Atheist Charity: Food for Banned Books

I love this idea from Joel Guttormson and the Metro State Atheists in Colorado.

They’re running a charity event called Food for Freethought 2009.

Given the existing goals of Metro State Atheists, it is only natural that we would attempt to help the hungry by promoting freethought, freedom of expression, and free inquiry. With the proper support, we can have an immeasurable positive community impact!

Here’s how it works: You give them non-perishable foods, and they’ll give you a banned book!

The food will go to Food Bank of the Rockies.

All this will happen at the Auraria Campus in Colorado sometime during Banned Books week (September 26^th — October 3^rd).

They could use some help, though.

You can donate money (to purchase the books) or donate books from the banned list. All the information is at the Metro State Atheists website.

And, of course, if you’re in the area, please consider giving lots of food at the end of September!

(Thanks to Leslie for the link!)

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Sastra

mathyoo

I think I may have to donate some food! I may have extra copies of some of the banned books, too, or at least a copy that I likely won’t read again any time soon.I probably won’t ask for a book, though. I’d rather have them give a banned book to someone else who might be less likely to read it otherwise. I think I’ve read most of the most commonly banned books.
Cypress Green

I love this idea! What says ‘freethought’ more than, “Here’s a book, read!” We should see how they work the kinks out then try to expand this across the country.
GreyTheory

I like the idea, but they seem to be playing fast and loose with the definition of “banned”. If by banned you mean “attempted to remove from school science curriculum because it is an easily disprovable assortment of wild guesses”, then I guess ‘Worlds In Collision’ fits. But the descriptive paragraph the pages includes (“because it didn’t comport with the ‘official’ version of events”) seems ripped from one of that a-hole Kevin Trudeau’s “Natural Cures They Don’t Want You to Know” infomercials..
Eric

Yeah, the Velikovsky book seems a bit out out of place, ‘ridiculed’ isn’t quite the same as banning (did anyone actually try to teach that as science?)
However, I don’t own that book so I won’t be donating that to the cause! Thank you for bringing this to my attention, I’m somewhat new to Denver and had been thinking I needed to contribute to the community and this will be an excellent chance to do so and make a statement.
Alekx

Seriously, Colorado?
Cool, nothing like this ever happens here!
I’m definitely going to try to look into it.
InsertCotku

Why all the way in Colorado?

Although, looking at the list of books they’re using I am surprised to see about one third of the first half of the list was required reading for me in high school.

My little area of Georgia does seem to be much better than I thought it was when I was younger. Reading banned books, learning about evolution (they called it other names though), etc.
ckitching

Yeah, and there’s one book on there that a library refused to carry because it was privately published. Policy decisions don’t necessarily mean censorship. There could be good reasons to avoid privately published books, not the least of which is the fact that they’re often of very little value (if you can’t convince a publisher that they’ll sell lots of copies of your book, it’s a good clue), and trying to carry them would push other, more legitimate books off the shelves.

The definition of “banned” on that site is a bit too fuzzy, and really does a disservice to those who have suffered from real book banning.
Tanya

Just wanted to let everyone know that I set up a Food for Freethought Amazon wish list to make it a little easier for people to donate.