British Poll On Charity-Giving Shows Atheists least generous and Muslims Most

DapperGent

Brown Bomber wrote: »

Such as are atheist more concerned with matters of self-interest?

No.

Do atheists lack the sense of brotherhood present in religions?

No, also they frequently manage to include sisterhood.

the_syco

First off, I would like to say that I can't read the full article, so can't really comment on it.

Brown Bomber wrote: »

To be fair there are plenty of terorist atheists and groups - suicide bombers among them: Abu Nidal, Timothy McVay, FARC, The Weathermen, PKK, Tamil Tigers etc

And how many of them run charities? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3186840.stm

Brown Bomber wrote: »

Do atheists lack the sense of brotherhood present in religions?

It seems that due to the lack of a church, no-one guilts them into handing over their dosh. Was in church recently, and after the "good samaritan" reading, the begging bowls were sent around. 10-15 years ago, they'd say who the money would benefit, but they stopped doing that, and just give out the begging bowls to be passed around at the usual times.

Brown Bomber

DapperGent wrote: »

No.

Well that settles it then. :pac:

DapperGent wrote: »

No, also they frequently manage to include sisterhood.

Apparently you don't know what brotherhood mean. Allow me to assist you.

broth·er·hood

/ˈbrəT͟Hərˌho͝od/
Noun

• The relationship between brothers.
• The feeling of kinship with and closeness to a group of people or all people.

robindch

Brown Bomber wrote: »

Apparently you don't know what brotherhood mean. Allow me to assist you. broth·er·hood * The relationship between brothers; * The feeling of kinship with and closeness to a group of people or all people.

In either sense, the "Muslim Brotherhood" fails as a party tolerant of either women, or of people who are not islamic believers.

Zombrex

Brown Bomber wrote: »

I know it's just a poll but is there a reason other than chance behind this?

Probably that donations to religious groups are bizarrely classified as "charity" (I guess the new roof on the church is needed by the church goers...)

If you remove donations to your local church or mosque atheists tend come out about the same as everyone else.

Brian Shanahan

McVeigh: RC. He took the anointing of the sick (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anointing_of_the_Sick_%28Catholic_Church%29) just before his execution.

Abu Nidal: Seeing as he was buried in a Muslim graveyard(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Nidal check resting place in the info box), I strongly suspect that he was in fact Muslim.

FARC: FARC are a secular organisation. While there may be some atheist FARC members (I don't know any so can't say), they are dedicated to secularism, i.e. religious freedom for all.

Weather Underground: I searched for both religion and atheist on their wikipedia page and found no mention of either. Therefore again I am going to say that you are conflating secularism and atheism.

PKK (Kurdish Workers Party): Again a secular organisation, and follow a Communitarialist (i.e. libertarian socialist, i.e. full religious freedom) ideology. In fact, they are probably more pro-religious than secularist.

Tamil Tigers: So believing in lots of gods (Hinduism is the dominant religion amongst Sri Lankan Tamils, replicated in the Tamil Tigers) is atheism now?

You see BB, this wilful misapplication of language and evidence of either gross stupidity or gross mendacity is the reason why I've you on my ignore list. However I do occasionally see posts (quoted by others) which need correction.

goose2005

Mt 6:1-4 wrote:

"Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you."

ergo, shut it.

Aswerty

The irony is that in a poll like this the more untruful one demographic is the more generous they might seem. Which of course is why there's no value in the figures we are seeing. If the figures were accurate I think an interesting statistic in the poll would be the age deomgraphic of the donaters. Atheists are more common in the younger generation who may be less financially secure than many religous people in the older generations (I know there is plenty of older atheists and young religious). This is why figures posted in the media have so little value compared to a report because underlying causes and/or background information on where the figure comes from can considerably change the context in which the raw figures are viewed.

On the other hand it wouldn't much bother me if the religous donate more. It would just mean the path to donating to real charitable causes either via monetary or other means might not be as obvious/accessable to people coming from a non religous environment. An example of this is that I posted a thread about a year and a half ago wondering if SVP proselytize since I was concerened about where my money was going (they don't which I was delighted to hear). I think this is just an extension of the skeptism others mentioned in relation to charitable causes especially if there is any religious association.

Akrasia

These kinds of polls are always fraught with problems.

1.
What is the definition of charity
2.
what is the definition of religious

3.
How is the information collected and verified?

If religious donations are included as 'charitable donations' because religions are usually registered charities than this poll is worthless before it even starts.

