Difference between revisions of "Atheist organizations and fundraising"

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(= Low growth of atheism, desecularization and various regions)
(Low growth of atheism, desecularization and various regions)
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=== Low growth of atheism, desecularization and various regions ===
 
=== Low growth of atheism, desecularization and various regions ===
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=== American atheism ===
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''See also:'' [[American atheism]]
  
 
In June 2016, ''American Interest'' reported about [[American atheism]]:
 
In June 2016, ''American Interest'' reported about [[American atheism]]:
 
{{Cquote|First of all, religious belief is still very powerful and widespread, and there is nothing inevitable about its decline. In fact, the proportion of people who say they believe in God actually ticked modestly upward, from 86 percent to 89 percent, since [[Gallup Poll|Gallup]] last asked the question in 2014.<ref>[http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/06/30/atheism-is-rising-but/ Atheism is Rising, But…], American Interest</ref>}}
 
{{Cquote|First of all, religious belief is still very powerful and widespread, and there is nothing inevitable about its decline. In fact, the proportion of people who say they believe in God actually ticked modestly upward, from 86 percent to 89 percent, since [[Gallup Poll|Gallup]] last asked the question in 2014.<ref>[http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/06/30/atheism-is-rising-but/ Atheism is Rising, But…], American Interest</ref>}}
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=== British atheism/nonreligion ===
  
 
''The Guardian'' published an article in 2017 entitled ''Nearly 50% are of [[Nones|no religion]] – but has [[UK]] hit ‘peak secular’?'' which declared:
 
''The Guardian'' published an article in 2017 entitled ''Nearly 50% are of [[Nones|no religion]] – but has [[UK]] hit ‘peak secular’?'' which declared:

Revision as of 19:13, October 31, 2017

Richard Dawkins
The new atheist Richard Dawkins was at the center of the Elevatorgate controversy which caused deep divisions within the atheist movement. [1]

In 2017, the atheist activist Lee Moore declared about American atheist organizations:

If you look at the major atheist groups right now, like the national groups, the ones that are doing the real activist work... They are not bringing in the kind of donations they used to. Most of them are starved for cash. They're downsizing left and right. Because people aren't just giving like they used to. And I talked to a lot of the major donors out there and they said, "Well, we're kind of tired of seeing the atheist community just fight amongst itself and not really get anything done. We'd rather not give money if we don't think it's going to go somewhere."[2]

See also:

Canadian atheist activist Pat O'Brien on the difficulty of atheist fundraising

See also: Canada and irreligion

The Canadian atheist activist Pat O'Brien is a Canadian atheist, an activist, and ex-president of Humanist Canada and British Columbia Humanist Association (Secular humanism is a form of atheism).

O'Brien said about the willingness atheists/humanists to support national and provincial atheist organizations: "The biggest problem is fundraising. It is difficult to get Humanists to part with their money."[3]

Atheist organizations: Focus on church-state/creationism issues - poor largely ignored

See also: White atheist outreach is not competitive to the black church and Atheism and uncharitableness and Atheism, social justice and hypocrisy

Atheist Sikivu Hutchinson says that atheist organizations generally focus on church/state separation and creationism issues and not on the concerns the less affluent African-American population faces.[4] Hutchinson also mentioned that church organizations significantly help poor African-Americans.[5] See also: Atheism and uncharitablenss

In June 2014, Sikivu Hutchinson wrote in the Washington Post that atheist organizations generally focus on church/state separation and creationism issues and not the concerns the less affluent African-American population faces.[6] Hutchinson also mentioned that church organizations do offer significant help to poor African-Americans.[7]

Also, according to a video posted at Freethought Blogs storefront churches provide assistance to local residents including women, and this partly explains the dearth of Hispanic and African-American women atheists in America (Atheists give less to charity than Christians).[8]

In 2014, the atheist Chris Hall wrote in an article which was published by Salon magazine and Alternet:

Direct challenges to racism and sexism haven’t traditionally been the domain of the large organizations like American Atheists or the Secular Coalition for America. It’s been far more typical to fight incursions against separation of church and state or educate against pseudoscience like homeopathy.[9]

For more information, please see: White atheist outreach is not competitive to the black church

David Gorski's complaint about atheist nonprofits

Richard Dawkins
The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science had a scandal related to an embezzlement allegation.[10][11][12] See: Atheist nonprofit scandals

David Gorski at Scienceblogs wrote about atheist/skeptic organizations and financial mismanagement:

In any case, this makes me wonder: What is it about rationalist/skeptic groups that make them seemingly have such a hard time running their organizations well from a financial standpoint? After all, just a couple of months ago the Center for Inquiry (CFI) sent out letters desperately begging for more contributions. The reason was that CFI had one large benefactor whose yearly contribution funded approximately 20-25% of the yearly CFI budget. As clueless as I may be about finances, even I know that you don’t use such donations to run the operating expenses of an organization, because you can’t count on them from year to year and it’s too big a chunk. You use this money for special short-term projects and a rainy day fund. Not surprisingly, when this mysterious donor stopped donating earlier this year, suddently CFI was in deep doo-doo from a financial standpoint, prompting the desperate plea for donations and deep budget cuts. I realize that the down economy has played havoc with many nonprofit and charitable organizations, but these issues with skeptical organizations seem to go beyond just that.[13]

