We had to do our best to 'turn the other cheek' to religious folk telling us that we were going to hell (oh, how nice of them), the Phytoplankton cancer cure woo woo promoters and the mirrorless christian reflection tent.
The coffee was bad, the canteen only sold meat and all the raffles were for stuff we didn't want.
But we soldiered on and ended up raising $463 for the cause, which was to fund research into the minimisation of the immunological problems that people suffer when going through chemotherapy, which can cause further complications through infections etc.
All up we had 14 atheists walking for the cause, all of whom deserve congratulation for all the work they have put in. (remember this when you see us at the next pub meeting).
Once again the Sydney Atheists have helped to spread positive atheism and have lived up to our motto 'Good Without God'
The next charity event will be another blood donation in a month or so, we hope to see some more people then!
We will be raising money to help fund cancer research, whilst also raising awareness of the need for cancer research.
Over the weekend we will be sending live updates to the blog (if I can get online, it is in the sticks), to let you know how we're doing. We only have a small team, so it's going to be a bit of a slog to be able to walk continuously for 24hrs, but we'll do our best.
Once again, the Sydney Atheists have been out showing how we can be 'Good Without God'. Our third blood drive was yesterday and was another successful charity event for us.
I was unable to make it because I've been a bit ill lately, but it looks like everyone had a good time doing good, without gods. You can see the whole set here
The Sydney Atheists have potentially saved the lives of 27 people!
Saturday was the Sydney Atheists' second blood drive, bringing our total to 51 lives saved!
It's great to be able to do such a positive thing for the community and with each community outreach event, we do more to spread the idea that atheists can be positive, productive members of the community and we aren't just locked into the negative pursuit of sitting around mumbling about how we thing that there is no evidence of gods.
I can Imagine that our meetings would be a lot shorter and more repetitive if this were so. "Meeting opened. First order of business, have any gods revealed themselves?" "No." "Meeting closed." It might not be the most interesting meeting, but on the plus side, there'd be more time for beer!
During the draining, as we lay there amongst a series of tubes, we could barely contain ourselves, as we heard the faint sound of a song nominated for the 2008 MTV Europe Music Awards... yes, as we were donating blood WE WERE RICKROLL'D!
We took this as a divine sign that we are on the path to salvation and have decided to amp up our efforts. We will be donating again on the 4th of April, and would like to get at least 15 people this time. Please consider donating with us, it's the perfect way to give something vital to those who need it and to stand up for secular benevolence, showing the world that you can be good without god!
Saturday was the Newtown Festival, a large festival in Sydney that attracts upwards of 80 000 people. There were a bunch of stalls selling clothes, trinkets, food, all the regular market type stuff and also live music. It was a massive day and the crowds were packed in like sardines the weather was terrific, the sun was shining and not a cloud to be seen. The Sydney Atheists had a stall at the market, where we were handing out pamphlets and invitations to our meetups. We were also signing up members, accepting donations, selling T-shirts and bumper stickers ('Good without god' and 'Test drive your faith, drive with your eyes closed') and generally spreading the concept of positive atheism through discussing our positions on various topics with the crowds, singing various secular themed songs, and handing out lollybags with 'card carrying atheist' cards attached.
We had a really good time and enjoyed an overwhelmingly positive reponse from the crowd, with only a few people getting upset. One of them tried to set their dog on us, as they saw out banner, they said 'sick 'em'! There was also a few people that made faces at us and flipped us off, but that was pretty much the worst of it.
One of the gimmics that we had there was a gong, where passers by could declare their lack of belief in gods by 'giving the atheist gong a big bang'. It was a real hit and was ringing constantly (and as a result I had a splitting headache that saw me well into monday afternoon!). Heaps of children were also ringing the gong, with parents in tow, ringing it after their children did!
We ended up selling a bunch of shirts and tons of bumper stickers and signed up around 80 new members, so the day was a complete success!
Afterwards, we had our 100th meetup, where Ian presented a talk on 'Joke Religions', covering Pastafarianism and a bunch of others. It was a terrific talk and a great end to a terrific day.
To everone who helped out a big thankyou is in order and the event's organiser, John deserves a massive congratulations on a job well done! It wouldn't have come together without your tireless efforts!
It seems that we have caused a bit of a stir, at least as far as the author of the blog 'Sydney Anglican Heritics' is concerned. In the blog post, they talk about turning up to the festival in such an uplifting way:
Upon entry to the site I was overwhelmed by the number of stalls and the multitude of people just browsing around, most of whom I suspect are "dead in their sins".
Then goes on to mention a group fairly well known amongst readers of this blog:
What I did see, however, was group with a stall who were keenly proselytizing the passing crowd. It was a group calling themselves Sydney Atheists. So consider the scene. Here we are on the eve of Connect 09. Within a few hundred metres of the the engine room for mission within the Diocese is a crowd of over 80,000 people just browsing around and who is there to reach them? The Atheists!
My friends, I cannot help but have seen a vision of the effectiveness of Connect 09. In year 2010, when measuring the effectiveness of Connect 09, remember Newtown Festival 2008 ... Atheists 1 vs Moore 'Collage' 0.
So they seem to be a little shaken up by our prescence at the festival, which is pretty good news. It just proves that a candle in the dark really is a force to be reakoned with!
Often atheists get stigmatised as bad people because we don't believe in a god, therefore we are immoral, baby-eating scum.
One of the primary objectives of the Sydney Atheists is to show that we can be good without god. We have a charity branch to the group and as our first charitable act in the community, we donated blood.
Blood donation is a terrific way to really help the community and show that we are willing to go the extra mile to help others out.
I'd like to thank Tynan, Nathan, Ansgar, Peter, Phillip, Karen and Robbie for donating and thanks to all of those who turned up for support.
Anyone can donate and contribute to the Sydney Atheists 'club red' pool, just tell them you are donating under a club red group and fill out the slip. And you don't have to wait until our next blood drive to get involved. You can donate at any time (with three months in between leakages). If you do, let me know by emailing me at criticalmass@live.com.au
Our next charity event is a sponsored walk for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation this Sunday (12th of October). You can donate to us online through our site, or in person. So far we have raised $482 and I'm sure we can get a bit more before the weekend. Donations are tax deductable (for Australian residents) and it will do wonders to help in the research of Juvenile Diabetes.
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