Brown Bomber

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

McVeigh: RC. He took the anointing of the sick (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anointing_of_the_Sick_%28Catholic_Church%29) just before his execution.

Abu Nidal: Seeing as he was buried in a Muslim graveyard(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Nidal check resting place in the info box), I strongly suspect that he was in fact Muslim.

FARC: FARC are a secular organisation. While there may be some atheist FARC members (I don't know any so can't say), they are dedicated to secularism, i.e. religious freedom for all.

Weather Underground: I searched for both religion and atheist on their wikipedia page and found no mention of either. Therefore again I am going to say that you are conflating secularism and atheism.

PKK (Kurdish Workers Party): Again a secular organisation, and follow a Communitarialist (i.e. libertarian socialist, i.e. full religious freedom) ideology. In fact, they are probably more pro-religious than secularist.

Tamil Tigers: So believing in lots of gods (Hinduism is the dominant religion amongst Sri Lankan Tamils, replicated in the Tamil Tigers) is atheism now?

You see BB, this wilful misapplication of language and evidence of either gross stupidity or gross mendacity is the reason why I've you on my ignore list. However I do occasionally see posts (quoted by others) which need correction.

Shame you'll won't see this but if you due please cut out the personal abuse

I'm afraid you'll need more than 5 minutes on Wikipedia to understand things.

You might start here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist%E2%80%92Leninist_atheism

With close attention on this section:

Marxist–Leninist atheism (Russian: Марксистско-ленинский атеизм) is a part of the wider Marxist-Leninist philosophy (the type of Marxist philosophy found in the Soviet Union), which rejects religion[1][2] and advocates a materialist understanding of nature.[3] Marxism-Leninism holds that religion is the opium of the people, in the sense of promoting passive acceptance of suffering on Earth in the hope of eternal reward. Therefore, Marxism-Leninism advocates the abolition of religion and the acceptance of atheism.[4][5]

All the groups mentioned self-identified as Marxist-Leninist.

As for Timothy "science is my religion "McVeigh. You again are wrong. I've read his only authorised biography which was the result of something like a 100 hours of interviews carried out and there is a section on his religious beliefs. He was agnostic and self-identified as such. He never requested the last rites but took them only to hedge his bets in the opinion of the journalists who had interviewed him.

Improbable

I have to agree with what some people have said previously. There are too many unanswered questions about this poll for anyone to consider it conclusive proof of how much people of various religious affiliations give to charity.

Did it consider donating to mosques, churches and temples for their own use as donating to charity?

How was the information collected? Self reporting is worthless as far as accuracy and reliability.

The fact that the headline "are Britain's top charity givers" is in quotation marks also grabbed my notice. If you read the full article, there is a bit further down that says:

“Our data shows many of Britain’s Muslim communities are at the forefront of digital giving, driving an increase in zakat donations,” Zarine Kharas, chief executive of JustGiving, told The Times.

So either this poll was self reported and it's worthless or it was conducted by the JustGiving website which asked people as they were donating about their religious affiliation and at best it can be said that muslims were the group who gave the most on this particular website, which still doesn't indicate which kind of groups received the donations.

I think the fact that most of the headline is in scare quotes shows that The Times knows that it's a misleading headline at best.

Hotblack Desiato

Brown Bomber wrote: »

So feeding some orphans in the third world for example is negative if the charity has been inspired by religion.

Your god is letting them starve, they are working against your god's will, so yes of course it's a negative. All will be well in the world when your god imposes his will upon all humanity. Right??

Have you thought this through?

Have you?

Penn

Brown Bomber wrote: »

So feeding some orphans in the third world for example is negative if the charity has been inspired by religion.

Have you thought this through?

Mother Teresa is a pretty extreme (though entirely relevant) example of charity inspired by religion which used more of the money to further religion rather than help the needy.

I'm pretty selective with who I donate to, though I still try and give money where I can. With religious organisations, I'm just wary that some of the money won't go to where I'm being told it'll go, and also that a charity which helps feed orphans might be the same charity which puts people off using condoms, thereby contributing to furthering the spread of HIV/Aids.

But likewise, a completely non-religious charity might be paying their staff a huge rate or wasting money (I tend to not give money to charities which give badges/stickers or have some raffles/prizes when you donate, because obviously those cost money to make and I'd rather a section of my donation didn't go towards something I'll just throw away anyway or to give prizes) and I wouldn't donate to them either.