Secular Student Alliance report of fundraising problems

In October 2015, the Secular Student Alliance tweeted that it "desperately" needed $100,000 by the end of the month. The SSA Executive director August Brunsman reported that fundraising had lagged.[14]

Lack of significant global outreach fundraising campaigns by atheist organizations

See also: Western atheism and race and Atheism and apathy

The Christian relief organization Feed My Starving Children has a distribution partner in Malawi, Africa. In recent years, Christianity has seen a rapid growth in Africa.[15] In 2005, there were four times as many non-Western World Christians as there were Western World Christians.[16] Western World atheists and East Asian atheists have not engaged in a significant amount of global outreach.

The former Soviet Union had a worldwide expansionist policy as far as spreading atheistic communism.[17] The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to a spike in religious affiliation, both in Russia and in Eastern Europe.[18] See: Central and Eastern Europe and desecularization

The current atheist population mostly resides in East Asia (particularly China) and in secular Europe/Australia primarily among whites.[19] See: Global atheism and Asian atheism

The atheist organizations in the Western World and the atheists in East Asia have not had significant outreaches to spread atheism throughout the world. Historically, Christians have made great evangelism efforts to reach every people group across the earth. In 2005, there were four times as many non-Western World Christians as there were Western World Christians.[16] Doing overseas evangelism/outreaches, often requires significant hardships/persecution and Western atheists and East Asian atheists have been unwilling to endure such hardships in order to spread atheistic ideology (see: Atheism and hedonism and Atheism and apathy).

Atheist fundraising and atheist nonprofit scandals

See: Atheist nonprofit scandals

Atheist organizastions, fundraising difficulties and low morale

See also: Atheist pessimism about the atheist movement

In recent times, the number of people attending atheist conferences has grown smaller.[20][21][22] Atheist David Smalley wrote: "And we wonder why we’re losing elections, losing funding, and our conferences are getting smaller."[23]

The atheist movement saw a number of setbacks during the latter portion of the 20th century and beyond in terms of historical events/trends. As a result, it has lost a considerable amount of confidence (see also: Atheist pessimism about the atheist movement and Atheists and the endurance of religion). Groups/organizations which unsuccessfully meet challenges and/or face future challenges which they believe they cannot successfully overcome, often become dispirited, pessimistic and less effective.

Eric Kaufmann, an agnostic professor whose academic research specialty is how demographic changes affect religion/irreligion and politics, wrote in 2010:

Worldwide, the march of religion can probably only be reversed by a renewed, self-aware secularism. Today, it appears exhausted and lacking in confidence... Secularism's greatest triumphs owe less to science than to popular social movements like nationalism, socialism and 1960s anarchist-liberalism. Ironically, secularism's demographic deficit means that it will probably only succeed in the twenty-first century if it can create a secular form of 'religious' enthusiasm.[24]
YouTube atheist Thunderf00t

YouTube atheist Thunderfoot said about the atheist movement after the Reason Rally 2016 had a very low turnout:

I'm not sure there is anything in this movement worth saving. Hitchens is dead. Dawkins simply doesn't have the energy for this sort of thing anymore. Harris went his own way. And Dennett just kind of blended into the background. So what do you think when the largest gathering of the nonreligious in history pulls in... I don't know. Maybe 2,000 people. Is there anything worth saving?[25]

Atheist organizastions, fundraising difficulties and desecularization

See also: Desecularization and Global atheism statistics

Fundraising success is partially dependent on the number of followers a movement has and whether or not the base of followers is growing as people often prefer to donate to growing movements rather than stagnant or declining movements. In addition, forecasts about the stagnation, growth or stability of a movement's following can also effect fundraising.

As a percentage of the world's population, atheism peaked in 1970.[26] Global atheism is expected to decline in the 21st century and beyond in terms of its global market share.[27] Presently, there are a number of excellent sources which indicate that atheism is shrinking in global market share (see: Global atheism statistics).

wrote:

I argue that 97% of the world's population growth is taking place in the developing world, where 95% of people are religious.

