Difference between revisions of "Atheism and charity"
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− | Doing overseas evangelism | + | Doing overseas evangelism and relief outreaches to third-world countries, often requires significant hardships/persecution and Western atheists have been unwilling to endure such hardships in order to spread atheistic ideology (see: [[Atheism and hedonism]]). ]] |
''See also:'' [[Western atheism and race]] and [[Global atheism]] | ''See also:'' [[Western atheism and race]] and [[Global atheism]] | ||
Revision as of 01:30, October 13, 2015
Concerning the issue of atheism and charity, charitable giving by atheists and agnostics in America is significantly less than by theists, according to a study by the Barna Group:
“ | The typical no-faith American donated just $200 in 2006, which is more than seven times less than the amount contributed by the prototypical active-faith adult ($1500). Even when church-based giving is subtracted from the equation, active-faith adults donated twice as many dollars last year as did atheists and agnostics. In fact, while just 7% of active-faith adults failed to contribute any personal funds in 2006, that compares with 22% among the no-faith adults.[2] | ” |
A comprehensive study by Harvard University professor Robert Putnam found that religious people are more charitable than their irreligious counterparts.[3][4] The study revealed that forty percent of worship service attending Americans volunteer regularly to help the poor and elderly as opposed to 15% of Americans who never attend services.[5][6] Moreover, religious individuals are more likely than non-religious individuals to volunteer for school and youth programs (36% vs. 15%), a neighborhood or civic group (26% vs. 13%), and for health care (21% vs. 13%).[7][8]
Arthur C. Brooks wrote in Policy Review regarding data collected in the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey (SCCBS) (data collected by in 2000 by researchers at universities throughout the United States and the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research):
“ | The differences in charity between secular and religious people are dramatic. Religious people are 25 percentage points more likely than secularists to donate money (91 percent to 66 percent) and 23 points more likely to volunteer time (67 percent to 44 percent). And, consistent with the findings of other writers, these data show that practicing a religion is more important than the actual religion itself in predicting charitable behavior. For example, among those who attend worship services regularly, 92 percent of Protestants give charitably, compared with 91 percent of Catholics, 91 percent of Jews, and 89 percent from other religions.[9] | ” |
ABC News reported:
“ | ...the single biggest predictor of whether someone will be charitable is their religious participation.
Religious people are more likely to give to charity, and when they give, they give more money: four times as much. And Arthur Brooks told me that giving goes beyond their own religious organization: "Actually, the truth is that they're giving to more than their churches," he says. "The religious Americans are more likely to give to every kind of cause and charity, including explicitly non-religious charities."[10] |
” |
In 2009, Pew Research Forum reported that a comprehensive study by Harvard University professor Robert Putnam found that religious people are more charitable than their irreligious counterparts.[12][13] The study revealed that forty percent of worship service attending Americans volunteer regularly to help the poor and elderly as opposed to 15% of Americans who never attend services.[14][15] Moreover, religious individuals are more likely than non-religious individuals to volunteer for school and youth programs (36% vs. 15%), a neighborhood or civic group (26% vs. 13%), and for health care (21% vs. 13%).[16][17]
Given that atheistic evolutionary thinking has engendered social darwinism and given that the proponents of atheism have no rational basis for morality in their ideology, the immoral views that atheists often hold and the low per capita giving of American atheists is not surprising.
Contents
- 1 Atheism and lower empathy for others
- 2 Atheists with social contacts with Christians give more to charity than other atheists
- 3 American atheist organizations focus on church/state issues - poor largely ignored
- 4 Western atheists have not done a significant amount of outreach to poor countries
- 5 Atheist nonprofit scandals
- 6 Atheism, uncharitableness and suicide
- 7 Atheism, leftism, social justice/progressive values and hypocrisy
- 8 See Also
- 9 External links
- 10 Notes
Atheism and lower empathy for others
See also: Atheism and love and Atheism and sadism and Atheism and mass murder
In 2007 the Baptist Press reported:
“ | ...a pollster at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada, found that adults who profess a belief in God are significantly more likely than atheists to say that forgiveness, patience, generosity and a concern for others are "very important." In fact, the poll found that on 11 of 12 values, there was a double-digit gap between theists and atheists, with theists more likely to label each value "very important."
