What Do Christians Do Better Than Atheists?

Re charity work – gimme a break. Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International and the Red Cross are some of the most effective charities in the world and they’re secular. You want to see charities which try to destroy religion? Evidently atheists don’t like to mix our politics with charitable giving and he wants to hold it against us? Come on.

The same goes in triplicate for church tithing. They can give all they want to their church but you’ve got to be blind if you imagine that church giving is any more noble than giving to a social organization or a sporting league. Again, because you’re so insular that you can’t separate your faith from your social outings, doesn’t mean that we have the problem! Personally I think it’s a badge of honour that we aren’t encouraging poor people to give money they can’t afford to enrichen some of the richest organizations in the world. If people can and want to give, great, but it’s not a check in your favour that churches bully people with threats supposedly from God.

What do Christians do better than atheists? I don’t know. Very little that I respect, that’s for sure. They’re people like any other except they act less rationally. One look at the so-called saints like Mother Teresa who seemed more concerned with raising funds for herself and her church and in spreading her brand of superstition than in providing decent health care to the poor should tell you what a bad influence it can be. Imagine the good she could have accomplished if she cared as much for people as for her church.

Speaking from experience, I have seen exactly what justin jim described. I have seen morality defined as your relationship with God, by definition atheists can’t be moral.

I also agree with the part about secular charities. This past week I donated blood. I don’t have money to spare (college student), but I do have blood to spare so I give it. Even if the Red Cross was a religious organization I would still donate as long as they send it to a hospital without any of that faith mucking it up. I see no reason to have atheist charities when there are good secular charities out there.

As for the whole community thing; how is forming a community moral if it is based on a falsehood?

Christians are not better than atheists at any of the things they usually are known for. Thinking they are is a sign of not looking into it. I think Christians and atheists are tied, really, in the aggregate on most every issue except one.

Christians are, hands down, waaaay better than we are at PR and Outreach.

Adrian is absolutely right. What’s happening isn’t that atheists aren’t charitable, it’s that the relatively tiny number of atheist _organizations_ aren’t acting as middle-men charities for other worthy causes.

When I donate to Amnesty Int’l or the ACLU, I don’t put a “Choose Atheism!” sticker on the envelope. When I go out protesting with a local death penalty abolitionist group, I don’t make a speech about how I’m doing it in the name of godlessness. I do it because it’s what my conscience and ethics point to, and there’s no particularly good reason to alienate myself from the Christians and other people of faith when we can be more effective together. I don’t pray with them, but I fight for justice beside them.

Christians don’t have a lock on charity work. Atheists simply leave religion out of it, just as it should be.

I am also skeptical, I think that Hemant’s previous list can provide alternative explanations for these perceptions. Christians are better at: marketing, getting the media to cover them, and spreading disinformation. Religious charity can be wasteful, selective, and vehicles for proselytizing. If I was doing charity work it wouldn’t be because of a lack of belief in deities, and I doubt I would bring it up.

OK…there is so much wrong with those assumptions:

There is no way to tell who is and is not an atheist…so I challenge anyone to put real numbers on how atheists donate or work charity.

We do not have organizations…oh, there are atheist organizations…but most atheists do not join. I don;t…other than forums and such. So, when you have an organization that represents people collecting the money…such as churches…it is very easy to see large contributions from christians. That does not mean that atheists do not give…we just do not all mass up in large organizations to do so collectively.

And you are saying that we need to learn from them??? Really? What are we to learn…that when you have a strict diety promising you hell if you disobey him who then tells his followers to give, they do?

Or better yet…that when men who run those churches tell their followers that their god (who promises hell) wants them to give, they will. And they give through those men, who then skim some off the top for “admin costs” and pass on 50 cents or so on the dollar to the needy…AND…often those needy are only christian needy.

(And i know there are small churches who do a great job of charity unlike the above example, where the men collecting it are just as sincere as those giving…but the amounts that put christians over atheists in statistics comes from the above big churches)

I know plenty of atheist families who do all they can to help. My family included…but I should not have to state that…and I will not divulge what I give. Charity is not something we should seek praise for, it is our private need to make a difference. I do not need my good deeds tallied. Most people do not.

And then…what constitutes a charity? What about a local school band…or a collecting jar for a family that has lost it’s home in a fire? There are so many ways people can give, that I believe that you would find that atheists give just as much. Small and local charities who do not take your personal information when you give.