It's all about what the charity is for, and if I can trust that my donation will be used to its full potential.

I disagree with the theory that this is a positive example of religion because religious people give more. If making charitable donations is part of your religion, are you choosing to do it, doing it because you want to do it, or doing it because you feel you have to do it? How many of them would donate as much or as often were it not for their religion? We can never truly know, so comparing them to atheists is an unfair comparison.

Dades

US-centric, but an interesting take on similar stats from a (non-believer).

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/08/22/are-atheists-being-stingy-when-it-comes-to-charity/

I would add something else: The study shows that when there’s an infrastructure in place to give money to charity — including church — people donate.

Atheists don’t really have that infrastructure. When we donate money to charity, we usually do it on our own. But I suspect we’d be more likely to do it if we could do it as a group, just as churches do now.

Probably agree with this.

I'm not sure I'd go as far as to say that makes religion a good thing. It's potentially a positive, alright, but it would depend on how and where that money donated in church was spent.

Galvasean

Dades wrote: »

US-centric, but an interesting take on similar stats from a (non-believer).

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/08/22/are-atheists-being-stingy-when-it-comes-to-charity/

Probably agree with this.

I'm not sure I'd go as far as to say that makes religion a good thing. It's potentially a positive, alright, but it would depend on how and where that money donated in church was spent.

If it's going into someting like the RCC's coffers I'd hardly count it as charity myself. Even if it was going to poor places in Africa I'd be skeptical; is it to genuinely help people or moeso to convert them? Charity isn't really charity in my book if you're asking for something in return.

Obliq

Brown Bomber wrote: »

I asking your opinion if the fact that religious give more generously than non-religious is a positive aspect of of religion.

Also, I asked if it was your opinion that there was a moral obligation on all who could afford it to help out to poor and needs in our society.

I think people in general see a moral obligation on all to help each other. I feel it as a personal obligation that has nothing to do with religious belief and everything to do with brotherhood/sisterhood personhood (that's a crap word). Humanity (better). The fact that religious people give more generously (in money) has already been addressed. They are obliged, but that does not denigrate the giving IMO. Giving is good, even if it is not very thoughtful, but we atheists are more concerned that the money does not promote religion as well as helping the needy.

Brown Bomber wrote: »

I don't want to turn this into a dick swinging contest. I think it's interesting to explore the possible underlying reasons Such as are atheist more concerned with matters of self-interest? Do atheists lack the sense of brotherhood present in religions?

I think it's interesting as well. Ignoring your rather triggering use of the word "brotherhood", which is so often ascribed within patriarchal systems, I think that religious people are missing an important point about atheism which is that we are individually self-determined.

I don't see the poll that asks "If you factor out all the religious people who wouldn't altruistically donate to a cause without being obliged OR factor in all the atheists who don't contribute and oblige them to give a percentage of their earnings, would you see a difference?"

Nobody leads us and we still feel a moral obligation to help out the needy (do you really want proof of that?), so no, we are not more concerned with self-interest. Hope that answers your question.

We already have a moral obligation towards people in need though. It's called tax. As a person who's circumstances mean I am in need of people's charity (Social Welfare - remember that?), I am fully aware that there is a social obligation to support people like me and it's compulsory for everyone, like in religion. You could say that religious people have a further charitable obligation than atheists but tbh, that's a societal problem that would best be supported through a secularist system.

I contribute in hours given to society that don't meet the kind of pay an honest hour should. I give back that way, as a moral obligation to myself. I contribute to the black economy in a way that means you don't have to pay more taxes for social health care because I am there in a ****ty (literally) job that is bureaucratically problematic, but is part of the unseen and frequently misreported front-line of care in the community. I do a higher percentage of community work than people in highly paid jobs living in the same area, and I do that in the full knowledge that I'm no better than the next person.

It evens out, in my book. MY BOOK. Not the church's book, with it's tally of good deeds to get you to heaven. If my stay on earth leaves it a small bit better (I will do my best) than when I got here, that's my job (life) done - and no worse/better than the next person, religious or not.

Brown Bomber wrote: »

[*]The feeling of kinship with and closeness to a group of people or all people.
[/LIST]

If this is a question, I would answer yes. I have a feeling of kinship with atheists. I don't agree with all of their opinions by any means, no more than a religious person would agree with everyone in the same religion. We are not a group of people in the same way as a religious group as we have no manifesto, no scriptures, but we are linked by a notion that we are self-determining individuals and our moral obligations come from a feeling of kinship with humanity. Maybe that's our only link?