The survey by sociologist and pollster Reginald Bibby examined the beliefs of 1,600 Canadians, 82 percent who said they believed in "God or a higher power" and 18 percent who said they did not.[19] |
” |
From a metaphysical, moral and spiritual perspective, atheists have an inability to satisfactorily explain the existence of love.[20][21] See also: Atheism and love
Atheists with social contacts with Christians give more to charity than other atheists
Dr. William Lane Craig points out that the social science research indicates that atheists who have family/social contacts with religious people give more to charity than atheists who do not have such an influence.[22]
American atheist organizations focus on church/state issues - poor largely ignored
See also: Western atheism and race and Atheism and love
In June of 2014, the African-American atheist woman Dr. Sikivu Hutchinson wrote in the Washington Post that white atheists organizations in the United States generally focus on church/state separation and creationism issues and not the concerns the less affluent African-American population faces.[23] Hutchinson also mentioned that church organizations do focus on helping poor African Americans.[23]
Western atheists have not done a significant amount of outreach to poor countries
See also: Western atheism and race and Global atheism
The atheist population in the Western World has not had significant outreaches to spread atheism outside the Western World nor have atheist organizations done a significant amount of relief efforts to poor countries.
Historically, Christians have made great evangelism efforts to reach every people group across the earth. They have also engaged in a lot of Christian relief work to help lesson poverty. In 2005, there were four times as many non-Western World Christians as there were Western World Christians.[24] Doing overseas evangelism/outreaches, often requires significant hardships/persecution and Western atheists have been unwilling to endure such hardships in order to spread atheistic ideology (see: Atheism and hedonism).
The current atheist population mostly resides in East Asia (particularly China) and in secular Europe/Australia among whites.[25] See: Global atheism
Translation of Darwin's Origin of the Species vs. the Bible
Since World War II a majority of the most prominent and vocal defenders of the evolutionary position which employs methodological naturalism have been atheists and agnostics (see also: Causes of evolutionary belief).[26] Charles Darwin's evolutionary book The Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life has been translated into 35 languages. [27] See also: Social darwinism
The Bible has been translated into 518 languages and 2,798 languages have at least some portion of the Bible.[28] In addition, the Christian community is far more evangelistic than the atheist community and Christian missionaries are throughout the world.
Atheist nonprofit scandals
See also: Atheist nonprofit scandals and Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science - Embezzlement allegation
Two recent atheist nonprofit scandals which received some publicity were the organizations Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science and the We Are Atheism organization.[32][33][34][35]
In addition, David Gorski at Scienceblogs indicated that many atheist/skeptic organizations are poorly run from a financial standpoint.[36]
For more information, please see: Atheist nonprofit scandals
Atheism, uncharitableness and suicide
See also: Atheism and depression and Atheism and suicide
A number of studies have confirmed that there is an inverse relationship to doing volunteer work and depression.[37] The atheist population has a higher suicide rate than the general population. (see: Atheism and suicide).
Atheism, leftism, social justice/progressive values and hypocrisy
Historically, the secular left has been dominant within the atheist community (see: Atheism and politics).
Progressive values according to leading progressive websites
According to leading progressive/leftists websites, progressive values include: caring and responsibility, carried out with strength; freedom; opportunity; responsibility; cooperation/community; protection/fairness; and honesty and open communication.[38][39]
The atheist population has fallen short of the above mentioned values (See: Atheism and social justice and Atheist hypocrisy).