I am not saying that christians are not charitable…not at all. If you take away donations to their church and the donations their church guilts them into…they are still giving to people in need. That is the point…charity is not a spiritual thing…even though the religious like to claim the corner on it…it is a human thing. It comes from the empathy for others (human and non-human)…whether it be starving children, abused dogs or a school music program…you are not really acting on the spiritual…because the same thing motivates all people regardless of their religion. It is about caring for others. That is true charity…and that goes on all day long every day, everywhere…accross all belief systems. No one tallies it…no one should.

But…do not think for one minute that if all religion were gone, charity and help would disappear. Truthfully, religion has done it’s part to bring about the need in the first place.

Regarding charity work…

Also: Salvation Army.

Not saying it’s always an excuse to proselytize, but it does happen a lot.

Country music.

But WE sure as hell aren’t touching that field.

Just expanding on a point that others have raised…

What’s the difference between a Christian charity and a secular one?

The explicitly Christian one donates proportionately less time and money to helping the lives of others and instead spends it proselytizing. Some may spend relatively little this way, others spend virtually all. Some “charitable” missions direct millions to the church leaders to provide planes, multi-thousand dollar per night hotels and other luxuries. Even Mother Teresa gave virtually nothing to the poor but instead directed the money to the church and proselytizing missions. You went to a poor community to help them find food, water and shelter? Great! Help educate them? Good stuff? You went in order to spread the word of God and save their souls? Stuff it, the only people getting any reward are the missionaries, the needs of the communities are secondary.

That’s why I think that churches should lose any special tax exempt status. If they really do the charitable work that they claim then they should have no problem getting charitable status and remain tax exempt. If they exist to serve their own needs and to glorify the church leaders then they can render unto Caesar like the rest of us. It seems that Christians want to say their church tithings count as charity when they know that their churches doesn’t fulfil the simple requirements to actually be a charity.

I’ll count “church donations” as a valued, moral decision when they count donations to a sports bar for beer, nachos and a UFC match.

Outside of direct efforts arising out of their church, are Christians more charitable?

(I don’t know one way or the other, and I am prepared to believe that they might be.)

The reason I ask is there are two confounding factors in a church setting.

Number 1: in some versions of Christian beliefs (and certainly in many believers) is the feeling that good works get you into heaven. If you’re doing good in order to get into heaven, that’s not charity, it’s a trade.

Number 2: churches provide a great deal of peer-group pressure. That’s coercion.

Atheist groups can’t offer confounder #1 (nor should they!). And many atheists would call #2 unconscionable.

Outside of those influences, I believe some Christians are still heartily charitable – but so are many atheists; is the actually-charitable-for-its-own-sake difference so great between the two groups? Has anyone attempted to measure uncoerced and unbought charity?

I agree with most of these points especially with regard to secular charities like the Red Cross and giving blood. There is one very important thing that we can learn from the religious though. We can learn what motivates the religious person, why they need gods to make them happy, how they use their beliefs to gain peace. We can learn how they use a shared faith to build a community and we can try really hard to understand them.

Religious people aren’t the enemy. Setting them up as the enemy will only work against we free thinkers. We are woefully outnumbered, they are better organised than we are and they have bigger hats. Rather than set ourselves up as the enemies of faith we could benefit from integrating with faith organisations and sharing our views. That will help to dispel the ridiculous myths about us (we cook our babies, we don’t eat them raw) and allow others to see that religion is one choice in many rather than the only one.

There’s one thing that the church and it’s followers have that we do not as atheists. Thats a medium to give. We don’t have a weekly meeting place. We don’t get togther and talk about things in person.. I don’t have money to give to charity, but im a good person and go out of my way to assist people when they need it. Everyone i associate with knows that they can come to me if they have a problem and ill offer solutions. I always try to let them do it on their own because i think its more rewarding and gives them the belief that they can control and fix things next time, but im always availabel abd they know it. getting back to the point. we have no “schedule” we dont get up everysunday looking for an organization to give to. Churchs give more because it’s there. it confronts them once a week and gives them the opportunity to hand over cash and walk away “knowing” that it will be put to some use. I guess it boils down to organization and ease. When someone gives on their own without any medium they normally have to do a lot of research and work on their own part to determine how to give how much to give and deciding wether or not to “trust” that it’s going to good use. Simply calling yourself an atheist doesn’t give you any kind of organization. I think if that’s where the atheist community would like to go then we need structure and unless some of us (sit down and say hey just because we dont believe in anything doesnt mean we cant get together and talk about issues in the real world and come to an agreement on how to charity those problems away) it’ll never happen.

