So you don't believe in God or Christ...

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That's my people. Although not ever a socialist, I do fall into what you are envisioning in the socialist/hippy demographic. In my youth I used to do more frontline food charity work. It was with Food Not Bombs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_not_bombs After a while I split ways with them on account of me not being vegetarian I could play along well enough but I'm really just not vegetarian, let alone vegan. Now in my middle agedness, I donate to (but have not done frontline work in) Feeding America, which does food bank networking.

That's my people too. I'm not a socialist, vegetarian or pacifist, I believe in the mixed economies we see in Northern Europe today. These countries have a free market and a decent social safety net. It may not be perfect but they get 10 points just for trying. So many countries do not even make any effort to take care of those who need it most. China calls itself communist but it is a very unequal country where so many people are desperately poor. It is neither communist nor capitalist.
I look like a hippy too. On a good day I look like The Dude. If Dudism were the world religion, we could set things right.

Around here there are a lot of clothes banks. People just put in their still good clothing that is no longer in fashion or is too small or they don't like any more, or belonged to someone has died (T-shirts with bullet holes are discarded ) and it all gets sorted at a big warehouse. The clothes that are still fit to wear get washed and put on sale in second hand shops quite cheaply and the clothing that is too worn or damaged gets sent away for use as rags or gets pulped for other uses. I've bought quite a few decent designer T-shirts from one near us for only a couple of Euros. I even got a pair of Pier Cardin designer leather shoes from there too for 3 Euros (they would have cost more than 100 Euros new).

^^^ I don't give away any clothes, I wear them until they fall apart. I don't think anyone would want my clothes after I'm done with them. I don't think anyone would want my clothes before either, I'm not the fashionable type.

^ Me too! My wife eventually throws out my clothes or uses them as dusters/rags when she deems them too tatty to even just wear around the house. She always inspects me before we go out anywhere, even shopping "You can take that scruffy old T-shirt off, it is all ragged around the neck and it's got holes too!" My jeans are full of holes and covered in patches, even my socks have got holes in the heels or toes. I don't care so long as they are comfortable.

Actually, the Social Security Administration still pulls in more revenue than the amount it pays out on an annual basis (although the gap is rapidly dwindling). It is projected to change in the future if there are no changes to the system and no population demographics change at all.

Where I live, the foodbanks are mostly churches.

The trouble with having an open mind is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

Some evidence against your claim that "government debt is caused by people not donating as much towards faith-based charities":

1) The most religious developed countries are the USA and Ireland. They have the second and third highest levels of government debt per capita in the world: http://www.bloomberg.com/visual-data/be ... -countries This does not support your hypothesis.
2) Whilst religious people do give more to "charity", they don't if you exclude churches themselves. I don't think America is being bankrupted because atheists aren't paying their share towards the church roof. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyat ... h-to-rest/

It's not really a hypothesis and just because the countries are the most religious doesn't mean a lot of people are donating money, supplies or time to religious charities.

I do think I make a valid point about charity and government debt. I will not dismiss the possibility that Christian charity can help reduce government debt.

And I am not a church going Christian, either, so I have no bias either way. There's some things I find attractive in Christianity. I do not feel particularly connected to either Christians, atheists or any group for that matter. I am strictly on my own.

Christian charity would only have a chance of reducing government debt if that charity money was spent on the things that government money is currently spent on. But it isn't. It's spent to maintain the churches.

from The Walrus's link:



The national debt was not created by governments paying for upkeep of churches. It was created by paying for things that religious charities have never paid for. That's why it has no effect on the national debt.

Your hypothesis rests on the idea that a statistically meaningful amount of the national debt comes from government paying for things that were previously paid for by Christian charities and if those charities resumed paying for them, the debt would go down. But it just isn't so. The national debt comes from paying for things which Christian charities don't and have never paid for.

This thread and the this quote by the OP must rate as the biggest strawman I have read on this site. Firstly as has already been explained the sectarian charities are far from alone in there work. A very brief (and I mean a few seconds) internet search brought up this list

Red Cross
Oxfam
UNICEF
Fred Hollows Foundation
Water Aid
Save The Children
Doctors Without Borders
The Gates Foundation
SHARE (Secular Humanist Aid & Relief Effort)
Care Australia

All of whom are genuinely secular.

I cannot speak for the rest of the world but Australia with a rapidly declining religious community constantly records higher and higher levels of charitable donations, I myself who have no fear of a wrathful supernatural overlord give to charity, and I suspect this goes fro many other countries as well.

Secondly what the heck has religious charity got to do with world economics, as has already been said the correlation has nothing to do with causation, again do the briefest of internet searches for government debt and you will start to get an idea of what caused the 2008 crash, spiralling goverment debt and the rise of vicious austerity measures, trust me it has nothing to do with the (according to you) shrinking coffers of religious charities.

Your post reminds me of a quote attributed to Einstein "Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down by the mind before you reach eighteen." and you serve to remind me that in all opinions and thoughts evidence must be sought to back them up.

Are you serious? Do you know how many little churches there are all over America and how many more there would be if people returned to faith? All those little churches are capable of having charitable ministries where they work on behalf of poor people and if they can do that and help the government won't have to spend so much. Doesn't mean they won't (if corruption is involved) but they could.

I cannot believe how cynical people can be. How can it be denied Christians are not encouraged to help their brothers out?

I think the more government programs and religious charities help people simultaneously but independently, the better for the needy, as every little bit helps. That's something I've notice about some right wing Christians who don't seem to grasp that government programs don't nullify church charities - or at least they play dumb and claim that the government does.

I wished God away with a magic lamp and killed all the skyfairies with bug spray!

My belief is...if you want the government to spend less, gotta talk people into being more charitable to whomever...churches or just non profits and to the charities to spend their donations on something besides the salaries of their chairs and it could make a difference.

You are making wild unsubstantiated claims that without religion, charities are being starved of cash and governments are in a debt spiral. You cannot simply state this without giving evidence. Even if there is a correlation between the fall in faith and a drop in donations you still need to show cause, and as to suggesting this supposed cause and effect is responsible for government debt that is just plain wrong. I would suggest that if there is a drop in donations it has far more to do with recent downturn in peoples economic circumstances than their loss of faith.

I return your question -how can it be denied that the faithless are altruistic?