See Also
External links
- Christians Give more to Charity than Atheists (YouTube video featuring an audio clip of Dr. William Lane Craig)
Notes
- ↑ Multiple references:
- Burke, Daniel, Religion News Service (May 13, 2009). "Religious people make better citizens, study says". Pew Research Forum. Archived on March 10, 2013 by Internet Archive. Retrieved July 19, 2014.
- Campbell, David and Putnam, Robert (November 14, 2010). "Religious people are 'better neighbors'". USA Today website. Retrieved on July 19, 2014.
- ↑ Atheists and Agnostics Take Aim at Christians The Barna Update, 2007.
- ↑ Religious people make better citizens, study says by Pew Research Forum, May 13, 2009
- ↑ Religious people are 'better neighbors' by USA Today, 11/14/2010
- ↑ Religious people make better citizens, study says by Pew Research Forum, May 13, 2009
- ↑ Religious people are 'better neighbors' by USA Today, 11/14/2010
- ↑ Religious people make better citizens, study says by Pew Research Forum, May 13, 2009
- ↑ Religious people are 'better neighbors' by USA Today, 11/14/2010
- ↑ Brooks, Arthur C., faith and charitable giving Policy Review, Oct-Dec 2003, p.2.
- ↑ Stossel, John and Kendall, Kristina Who Gives and Who Doesn't? ABC News, November 28, 2006
- ↑ [http://answersforatheists.com/ Answers for Atheists
- ↑ Religious people make better citizens, study says by Pew Research Forum, May 13, 2009
- ↑ Religious people are 'better neighbors' by USA Today, 11/14/2010
- ↑ Religious people make better citizens, study says by Pew Research Forum, May 13, 2009
- ↑ Religious people are 'better neighbors' by USA Today, 11/14/2010
- ↑ Religious people make better citizens, study says by Pew Research Forum, May 13, 2009
- ↑ Religious people are 'better neighbors' by USA Today, 11/14/2010
- ↑ Atheists and Agnostics Take Aim at Christians The Barna Update, 2007.
- ↑ Foust, Michael (October 23, 2007). "Poll: Atheists less likely to 'do good'" Baptist Press. Retrieved on July 20, 2014.
- ↑ How do atheists define love? by Dr. Taylor Marshall
- ↑ What is love? how materialist atheism fails to have a satisfactory answer, July 9, 2014
- ↑ Christians Give more to Charity than Atheists (YouTube video featuring an audio clip of Dr. William Lane Craig)
- ↑ 23.0 23.1 Hutchinson, Sikivu (June 16, 2014). "Atheism has a big race problem that no one’s talking about". Washington Post website.
- ↑ Is Christianity taking over the planet?
- ↑ A surprising map of where the world’s atheists live, By Max Fisher and Caitlin Dewey, Washington Post, May 23, 2013
- ↑
- Dr. Don Batten, A Who’s Who of evolutionists Creation 20(1):32, December 1997.
- Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D.,F.M., Refuting Evolution, Chapter 1, Facts and Bias
- ↑ Darwin in translation
- ↑ Bible translations
- ↑ Richard Dawkins Drops His Lawsuit Against Former Employee
- ↑ Richard Dawkins sues Josh Timonen, Posted by David Gorski on October 24, 2010
- ↑ Richard Dawkins Drops His Lawsuit Against Former Employee
- ↑ Richard Dawkins Drops His Lawsuit Against Former Employee
- ↑ Richard Dawkins sues Josh Timonen, Posted by David Gorski on October 24, 2010
- ↑ Richard Dawkins Drops His Lawsuit Against Former Employee
- ↑ An Update on We Are Atheism by Hemant Mehta, September 15, 2015]
- ↑ Richard Dawkins sues Josh Timonen, Posted by David Gorski on October 24, 2010
- ↑ http://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/science-of-happiness/caring/caring-and-happiness-reviews/
- ↑ What It Means To Be A Progressive: A Manifesto, Thinkprogress.org
- ↑ What are Progressive Values, Dailykos.com