Ad Campaign: Buffett, Gates are 'Good without god'— Biggest Humanitarian Projects In History Now Conducted By Atheists

ISSA, formerly called AAF (Atheists, Agnostics & Freethinkers) is a student organization at the University of Illinois which has placed the above ads on Chicago Transit Authority vehicles. To see the original, unedited text excerpted below, go to ISSA's web site:

About our campaign

Religious groups have a very long history of attempting to monopolize social constructions and even abstract concepts key to, or components of, a healthy society: marriage, sexuality, morality and as an off-shoot of morality, charity. A consequence of the centuries-spanning PR campaign conflating theism (and especially Christianity) with the impulse to charity has largely duped Americans into believing that Christians are the major givers and that non-believers are selfish, angry loners unconcerned with the struggles of the less fortunate.

Setting the Record Straight

Not only is the stereotype untrue, it is perversely untrue. The largest and most credible aid organization on Earth (other than Gates' Foundation) is the International Red Cross- a wholly secular, not holy religious, outfit...

To be clear, many religious people and groups do great service work and are good-hearted. They just do it more often in spite of religious belief, than because of it. Similarly, atheism doesn't make anyone moral or charitable nor do we mean to imply it with our ads. The message is simply that religion is not required and that in reality, the largest scale humanitarian aid projects in human history are now conducted by atheists.

   

Two Secular Samaritans

In 2000 Bill Gates created what is now the largest transparently-operated aid foundation in the world. Its contributions toward fighting infectious diseases is comparable to the UN World Health Organization. Unlike other magnate philanthropists, the Gates family is ensuring that the lion's share of the $1.5 Billion (minimum annual donations) spent each year goes to the world's poorest and most afflicted peoples such as those in impoverished African nations...

In 2006 Warren Buffett announced he would give it all to charity- almost $40 billion, according to Fortune Magazine. ...Both he and Gates have formally asked other super-wealthy individuals to donate half of their own fortunes to charity via The Giving Pledge. According to wiki, as of 2010 forty billionaires have taken the pledge meaning minimally $125 billion in donations.

...Some people are good with God. Some, like Gates and Buffett, are just as good without God.

To see similar ads by various localized secular groups, click here, here, or here.