Talk:Atheism and charity

unlock this article so I can add a template to it--  Deborah (contributions) (talk) 12:47, 16 May 2008 (EDT)

donations

Perhaps it should be noted that some of the most liberal and atheistic countries in the world, eg north-western Europe, are some of the worlds largest aid donors, source and by some measure, are considered the most charitable nations on the international level source. And while some of these nations have a well developed social security system, still spend a signigicant amount of money on charity, in the Netherlands, for example, private citizens spend, in relative terms, about a 1/3 of what US citizens spend on charity source ABunny 21:18, 7 August 2008 (EDT)

I agree. My homecountry, Norway, is mainly populated by atheistic/agnostic social liberals, and gives some of the largest amounts of donations per capita in the world. Efloean 15:51, 3 September 2008 (EDT)

also does this include donations directly to churchs

That's a valid question. If this data includes money given to churches, it invalidates the argument. Who would consider membership dues, even if voluntary, charity? It would be nice if the wiki clarified. It's also curious that the wiki considers only monetary donations as charity. I am currently too poor to give any of my money away, but I did just finish serving a year in the AmeriCorps. However, this wiki, as is, would not consider that charity.

But the money that goes to churches goes to help the needy, while many charities, even non-profits, take most of the donations and use them for their own operating costs. So not only are Christians more giving, but their donations are used more effectively.--FredCorps 10:38, 8 April 2009 (EDT)

I disagree that religious donations are used more effectively. According to http://www.cofe.anglican.org/info/funding/index.html it costs 1 billion pounds each year (approximately 1.68 billion US dollars at this current time) to run the Church of England alone (which is significantly smaller than the Church in the US). The Church raises only 200 million from donations, so it's safe to say that absolutely none of the donations churches receive go to the needy, but instead are used to further propogate the religion. The rest of the money comes from tax loopholes (as far as I can understand it) and for-profit organisations ("legacies, special events, the letting of church halls, bookstalls, fundraising and parish magazines etc.").

Only 40 million of the 1 billion ($40 for each $1000) makes its way to charitable purposes, which actually consists of the non-profit organizations with their own operating costs that you pointed out. Considering that more than this amount is raised through profitable events run by the Church (according to the source I provided the Church earns 250 million pounds), it would have been better to just start with a business aimed solely at making money, then donating even only a reasonably small fraction of the profit.--Vjjc 11:17, 6 August 2009 (EDT)

Picture

Hey, I was just link-surfing and I came upon this page. I noticed the picture of two un-named (presumably poor) children. In my personal opinion, the photo has very little to do with the article. The article concerns atheists, not poor people. Perhaps a different photo would be better? Luminite2 22:47, 9 April 2009 (EDT)