On the other hand, the secular West and East Asia has very low fertility and a rapidly aging population... In the coming decades, the developed world's demand for workers to pay its pensions and work in its service sector will soar alongside the booming supply of young people in the third world. Ergo, we can expect significant immigration to the secular West which will import religious revival on the back of ethnic change. In addition, those with religious beliefs tend to have higher birth rates than the secular population, with fundamentalists having far larger families. The epicentre of these trends will be in immigration gateway cities like New York (a third white), Amsterdam (half Dutch), Los Angeles (28% white), and London, 45% white British. [28]

Low growth of atheism, desecularization and various regions

American atheism

See also: American atheism

In June 2016, American Interest reported about American atheism:

First of all, religious belief is still very powerful and widespread, and there is nothing inevitable about its decline. In fact, the proportion of people who say they believe in God actually ticked modestly upward, from 86 percent to 89 percent, since Gallup last asked the question in 2014.[29]

British atheism/nonreligion

The Guardian published an article in 2017 entitled Nearly 50% are of no religion – but has UK hit ‘peak secular’? which declared:

But, Bullivant told the Observer that the “growth of no religion may have stalled”. After consistent decline, in the past few years the proportion of nones appears to have stabilised. “Younger people tend to be more non-religious, so you’d expect it to keep going – but it hasn’t. The steady growth of non-Christian religions is a contributing factor, but I wonder if everyone who is going to give up their Anglican affiliation has done so by now? We’ve seen a vast shedding of nominal Christianity, and perhaps it’s now down to its hardcore.[30]

ritual but not religious]</ref>

Conatus News reported in 2017:

Church of England worshippers increase 0.8 per cent since 2009. The number of non-religious people falls from 50.65% to 48.6%

Rise in Church of England worshippers likely due to resurgence in patriotism and pride in Christianity, a report has found

According to a new report, for every person brought up in a non-religious household who becomes a churchgoer, 26 people raised as Christians now identify as non-believers.

The study, which is based on an analysis of the British Social Attitudes Survey and the European Social Survey, reported that the proportion of non-religious in the UK hit a high of 50.6 per cent in 2009. However, it has been decreasing ever since and hit 48.6 per cent in 2015.

However, the proportion of those who identify as Church of England worshippers has seen a slight increased from 16.3 per cent in 2009 to 17.1 per cent in 2015.[31]

See also

Notes

  1. Lee Moore and Steve Shives Talk About the Future of the Atheist Movement, - video quote comes 21 minutes and 13 seconds into the video
  2. Interview – ​Pat O’Brien on Humanism in Canada and British Columbia by Scott Jacobsen, Conatus News, 2016
  3. Atheism has a big race problem that no one’s talking about by Dr. Sikivu Hutchinson, Washington Post June 16, 2014
  4. Atheism has a big race problem that no one’s talking about by Dr. Sikivu Hutchinson, Washington Post June 16, 2014
  5. Atheism has a big race problem that no one’s talking about by Dr. Sikivu Hutchinson, Washington Post June 16, 2014
  6. Atheism has a big race problem that no one’s talking about by Dr. Sikivu Hutchinson, Washington Post June 16, 2014
  7. Sikivu, Ophelia, and Rebecca — who says atheism lacks women stars?
  8. Forget Christopher Hitchens: Atheism in America is undergoing a radical change by Chris Hall, Salon magazine, Thursday, Jun 5, 2014 12:25 PM UTC (originally published in Alternet)
  9. Richard Dawkins Drops His Lawsuit Against Former Employee
  10. Richard Dawkins sues Josh Timonen, Posted by David Gorski on October 24, 2010
  11. Richard Dawkins Drops His Lawsuit Against Former Employee
  12. Richard Dawkins sues Josh Timonen, Posted by David Gorski on October 24, 2010
  13. Eberhard, JT (30 May 2016). "Secular Student Alliance running a 'desperate' fundraiser". WWJTD.
  14. The African apostles: How Christianity exploded in 20th-century Africa
  15. 16.0 16.1 Is Christianity taking over the planet?
  16. America Coming to Terms: The Vietnam Legacy By Nguyen Anh Tuan, page 82
  17. [Global Study: Atheists in Decline, Only 1.8% of World Population by 2020] by Michael W. Chapman, CNS News, July 24, 2013 - 2:18 PM
  18. A surprising map of where the world’s atheists live, By Max Fisher and Caitlin Dewey, Washington Post, May 23, 2013
  19. Whoever I Don’t Like Is Ruining the Atheist Movement by Jeremiah Traeger
  20. Reasonably Controversial: How the Regressive Left Is Killing the Atheist Movement by David Smalley
  21. #ReasonRally Crash n burn. Thanks SJWs! by Thunderf00t
  22. Reasonably Controversial: How the Regressive Left Is Killing the Atheist Movement by David Smalley
  23. Shall the religious inherit the earth? - Eric Kaufmann
  24. Even atheists bash 'Reason Rally'
  25. Atheism Peaks, While Spiritual Groups Move Toward Convergence by Nury Vittachi, July 14, 2015, website Sciene 2.0
  26. 97% of the world's population growth is taking place in the developing world, where 95% of people are religious, Tuesday, April 30, 2013
  27. Atheism is Rising, But…, American Interest
  28. Nearly 50% are of no religion – but has UK hit ‘peak secular’?, The Guardian, 2017
  29. British Patriotism Sees Number of Anglicans Rise and the Non-Religious Fall, Conatus News , 2017