pearljammer said:
I have to agree with you on the community-based hypothesis on being the main explanation behind why the religious are often more charitable than non-theists. Not unlike how fire victims in small communities are often widely supported by the peers compared to those in larger communities (going of pure anecdotal evidence and personal observation, though I doubt anyone would contest) or how schools are more charitable than your random group of equivilent-sized individuals. However, as you'd mentioned, I'm not sure this correlation can tell us anything useful about the individual - to which we're speaking of, of course. Like you, I'd be interested in seeing a study with a sample of religious individuals who are not members of any religious-based community. To my knowledge, no such study exists. Therefore I don't think any of these statistics are pertinent to the discussion at hand. We're not comparing Atheist communites (Do they even exist?) to religion based ones. Secondly, I'm unsure that we could even derive moral character from something like charitable donations/time. There are so many variables here to be considered, I'd think it'd be near impossible to make any telling conclusions. In terms of time, atheists, statically speaking, make more money on average. Do they spend more time working? I have no idea. It's just simply one vaviable to be considered. In terms of money, atheists tend to be more liberal which would imply a wider belief in progressive taxing, expecting government to approiately spend the money where necessary (charity). Whether or not we agree with this method and claim that it is simply placing the responsibility on someone else is besides the point - they may believe that they are constructively contributing charitably (assonance ftw!), hence upholding their moral character. Anyhow, I feel as if all of what I wrote as a whole is sort of side-stepping what I'm trying to say. We need to be speaking of the individual, not of a group - there needs to be a control variable here. Comparing loosely related individuals to communities is frankly dishonest. Not to say that you were, you wholely acknowledged the fact that a more fair study needed to be done... I just worry that's what it'd turn into. It's not really a reply to you, Kasz, so much as I'm just saying in general. |
Oh, I agree in general with almost everything you've said. Things I disagree on.
I think charity is a good choice though because it is the one thing that is "moral" throughout the ages. It's the only real basis you can have without people trying to rangle what's moral and what isn't.
I also think the study is fairly fair... only because Atheists ARE loosely related individuals... which is my point that people keep going over.
Churches work effectivly as "moral drivers." Atheists on average don't have this same driver therefore aren't as moral on average.
The "best" of them line up with the "best" of religious people... but where they fall down is in getting your "moderately interested but can't be bothered" types on board.
The people who would say yes if charity came to them, but not if they have to go to charity... and/or the types that would do so under community pressure.'
As for the "government charity" aspect. To me it seems like a complete non-aspect because Librals and conservatives live in the same world. If they lived in different countries where charitable spending on the poor was different, you'd have a point.
However, at best you could argue that "Support for more intervention" is a replacement for "actual giving".
One man argues the government should give the starving food.
The other gives the starving food.
The second is taking action to save the starving. The first while wanting more support is still watching the starving die in the streets.