Question for atheists... brown bomber (why t'f*ck are you called that btw?) has raised an interesting question for me. Would people naturally gravitate (without religion) towards an altruistic morality, or would they need to be pushed? The question of whether atheists could sign up for a list of morals is a big one for me. "Love thy neighbour" isn't a bad principal when it comes down to it....shared humanity. Call me idealistic, but I would love to see a world where everyone is equal. I could sign up to that, if the thinking behind it was ascribed to us and not some god (that I've never met).

Obliq

Oops, a bit long. Soap boxing again

Sarky

I've seen how Concern works. I've seen how the Irish Red Cross 'works'. No way in hell would give them a cent. I want to help people when I give to charity.

wretcheddomain

Muslims and Jews probably give more cash because of the attached guilt with treating women like chattel and chopping off the end of children's dicks. If I did as much crime as that, I'd feel obliged to balance those scales so to speak.

And giving money to a church or mosque is not charity in my opinion no matter how far you stretch the definition of charity.

Brian Shanahan

Obliq wrote: »

Question for atheists... brown bomber (why t'f*ck are you called that btw?) has raised an interesting question for me. Would people naturally gravitate (without religion) towards an altruistic morality, or would they need to be pushed? The question of whether atheists could sign up for a list of morals is a big one for me. "Love thy neighbour" isn't a bad principal when it comes down to it....shared humanity. Call me idealistic, but I would love to see a world where everyone is equal. I could sign up to that, if the thinking behind it was ascribed to us and not some god (that I've never met).

Going on personal anecdote (my own life), I would gravitate towards altruism naturally. I give my time freely when I have it (and sometimes when I don't, I sleep less), in order to help others, and when I'm not on the dole, I am very generous with my earnings towards charities that deserve it.

I don't look to see the religion of who is doing the charity (for example I volunteered with a group of nuns for two years in Cork teaching English to foreign nationals. The founder and leader of the charity had a strict policy of no proselytisation and acceptance of all regardless of creed, gender or skin colour), I look at the charity's deeds and effects, and how and where they spend their money. If they are effective in what they do, and use a large majority of their money to help their target subjects out of poverty, survive a disaster &c., then I give time or money depending on how I can best help. However if they spend most of their money at home, are engaged in religious or ideological indoctrination, or are ineffective in their method, they get squat.

Turtwig

Obliq wrote: »

Oops, a bit long. Soap boxing again

Obliq, that was your first post in the thread. That's not soap boxing. Soap boxing is when you constantly repeat over and over and OVER again the same thing while not bothering to entertain any constructive discussion.

joseph brand

Isn't there something selfish about a religious person doing 'good deeds' in order to curry favour with 'god', hoping to be 'saved'. Not to mention pressured or forced donations; baskets in RCC mass and direct debit in Mormonism.
Charitable donations from an atheist are therefore more altruistic.

Wouldn't it be very charitable for Muslim men to treat their women better, starting with not forcing them to dress like ninjas in the baking desert sun. This would help over 50% of muslims.

Mardy Bum

joseph brand wrote: »

Isn't there something selfish about a religious person doing 'good deeds' in order to curry favour with 'god', hoping to be 'saved'. Not to mention pressured or forced donations; baskets in RCC mass and direct debit in Mormonism.
Charitable donations from an atheist are therefore more altruistic.

Wouldn't it be very charitable for Muslim men to treat their women better, starting with not forcing them to dress like ninjas in the baking desert sun. This would help over 50% of muslims.

David Foster Wallace has an excellent short story on the nature of altruism called "The Devil is a Busy Man" not to be mistaken with another short story with the same title in the same collection. Basically a guy gives money to a friend anonymously and tries his utmost to keep it anonymous but in the end fails despite his best efforts during a phone call:

Thus, I showed an unconscious and, seemingly, natural, automatic ability to both deceive myself and other people, which, on the “motivational level,” not only completely emptied the generous thing I tried to do of any true value, and caused me to fail, again, in my attempts to sincerely be what someone would classify as truly a “nice” or “good” person, but, despairingly, cast me in a light to myself which could only be classified as “dark,” “evil,” or “beyond hope of ever sincerely becoming good.”

