Ok, time for opinions then. They won't be brief I'm afraid :P Enjoy the wall of text.

First, I would like to go into why I am not on a humanitarian mission.

Currently, I am undertaking an honours project doing research into improving the energy efficiency and cost effectiveness of solar cells. I consider this to be important work. I believe that global warming will, if we do not change our ways, have an incredible impact on the world's poorest, including making it much more difficult to feed the world. I could not be doing this research anywhere in the world - it requires very specialised equipment. If I were to now go on a humanitarian aid mission, it would be instead of the work I am currently doing, which I believe to be a poor trade off - as others have pointed out, while curing the symptoms can be important, curing or preventing the causes is more important.

As part of curing the causes, I also undertake some fairly severe personal sacrifices. My household is made up just of university students (all agnostics). We recently chose to pay a significant amount extra per month, to purchase green power. This may not seem like a lot compared to $2700, but keep in mind that after paying rent, for basic foodstuffs and bills, our entire house would not have even close to $2700 in disposable income for a whole year. We have not used the heater or tumble dryer, despite the -5oC temperatures it has reached recently. We ride bikes to and from university instead of driving, whether it's cold, raining, dark or whatever.

I have very much been considering doing something with engineers without borders when I complete my degree. I shall have to, at the time, weigh up the good I can do by staying and by going.

Second, as for why there are no atheist aid organisations, that is simply due to Christians choosing one method of helping people out, whilst atheists generally choose a different way. For example, I would never donate to a charity, or work for a charity, if even a single iota of my money or effort goes into spreading Christianity or any other religion. I don’t care if you spread your religion to anyone who wishes to listen, but I shall have no part of it. This is why you will not see many Atheists in a Christian charity.

As for why you don’t see many atheist charities, there are two reasons for that. The first, is that atheists are not a coherent group, in the sense that Christians are. Secondly, if you desire is 100% to help people, as opposed to mostly desiring to help people and partially desiring to spread your religion (and I do understand that you would probably consider converting someone to be helping them, but by helping people I mean in the food and shelter sense) then it makes sense to donate to charities, to write to your congressman, and to do other anonymous charitable deeds where you never see the people you are helping. I for example have been a doorknocker for the red shield appeal on multiple occasions. One of my housemates (agnostic) is doing a lot with Oaktree (which I think is actually a Christian organisation?). In the case that you also have the aim to convert people, it makes more sense to do aid work as you are doing.


I dispute the assumption that just because you saw more Christians where you were, that Christians are more charitable overall.

naw,I like living in my bubble. lol

Isn't that a great reason for a non-religious or Athiest aid organisation? Now I of course am Christian so I love supporting my Christian organisations. But what about all you non-believers, why isn't their many organisations that you can be involved with that don't have a specific religious viewpoint?

As a Christian I want to see every single person on earth loved and taken care of, your also right that I would love to see everyone on earth know Jesus as their lord and savior. However I would love to see Athiest or non-Christian organisations stepping up to the plate to help people as well. Sure you can write your congressman but what does that accomplish? Honestly I write the Prime Minister and ministers from my ridings all the time. Usually they aren't really able to do anything at all unless it is a Canadian issue that the Government is directly involved in.

Theirs a draught in Africa millions are dying, so you contact a US Congressman to help them? That doesn't make much sense at all.

I understand financially you can't justify going out with Engineers without borders at the moment. Maybe you can in the future. But nobody can honestly say that Christian Charities should be the only ones helping people can they?

I wonder why their is no , non-Christian YWAM. Now of course I would never join or financially support a non-Christian YWAM but I think the existance of one would help make the world a better place. If everyone helped each other as Jesus taught Christian or not then this world would be a far better place to live in. If every person of every belief could donate to an organisation that was in line with their beliefs the world would be a much better place.

As for Athiests not being organised like Christians. Thats sort of funny as their are already Athiest organisation's putting ads on buses around the world that say things like "There probably is no God , so enjoy your life". Then last year the first Church of Darwin oppened in the US. If their are Athiest missionaries (Putting signs up on buses and all over to convert people) and their are Athiest church's I can't see why a few Athiests couldn't get together to help people.

