. If a typical person were to inspect their shoes for spiders every morning we would call them insane for being concerned about something so unlikely to happen. There is infinitely more evidence to suggest there may be spiders in your shoes than that there might be a god. We should worry about the existence of god infinitely less than the existence of venomous spiders in situations known to generally be safe.

Consideration of the existence of a god is not warranted by lack of evidence. Lack of evidence either way being considered evidence in itself is classic self reinforcing delusion, not logic. There is no hard evidence to suggest that it’s even possible for an entity meeting any of the popular meaningful definitions of “God” to exist. Proving that the universe has more than four dimensions, an idea that real science is pursuing, might prove that it’s possible for a god to exist. Even if this possibility were proven, giving us a way to at least look for a god, we would then still have to prove that a god does indeed exist in one of those dimensions (proving that it’s possible that there is a spider in your shoes does not prove that a spider is in your shoes). Should evidence supporting a high possibility of the existence of a god come to light we might need to start checking our shoes for god-spiders waiting to bite our unrepentant feet, but until then it is entirely unnecessary. You can still check if you want. You won’t be a bad atheist; just a little bit paranoid.

philosophy != religion

I had to answer the question ~”isn’t Seattle Atheists like a religion?” at the University District Street Fair so many times. There are numerous Freethinkers (including some who I hope are reading this) who are afraid to support SA because they think it’s like a religion. It’s not. It’s an educational organization. The various ways that SA states ~”there is no evidence of woo woo” isn’t even philosophical, much less religious, it’s stating the obvious. Promoting Secular Government, Freedom of Religion for Atheists, and tolerance of Atheism is very philosophical but it’s hardly dogmatic and SA does it through education, not conversion.

SA is not a religion. SA will not fulfill your “spiritual” needs (there’s no such thing). SA is not trying to convert people to Atheism. SA might fulfill some of your social needs and make the world a better place but SA needs your support to achieve it’s mission (stated above and detailed in the constitution:
http://www.seattleatheists.org/documents/Seattle_Atheist_Constitution_and_Bylaws\.pdf). So please don’t let fear of joining an organization stop you from from promoting your values. Don’t let an irrational fear that you might accidentally foist your values on others prevent you for fighting for a government and a society that will not tolerate the insertion of dogma into science and law. Inaction serves only the goals of those who would happily force their religious values on all of us regardless of the results.

The easiest way to support SA is to become a member and/or make a donation but even more than that SA needs volunteers. At this point I believe everyone on the SA board is employed full time and none of them are payed for the work they do for SA. You can join online (http://www.seattleatheists.org/become_a_member.shtml) or you can attend meetings to find out more about volunteering (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SeattleAtheists/cal you don’t have to be a member to attend meetings).

Let me speak on the matter of the religiosity and definition of Atheism from a personal perspective for a moment.

I could easily call myself a skeptical agnostic, a freethinker, a secular humanist; I am those things. By the unstated definitions in the recent article by AFP on the Society for Ethical Culture’s non-religious Temple for the faithful non-theists (http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i9PAMO3EINjl18myLwaB5cJox4CA) I could even call myself “spiritual but not religious” or a “religious non-theist”. If I ever do call myself one of the latter two please slap me. I have plenty of ethics, plenty of philosophical ideas, and desire to do nice things for others and desire to be part of social groups, just like everyone else. These things do not resemble or require anything remotely similar to faith or spirituality, and certainly not religion or a belief in god. Sometimes I even come up with crazy off-the-wall hypothesis that appear to be impossible to prove or disprove. That’s entirely rational and scientific. What isn’t rational is taking the leap of faith from *having* an idea to *believing* the idea simply because I had it without proving it. I don’t do that. Outside of religion most people don’t do that.

I don’t have proof that god doesn’t exist. I may never have proof that god doesn’t exist. But I have surveyed the intellectual landscape and found that no one has any credible evidence that he does. I have surveyed my peers and respected educators and all that have looked for credible evidence of the supernatural have come to the same conclusion. I am an Atheist, just like half the rest of the people on this planet, by any other name, and I’m not afraid to say so and I am not afraid of being proven wrong. In fact, I would love to be proven wrong. That would be amazing. But I’m not holding my breath.

My Atheism is not based on my upbringing, it’s not based on dogma, it’s not based on rebellion, and it is definitely not based on a desire for religious belonging. It is a simple observation of the state of evidence for the paranormal: there is none.