Posted on 01/27/2009 9:56:10 PM PST by LibWhacker
Many statistics and people say that atheists aren’t charitable people. However, they seem to miss that the nation’s largest charitable foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, was founded by an atheist – Bill Gates.
It was reported by the Associated Press today that several charitable groups have committed to continue charitable giving during this time of economic crisis. Among those committing to do so is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. What’s more is they have gone a step further.
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
I didn’t know he is an atheist. Doesn’t come as a surprise though.
There is a surprise in store for him.
Seems to me JMO repeat JMO that he did not get in to being charitable untill he got married.
Mrs Gates IMO got into the charity bizz with his financial support.
I didnt know he was an atheist.
Is Mrs Gates an Atheist?
I wonder then when he took his marraige vows did he opt to write his own because the traditional ones might not be wordage for an Athiest.
But then again can we trust the source who wrote that Mr. Gates is an Athiest?
A sample size of one does not a trend make.
Exactly.
Bill Gate is the follower in his foundation. It is the
goodwill and genuine compassion of Melinda that drives it.
Flame away, but I’ve watched Melinda and the two them together, and it seems to be her heart that is behind the project overall, with Bill coming in behind trying to bring his “business sense” to specific applications. They are an odd team.
I think I heard somewhere that she is Catholic.
interesting he is an atheist (apparently) yet millions of us pray to God that windows and its applications will work every day...who would have thunk it...
Certainly explains how he manages to look at himself in the mirror after building the world's largest fortune by ripping people off, and then using the fruit of the rip-offs to make us all prisoners of junk software while denying us the good stuff.
You can tell I'm a big fan of his.
Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor,
Luke 18, KJV.
________________________________
Is there a similar surprise in store for all who lack the one thing spoken of in Luke?
His charity does do some good, with giving technology and computers to schools both here and abroad, but a lot of his money goes to pro abort groups as well.
Also like what has been pointed out here, a sample size of one does not make a trend.
As well, no one is saying there are no charitable atheists or agnostics out their, just that by far, Religious people especially Christians are far more charitable then they are as a group.
Technically, if everyone lived by this, if you sold everything you had and gave it to the poor, they then would no longer be poor but you would, and then they would have to sell everything they have and give it back to you.
Life would be nothing more then a constant transfer of wealth back and forth. A big cosmic swap meet.
Yes but look at what they give to. They’ve dumped a huge amount of money to planned parenthood. There’s a family link to that organization through Bill’s dad.
No offense but if you’re an atheist you’re not doing ANYTHING for altruistic reasons. There’s no other time but now that you’ll ever be thanked or rewarded or get some benefit for doing it. Gates does it for PR, he does it to drop his taxes and shelter his assets, to get accolades and praise from people, and for self-satisfaction.
What do you think it is now? People trade their skills and labor for wages. They buy things with the wages they earn and that money goes to fund the business and pay employees their wages, who go and buy things, and....
It’s called a “tax deduction”.
Warren Buffet did the same thing. He promised $37 billion to the Gates fund and was cannonized as a hero. Nobody realized He was avoiding taxes after just supporting a tax hike on the rest of us. He has already decided the ammounts he will leave His children so the rest would be taken by the state unless he did something with it. Now the Gates are running a $60 billion dollar hedge fund that gives a few million dollars to Africa for ribbed rubbers. If he really felt the rich should pay more taxes, why didn’t he say, “Here Bill, take this $20 billion and I’ll donate the other $17 billion to the gubmint cause they need it.”
All I said is there are atheists that do good deeds and are charitable. But as a group there are far more per capita charitable Christians (which I am) and other Religious people then there are Atheists or Agnostics.
I was pointing out the fallacy of the article which tries to prove atheists are just as generous as Religious people because one atheist ponied up some dough.
As well and like you pointed out, Gates can never do something charitable without calling a press conference and patting himself on the back for it.
It looks like Gates is an agnostic rather than an atheist.
http://www.nndb.com/people/435/000022369/
http://www.celebatheists.com/index.php?title=Bill_Gates
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