Religious people aren’t the enemy.

Hmmm…I think I’d rephrase this as faithful people aren’t the enemy, but religious people are. The desire to belong to the group, to please the group (and in this case, “the group” is a religious one) has caused more evil in this world than any one single person you can name.

People who have faith in a god or a higher power don’t worry me, nor, surprisingly, do hardcore religious wingnuts. It’s all the little sheep, the blind, mindless little followers who are afraid to criticize leadership because they’ll fall out of favor with the group who scare the crap out of me.

I know it’s bad form to use Hitler analogies, but the truth is Hitler was a loon and by himself would have been written off and ignored. It was the people who knew what he was doing was crazy and wrong and insane but who went along anyway who caused the greatest evil.

I am very dismayed at the response this post is getting. If this is an accurate sample of the atheist community, than I’m ashamed to be associated with such arrogant jerks….
Luckily this isn’t a sampling. But what I’ve read so far has really upset me. I think it’s arrogant to think that we can’t learn anything from Christians. Us atheists hate being stereo typed. Why do we keep doing the same thing to believers? Not every Christian spends all day hating gays and proselytizing. Not every Christian charitable work uses it as an excuse to spread their word. When I was a good little Lutheran, we did lots of charity where we didn’t even mention we were from a church.
At least now I know why the charitable works committee for MN Atheists is failing.

i think those of us that are actually commenting and thinking about the question seem to be coming to the same conclusion and that’s organization. we don’t organize because the vast majority of us think its hiporitical. This topic came up actually among a group of friends at a pizza joint, and one response was ” what the hell are we gonna do form a group get together and proclaim our non belief?” Organization doesnt have to from around a belief how bout just an idea. an idea that we as a community of rational thinkers CAN meet up once a week and discuss things that matter and pass ideas on that can help our situation as well as ideas that can help others. does a church need a religion. can’t a church just be a group of people w a common non belief? ORGANIZE, the problem i see here is that we’d rather sit around talk a bunch of crap and throw stupid reasons around about whats wrong w the things christians do better than we do. The point of this i think is for us to see that they do things better in certain areas, focus on them and become more efficient on how WE do things. Or to bring to light that, believers don’t do everything backwards. quit being so damn closed minded. just because they believe in utter nonsense doesnt make their charitable contributions worthless.

Lynn, you could equally say that Republicans aren’t the enemy only republican voters (substitute Democrats if you like). Groups take on characteristics beyond their membership. I’m sure there were some absolutely lovely people who happened to be members of the Nazi party (I know, Godwin’s Law) but the group enabled some of the worst atrocities in human history.

The “in” group is supported while the “out” group is spurned, sometimes hated and attacked. If atheists (not even a group) consistently label ourselves as being in the “out” group and support our own exclusion by refusing to work with or help Christians then we will never be able to demonstrate that we are not as different as they imagine.

As an atheist the idea of being a martyr is particularly unsettling. I’d much rather find out what they believe and support those areas that coincide with my own beliefs. Where they do things better than me I can learn from them and where I am better they can learn from me. If we both sit on opposite sides of a great wall and throw insults at one another then I’ll only ever learn new insults. I’m of an age where that is no longer entertaining. Even poo jokes are getting old.

Hoverfrog, Im sorry but poop is ALWAYS funny

There is a lack however of a community among atheists. Every other damn group or gathering has such a community and it is fullfilling. It’s nice to know that other people are frustrated by things that frustrate you…

Yes, but other atheists aren’t necessarily frustrated by the things that frustrate you. Hence, no real “community”.

There are plenty of ways to form community that are more rewarding than forming one around a lack of belief in something.

But, again, I’m not a joiner by nature, so maybe that’s just me.

