First, just for perspective, there's the Judaic teaching about charity from the
Pirke Avoth ("Sayings of the Fathers") (from memory):
quote:
There are four kinds of giving:
- Where the donor knows who the recipient is and the recipient knows who the donor is.
- Where the donor knows who the recipient is, but the recipient does not know who the donor is.
- Where the donor does not know who the recipient is, but the recipient knows who the donor is.
- Where the donor does not know who the recipient is and the recipient does not know who the donor is.
One of the sticky points of charity is the same as for altruism: giving/sacrificing with no thought of reward (for if you give or sacrifice for sake of being rewarded (eg, with salvation, with advancing your religion) then you are in fact not being altruistic). Giving with recipients knowing who you are will have you seeking praise, while giving knowing who the recipients are can have you seeking to support specific groups for non-charitable motives. Only that last combination with donor and recipients not knowing who each other is would most safely approach charity.
BTW, there are several such teachings which examine the four possible combinations of two characteristics (eg, the four kinds of students based on how quickly or slowly they learn and how well they retain what they have learned).
The first problem with that the article is from the Washington
Times (not the Washington Post). It was founded by Unification movement leader Sun Myung Moon and is owned by Operations Holdings, which is owned by the Unification movement. IOW,
Moonies!
That raises the issue of strong religionist bias in the article, which is borne out by the article itself, in which the
only factor it examines is religious affiliation versus non-religious. It completely ignores other important factors to explain the numbers. In that, it is nothing more than a typical religionist hatchet job trying to falsely claim some kind of moral superiority.
Although I should have presented this one second, one simple factor that the article ignores is one of
organization. Religious affiliations are
organized whereas non-religious affiliations tend to not be organized since they commonly consist of unaffiliated individuals and small discussion groups.
It's a simple fact that effective charity requires organization. You need to identify where the need is and what is needed. You need to set up collection and distribution networks. Collection can be augmented by
organizing drives for donors. In contrast, unorganized individuals are busy enough just living their lives and getting by, which leaves them with very little time to do a lot of redundant independent research identifying need, analyzing how to address that need, and applying a small amount of personal excess funds which ends up being very ineffective in address that need.
Religious associations are able to mount the organization that dispersed individuals cannot. Thus they are able to do what dispersed individuals cannot do. Of course, that has absolutely no bearing on whether their beliefs are true nor whether their teachings are of value.
Also, with their power to identify where the need is and how to address it, they are subject to the temptation to exploit their charity work to advance their own sectarian agenda. And the non-religious are then tasked with determining whether a particular charity has a religious agenda that they do not wish to promote with their contributions. More on all that below.
A second factor involves religious teachings and peer pressure. The religiously-affiliated are preached to and taught to tithe and give to charities. Then their religious affiliations present several organized charities to them, a number of them missionary work (ie, going out and
proselytizing). And their religious affiliations set up or host collection drives in which they and the members of the congregations pressure congregation members to contribute.
So why do the religious contribute? Because they are taught that they must. Because they somehow feel that by "being charitable" they are gaining "Brownie points" for salvation; even though that might not be theologically sound, that feeling still remains. At the very least, they feel that if they are indeed saved, then they need to demonstrate that "fact" by acting charitably *. But the real selling point is that those charities promote their church's mission in proselytizing.
FOOTNOTE *:
Despite the "discussion" over salvation by works, etc, there remains the idea that your "saved" state must manifest itself in works.
That is expressed as the
Fruit of the Holy Spirit (chapter 5 of the Epistle to the Galatians), all kinds of good qualities you are supposed to automatically get just because you are saved. I have read a number of deconversion stories of ex-Christians who were traumatized as teenagers raised in the Faith, because the fact that they had not been given the Fruit of the Holy Spirit was evidence that they weren't actually saved.
Obviously, those pressures do not exist for the non-religious, but that does not keep the non-religious from making charitable contributions. Though for the sake of actually helping others instead of trying to promote a particular religion.
That puts an extra obstacle in the way of the non-religious making charitable contributions. Nobody would want to contribute to any cause that they would oppose. For example, as I understand there were some innocuous-looking charities that actually funded ISIS, so those who opposed ISIS (most of us) would not want to be caught contributing to them even though it was unknowingly.
One thing that most non-religious contributors would object to would be to religious proselytizing. The problem is that many charities are fronts for religious organizations for the purpose of proselytizing. An acquaintance at skeptics meetings was a homeless veteran. He has told us stories of "non-profit charities" who would make adherence to their religion as a condition for receiving their services. What non-religious contributor would want to lend their support for such odious activities?
I guess you would think that the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), Inc, would be a safe non-religious charity. After all, in all their
public presentations they emphasize that they are "absolutely nonsectarian". That is a complete lie. In the many religious discrimination lawsuits, BSA lawyers repeatedly and emphatically proclaimed that the Boy Scouts of America, Inc, is a "secret religious organization."
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