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Kasz216 on 03 May 2013
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Torillian said:
Kasz216 said:

and in those studies, they ALSO ran the numbers not counting church contributions... and the same patern persisted. 

It also persisted for blood donations, giving of time to causes... etc.

 

It's really remarkably non-controversial and really pretty much common sense regardless, since religions generally require acts of charity therefore the more religious you are, the more you will do charity even if you yourself aren't a default generous person.

 

Though in general it does seem the correlation extends beyond that.  I imagine largely having to do with Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory and most atheists ending up on the specific "Liberal" branch.

Yeah I'm surprised people are fighting this one so much.  I guess maybe if you did this study for churches that don't ask for or mandate a tithe I would be more surprised, but the idea that people you condition to give 10% of their earnings to what you call "charity" every week are more likely to give to charity without needing to be prodded is pretty expected.  I'm a tad surprised that after prodding the non-believers gave a higher percentage than the believers but I wouldn't be surprised if that difference is small enough to be within error for a study like this.  

It doesn't surprise me.

I mean think about it.  If your whole religion says you have to do rank to charity because people are poor... it's always in your mind, your always giving periodically.

Sure they show you a picture of poor starving children, and it tugs at the heart strings, but you already give regularly so you go with the conditioned response of giving... what you would of anyway.  You are just doing your part again.

 

Meanwhile if your in a sitaution where you aren't giving, except when prodded to by seeing this stuff first hand you might think about how horrible it is AND how you haven't been helping or haven't did it in a while.

Hence a need to "make up for it" or just in general be less desensitized to giving since you aren't just always doing.

It'd be interseting to see how patterns of giving would be effected if done weekly over the course of a year or so.

 

Would seeing the video week after week lose it's effect lowering the money given?  Or would it keep reinforcing the belief?  I'd guess it'd fall... but only to about the same baseline as the religious.

In otherwords, being religious doesn't make you a better person... just "keeps you honest".

 

Like if you had two people who both wanted to eat healthy... and one of them was friends with some health nut who always talked about how eating healthy was great and gave you great recipies.

While the other guy had a friend that says "Do whatever you want, and stick to your guns."


Same exact guy... chances are the heatlhy friend guy does better on his diet.