When stemcell research is banned because of religous intermingling, does that not upset you? When religous groupd try to force creationism into curriculum, does that not upset you? When you live in a country that decides religion is a “qualifier” to move into the white house? vaccines for disease are shunned due to religous belief? “abstinance” in place of knowledge? relious groups claiming to be tax exempt? Crimes commited in the name of a deity? “thank heaven” on your 711 receipts? Church billboards on public land telling you, youre going to burn in hell? there are pleanty of issues for “non-believers” to gather for. These are things that are accepted by the majority of believers, that frustrate almost every one of us atheists. I’m in the military and work a part timer just to break even i dont exactly have the time to confront all of these issues on my own, but i DO have a few hours a day a week that if speant at a weekly meeting or gathering with a group of peers together could accomplish something in pursuading the masses. But when confronted with the same “we have nothing to gather for” just turns to a feeling of dispair. There are plenty of ways to form community that are more rewarding than forming one around a lack of belief in something. <— truth, but how do you form a community with common goals if you have completely different points of view? if the structure youre standing on to form that community isn’t shared it will crumble. That underlying structure is a strong non-belief. a lot of us say well a non-belief is nothing, well i think you’re wrong. A non-belief however silly it sounds is not an absence, it’s stronger than nothing. it’s like matter, matter can’t exist without an opposite I.E. Anti matter.. non- belief exists as an opposite it’s not an emptiness if it was “nothing” we wouldnt really be blogging here would we?

Mybe things just piss me off because im young, because i don’t believe being good hearted IS enough. I know what you mean about “the guy next door bein a big ‘ol gay” I’m extremely arguementative, i’m angry I let things get to me those are my flws, i know that. I live in a predominately “baptist” zone it’s everywhere i’m provoked on a daily basis, but iwth the moajority of people around me being compliant, it catches them off guard. I like it when they come to my door every sunday and invite me to go to church and they step away from my door backpedaling like theyre going to get mauled if they turn their back. They’re so full of themselves are so self righteous and arrogant about it, it makes me feel great knowing that i’ve totally ruined their day. If they come to my door and try to preach to me about being damned to all eternity they WILL leave my door with a OMG “WTF was that” If i make it uncomfortable for them to knock on my door and my neigbors doors then i feel better. I feel like being an asshole because of the things they say and do TO ME, and if i make them feel opposed and they feel that hey this group might have some strength then good. <— and there’s my supid young mind. there’s where i do the wrong thing, maybe that makes me an aweful spokesperson. I admit i have a total lack in direction because I’m Angry and upset at the things they do. I WOULD benefit greatly from a group. Something organized and focused. Maybe im just a handful. but there is a need. I need it. i dont care if that’s self centered or not, I NEED a group I need to know there are other people totally pissed off and antagonistic, but i need it for direction..

Lynn said:

Why would anyone who called themselves a free thinker want to emulate that sort of group?

I didn’t say we should emulate them. Only that we should join them where our interests coincide. So what if a charity working to combat illiteracy (for example) is religiously based, they still have my support. I’m not going to refuse to help because “they” think that their God wants people to read. I happen to think that reading is something to be encouraged.

Equally my local Tory MP supported the literary week in my home town. Although I can’t stand the man and completely disagree with many of his policies I was still happy to support the idea and the work being done.

It’s not about making us and them stand out as different but of integrating together in those shared interests that we have. You alread said that though. 🙂

Incidentally the religious group thing is one reason why I really hate those “interfaith” councils, workshops, and missions. They might well be including different religions in their plans but they’re really just ganging up to exclude people with no religion or no faith.

If I were to make up some statistics, I’d say that on average, atheists (particularly those in the atheist movement) are: more educated, more geeky, more politically conscious. However, I would argue that these are self-selective; the atheist movement is primarily an intellectual one.

Christians are better at charity. This could be because “Christian charity” makes sense, while “atheist charity” seems as pointless as “Christian wrestling”. Seriously, atheist organizations are not primarily about charity, nor should they be. The only reason for there to be an explicitly atheist charity is to tap into the atheist’s sense of competition against Christians or to play on the fears that religiously affiliated charities will proselytize.

And Christians are better at forming communities. Atheists, collectively, seem to have an aversion to anything remotely like religion; this includes communities. All commenters who said that atheist communities are pointless, you are hypocrites. Okay, I didn’t mean it to sound so harsh 🙂 . But seriously, if you comment and participate in this here blog (as opposed to just lurking), you already know what an atheist community is like (or could be like). You already know what the advantages are; indeed, you have already made use of those advantages.

Here is a ration question. What does it matter who does what better?

If you feel insecure about your beliefs then do something about.

I do not see a shred of relevance in debating whether one person is better than another based of their personal beliefs. Humanity has the capacity to do good and evil regardless of if God is on their mind or not. Most of these comments suggest atheists are incapable of genocide; well, Joseph Stalin was an atheist and his empire cast a shadow over Hitlers reign of terror.

The only logical assumption this thread could rationally conclude is that some people have a starving ego to feed.