Athiests might not all believe the same things, but they have a common belief "That their is no God" and they obviously are organised much like Christian's if their going to prostylitize on buses and billboards.

I just don't buy the argument that Athiests and non-religious people are incapable of creating or maintaining organisations. Doctors without borders and Engineers without borders prove that non-religious organisations can work. Also I wouldn't say that Athiests are less charitable then Christians are that would be impossible to prove. But evidently they aren't as involved in charity as Christians. You yourself said its hard to find a non-Christian charity and you'd never donate to one that was Christian. So why is that? Why isn't their a lot of non-Christian charities out there helping people?

Heya

First of all, I would say that writing to your representative/congressman is one of the most important things you can do. We need to fix this. If we could convince politicians to spend our tax dollars on foreign aid to a meaningful degree, that would be the same as us all agreeing to donate to charity, with the richest agreeing to donate the most.

Secondly, I would like to point out that "There probably is no God , so enjoy your life" is agnosticism at work, not atheism. It's not particularly important, but I don't like talking about things when the definition of basic words is not common. Atheism is "there is no God". Agnosticism is "there is no proof for God". There are extremely few atheists in the world.

And no, we agnostics/atheists do not particularly group together. It is perfectly acceptable to say "I started this charity for the glory of God" or "I started this charity because God/the bible" It is a bit weird to say "I started this charity for the glory of the (probable) lack of existence of God" Live aid, as an example, was run by two non religious people, but it is not thought of as an agnostic charity.

As for why such a large proportion of charities are run by churches, or Christians, as opposed to by Agnostics, or people of other religions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakat - Muslims seem quite charitable. Maybe their attention is simply focussed in different countries.

Agnosticism is a very new thing compared to Christianity. We are also few in numbers, particularly in the US. This means that we have not had time to establish all that many 'atheist' charities, there's fewer of us to donate/run charities. If you compare the numbers of new charities springing up, I would suspect the majority would be non religious.

• Christianity: (59.9%^[13] to 76.0%^[4])
• Unaffiliated, including atheist or agnostic (15.0%^[4] to 37.3%^[13])
• Judaism (1.2%^[4] to 2.2%^[13])
• Islam (0.6%^{[4][5][6][13]})
• Buddhism (0.5%^[4] to 0.9%^[14])
• Hinduism (0.4%)
• Other (1.4%)
• US population by religion.

Convincing politicians to give taxed money to people is not the same as giving to charity.

It's the same as promising to give to charity ONLY if everyone else does.

In my opinion it shows a concern for people not wanting to fall behind others due to their own generosity.

As for international charitable orginzations and foreign aid?  Feh.

Not saying they don't need help in other countries... but shit.  There are people in your OWN country that need help...  and by helping them... you don't waste money on giant orinizations with need of tons of employees and marketing and all kinds of shit?

The best way to cost effectivly help someone?  Go out on the street and give a homeless guy some money or some food.  Go work at a soup kitchen in your own city, homeless shelter or a food bank or something.

It's just more efficent... and honestly, more likely to do more good since the country you live in is probably a lot more stable then another country and help is more likely to still help.

Just heard a neat thing about Dunbars Number on the radio today and it pretty well explains why smaller groups localized in specific areas are basically always going to be more effective.

We see disasters, and pour money in to that area shortly... ignoring the fact that people are dieing every day regardless.

It's something that really annoys me for whatever reason... people treating disaster areas as exceptions of the norm... when in reality, it's the norm for a lot of people... it's just more concentrated in one place for a little bit.

Or it could be that people see it as an obligation of society as a whole to make sure that all people attain a certain standard of living (to assure stability within society, prevent conflicts etc.), and would rather than tax money be used for that, rather than funding wars, or purchasing $ 100k golden Swiss pens for politicians to sing documents with, which misteriously disappear when said politician's term runs out (it actually happened in Romania).

@Kasz. I'd contend that organisations like the Red Cross do more to help humanity than any localised group.

