I could give lots of other examples. I'm not sure where this perception about religion is coming from. Maybe in Europe the church is largely dead, but that's not true in the US.
I could give lots of other examples. I'm not sure where this perception about religion is coming from. Maybe in Europe the church is largely dead, but that's not true in the US.
In my experience, those who are most empathetic are generous in spirit, which would include not necessarily revealing to you that they are very religious, as well as in generosity toward those in need.
Societally, not sure it matters much. OTOH, I think it's probably more fair to compare church giving relative to the tax breaks they receive, rather than simply say they give a lot. They do, but it's amplified by a tax deduction, which isn't available to emotionally supporting/empathetic people.
There is, of course, no reason someone couldn't be in both camps, but this comment is long and rambling already.
It’s pretty hard to compare. Perhaps donations isn’t the right measure. What is more accurate?
Anecdotally, the homeless people I've spent time talking to seem to appreciate the conversation (or maybe being treated as a human being?) as much or more than the dollar or two I frequently give.
Utilitarianism might suggest donations as a decent proxy. Can't say I disagree, although I'd like to know how generous churches can be if they didn't receive a tax break.
Mostly the high-profile anti-abortion campaigning (which by extension poisons all women's healthcare and sex education discussions), and homophobia. And the segregation. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/17/opinion/why-im-leaving-th...
> Maybe in Europe the church is largely dead
"Europe" is a huge place that's a lot more diverse than the US. Christianity is still official state religion in various places; Germany still has tithing baked into the tax system!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/113...
Ireland is in the middle of the long process of evicting its theocracy.
That's only true when you count religious giving.
Now then, yes, there are many, many valid religious charities (and by this I mean organizations, as well as that component of church giving that factors into benevolence).
But by studies performed by religious organizations themselves (who if anything are likely to skew the numbers more positively), across the board, "Local and national benevolence receives 1 percent of the typical church budget", and an additional 5% goes to "church run programs" (be it after school care, social or group activities).
If a secular charity - and lets go back to Charity Navigator here - Top Ten Inefficient Fundraisers (http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=topten.detail&...) we see some of the worst charities spending 15% of their donations on "program expenses" (i.e. doing what they are being given money to do).
I'm not familiar with the monitoring of 501(c)3 groups, but I suspect if charities were to regularly spend only one per cent of their givings on what they got to enjoy tax exemption to do, they'd likely have such a status revoked.
And, if you factor in this average percentage (even the six per cent combined, which is generous, as as much fun as social and youth activities are, they're not necessarily serving a critical need), and start to question 'how much money is being spent on 'spreading the word', patting themselves on the back, competitions in Texas to see who can built the world's biggest cross just down the road from where the world's previously biggest cross was built at costs of millions, there comes more and more skepticism of just how highly you can value "giving to your church" on the scale of charitable contributions.
The homosexuals still receive a disporpotionate amount of hate relative to "other sins", often by people pretending they are not hating as they parrot this phrase.
That misleadingly implies the reasonable plausibility of a coincidence, for example that it is random chance that gay marriage is a nation-wide political topic but the legal status of eating shellfish isn't.
1. PDF: http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/cchr/downloads/pdf/press-releases...
NYC went after them several years ago for exercising their right to refuse to employ openly gay clergy. They wanted to close down SA in NYC despite that SA provided a huge portion of shelters and other homelessness relief (something like 60% by some measure IIRC). And they wanted to pin the blame on SA ("We can't believe you'd force us to shut you down and let all our poor people starve!") when it was clearly their prerogative. They only changed their minds when it became apparent that they would lose the PR battle.
Around that time, someone started a "Let's hate on SA for being homophobic" thread on Reddit, but so many formerly poor people from all over the country (including many LGBT) came forward with their stories of how the SA saved their family from poverty; none of the first hand accounts corroborated the "SA is homophobic" narrative.
If you truly care about social justice, you support SA because they are clearly doing more good than any similar organization in the US; everything else is just social justice fashion.