I think he hits upon a truth here in human nature.

Obliq

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

I don't look to see the religion of who is doing the charity (for example I volunteered with a group of nuns for two years in Cork teaching English to foreign nationals.

Same as that Brian - I saw how the Cappuchin monks in Bow Lane use the collection money from their church to directly support homeless people with food, shelter and clothing. Some of the most selfless people I've had the pleasure of working with. Didn't matter to me that it's a religious based charity - they were doing it right.

Ps. Thanks Jernal!

Sycopat

I don't have times access so I just want to check a few things while I'm at it.

Does it say who conducted the poll? Who did they poll? (Random sample? Pools of equal size? Age variance? Across britain or on the street in london? What are our other sources of variance here?)

I'm asking because even the best papers often feature polls that are little more than press releases or flawed in some major way. Not that I'm trying to take away from the findings, just understand them. I would not at all be surprised to find that a religion which has formal rules on how much to give should be found to give a lot to charity, but I do find it interesting how this seems to coincide with an Islamic charity drive in the UK. Going off the ads on my youtube videos lately. (Is it Ramadan?)

I also have to wonder, as a twenty-something making a similar amount of money per month as I did as a teenager and considered to be doing well as a result in the current world, how much the age profile of a group affects these statistics, and if atheism as a group is more or less "top heavy" in this regard than other religions. Although I would suspect Islam of being slightly less prone to this than Christian traditions, I would suspect "non-religious" groups to skew younger.

Because of these questions (Admittedly resulting from lacking access to the times article. Is there a link to the poll results or did the times conduct it themselves?) I can't be sure these are like for like comparisons. For instance it may well be that the difference between average charitable spend between males of similar income does not vary with religion (Although that would actually surprise me: I would expect it to vary, but perhaps not by as much as the OP reports.)

Also, and Dades post on page 3 picks up on this a bit, what exactly counts as charity money? I wouldn't usually count my regular "Humble bundle" purchases as a charity contribution, because I wouldn't usually think of it (as I see it as buying videogames on the cheap) but I've pumped a fair bit into it. This year in particular as I picked up some as gifts. Where does that stand? Spending money on presents which are also charitable donations? Who counts the donation? Me? the receiver of the gift? Both? Neither? How do the stats change when we take out contributions to the local church (something atheists naturally wouldn't be making.)?

Isn't it a bit premature to take anything from a poll like this with so many outstanding questions?

Maybe they aren't outstanding though and the article gives a thorough run down of all the issues.

lazygal

I've just skimmed the posts but I'm in full agreement with those who are wary of giving to charity. I've become a lot more skeptical of giving to charities that have a religious background, no matter how well meaning they are or how much good they might do, because after visiting the vatican and seeing the wealth on display I can't separate the wealth from the charity.

I'm also not going to donate so Karen can have a free holiday trekking the Himalayas or feeling socially obliged to chip in for a sponsored cycle for someone in work who's really into a particular charity that I don't support. Again, as others have said I'm not very comfortable with the salaries and benefits some working in the charity sector earn. I know of a few people I was in college with who went to work for large charities and generally became very disillusioned with the whole thing, especially an Irish one where family members were installed in positions of some importance.

I give to a couple of abortion charities and one that is very specific to my background and has no religious connections. I'd regularly give homeless people a few bob - and I don't care how they spend it.

Penn

lazygal wrote: »

I give to a couple of abortion charities and one that is very specific to my background and has no religious connections. I'd regularly give homeless people a few bob - and I don't care how they spend it.

Have to admit, I once gave a homeless guy a tenner (which he was very grateful for, going so far as to kiss my hand) and I saw him half an hour later with some cigarettes, and it did kind of annoy me.

I gave you that money for food!

Obviously, it wouldn't put me off giving money to homeless people (or even him) again, and after I give him the money it's his to do whatever he wants with it, but it did make me feel weird seeing him buying smokes. Dunno why.

SpaceTime

Do bankers benevolent funds classify as charities these days? If so, I am giving WAY too much money to charity.

legspin

lazygal wrote: »

I give to a couple of abortion charities and one that is very specific to my background and has no religious connections. I'd regularly give homeless people a few bob - and I don't care how they spend it.

My objection is if it is going to spent on intoxicants I can do that myself.

magicbastarder

lazygal wrote: »

I'd regularly give homeless people a few bob - and I don't care how they spend it.

even though it might compound their problems?