And can you seriously not see what the difference in terms of the need for aid is between hundreds of thousands of people being injured and/or having their livelihoods destroyed in a natural disaster and some homeless people in a western country?

Well I myself volunteer with multiple organisations. Including an outreach program that gives meals to local homeless. The main difference I see in helping over seas versus here. Is the Canadian Government provides any citizen who cannot find work a welfare cheque. If they can't find housing their is low income housing provided by the Government. If they are addicted to drugs or alchohol their are several free programs to help them out of their addiction.

Their is no reason for a Canadian citizen to be homeless. Absolutely no reason. How do I say that, well I have been on income assistance several times. I have taken from the food bank when I couldn't afford food. But guess what the Canadian Government helps me out and I can afford to live in a shitty apartment with food and while sure I can't afford many new things. I have a higher quality of life then anyone in Thailand can hope to have.

Having worked as a security guard and helping feed the homeless I came to a conclusion fairly fast. The majority of Canadian homeless are so by choice. I know several drug addicts who were arrested while I was on duty for drugs, I saw them months later, the Government had ordered them into rehab free rehab and guess what they refused to go. This happened more then once. Also a majority of the pan handlers (Not druggies) I busted at the mall had apartments infact one pan handler had a job and after I talked with him a while I found out he was making more money at that job and pan handling then I was working as a security guard.

So do I think its important to help your countries poor before deploying accross the globe. Absolutely, but in countries like Canada with free medicare, welfare and great social services. Go somewhere that you can actually help.

As for Scotties idea that the Government should donate all the money. Well Canada's Government often matches donations during crisis but I think its our duty as citizens to help the globe not expect our Governments to do all the work. Example the Government of Canada is responsable for taking care of the citizens of Canada first and foremost, Canadian's pay tax dollars for the Government to take care of the country, not to go out and take care of the world.

Try explaining a 2% raise in taxes for charity. Oh today the Government descided to raise taxes by 2% to give it to charity. People would go m

Also Kasz just because people die every day doesn't mean we should ignore them. Your going to die sooner or later too, should everyone just say Meh and ignore you?

But people do have slight points, if your home country has slums and poor Government programs and the people are suffering then yah helping in a soup kitchen or youth program or food bank is a very good idea. If you live in a country like Canada I still think you should start in a soup kitchen or food bank.

Example I myself am considered poverty level in Canada. I make less then 21,000$ a year. But guess what with what little I make I still could afford to donate time and money to charity. Infact I make about 12k a year but I live far better then the majority of the world and as such I feel compelled to help those living in worse conditions then myself.

So I volunteer both locally and now internationally I think their is room and need for both!

Compare these two charts and see that the areligious Scandinavia meets the UN Target

I wouldn't say you can conclude this this easily, but it's still interesting to see

Lack of Importance of Religion in Europe by Gallup poll (2007–2008)
Country			Percentage
Estonia		84%
Sweden		83%
Denmark		80%
Norway		78%
Azerbaijan		74%
Czech Republic		74%
France		73%
United Kingdom		71%
Finland		69%
Netherlands		66%
Belarus		65%
Russia		63%
Albania		63%
Bulgaria		62%
Latvia		62%
Belgium		61%
Hungary		59%
Slovenia		59%
Spain		59%
Germany		57%
Switzerland		56%
Ukraine		54%
Lithuania		52%
Slovakia		51%
Montenegro		48%
Serbia		45%
Kazakhstan		43%
Austria		42%
Ireland		42%
Moldova		31%
Croatia		30%
Greece		30%
Armenia		29%
Bosnia and Herzegovina		29%
Portugal		27%
Italy		26%
Cyprus		24%
Poland		23%
Georgia		22%
Macedonia		20%
Romania		18%
Turkey		9%

I'm talking about the people who say "my charity work is trying to change laws." 

Which tends to be a common democratic arguement.

Polticians wise, Democrats oddly give a lot less to charity.

If you want to do both?  Fine.

If you just want to lobby polticians... put your money where your mouth is.