Maybe controversial - Religion IS bad, but.....

[Sandman]

For what its worth, kinda wish Atheists did charity better than them.

[The Grand Nudger]

The most charitable religion on earth is the american civil religion, which is secular, and props up religious organizations with subsidies as well as funds and assets those organizations then distribute...often with their own worth-testing means, after "overhead".

OFC, the religious nuts now believe this spirit of giving is everything wrong with america, and want to claw back all that money so they can plow it into their god-kings next crypto scam.

[Sandman]

Kay but did they get the government to give them the BIG $.

Or did we just decide to give them bad religious organizations the BIG $ out of the kindness of our big 'ol hearts..

Why aren't we getting the BIG $ and spreading it around?

Yeah we got social securety but thats the government, made up of christians and secular, but not necessarily us per say.

Christians pushed for social security too. Do you want to tell me the government did it out of charity and not a practical effort to keep society stable?

Politicians? With charitable hearts?

[The Grand Nudger]

Yes, they got the government to give them big bucks, usually by holding childcare hostage....the same children they've been raping. The same thing that's actually sucking up all that welfare money they get - to the point they've insisted that even with all that assistance there just isn't enough money to keep manufacturing magic crackers in "affected" areas.

Meanwhile, the us spreads around an even bigger chunk of cash over and above that both at home and abroad. The reason for this, which you came very close to with the comment above..being that the religious based charity system had utterly and demonstrably failed in the first place, leading to very real concerns about the stability of society under such conditions.

[Sandman]

Hey didn't say religion - or the government was good.

Still like America tho.

Lost my job for awhile. Forced to accept charity from a church/government food bank.

Didn't like it at all. No Atheists to help me out then.

You say their charities fail. But I got the food when I needed it.

Life's never perfect.

You said yourself they didn't have the cash etc. on their own so they went to the gov't.

The charity then worked for me so how can I consider them as failing?

Reality can be ugly, not what you want, when you are forced to swallow your pride.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Many atheists in America do charity. We just don't often advertise our atheism as we help out.

In other words, we're not chumming the waters, we're helping without any expectation of recognition.

I volunteered at a food bank for a year or so -- a religious food bank, mind you -- not because I wanted to plant any atheist flag, but because I wanted to help people in need. I volunteered at a thrift-store that supported a battered-women shelter not because I wanted to show how great atheism is, but because I wanted to help women in need.

You might not know how many atheists helped you out because many of us simply ain't doing it for bragging rights. But if you want to judge anyway those who filled your held-out hand ... you do you. I will still help you out, and never tell you what I believe or what you should believe.

[The Grand Nudger]

I don't say the religious charity system failed. It did, as a matter of recorded fact in recent history. In the 30's the existing charitable structure was completely overwhelmed. It became apparent to our government and the public that secular funding would be need to fill those gaps the depression made painfully clear. Church donations had fallen off a cliff. The satirization of the american man of god had begun in earnest in the 1860's, a project accelerated by the many, many millennialist real estate scams perpetrated on equally stupid and faithful lowlanders - which today form what amounts to the last mainstream or near mainstream denomination emergences in the us in the contemporary period. Simply put, americans found that they both could not and would not donate to churches when the need for charity was the greatest. Secular government stepped in - and it kept those churches afloat too.

At any rate, you certainly were helped by atheists. Not only by the funding of a secular government taxing an increasingly godless people..but because churches have about as many people who don't believe in gods in them as any place else does. The land acquisition and development choices of churches over the years has more to do with what makes them good locations for food banks than their religiosity or the religiosity of the client population. A particularly well run food bank, at a church, likely operates in a way that avoids the failures of churches in past (and present) by assiduously avoiding both worth and means testing. You wouldn't know how many atheists helped you, they will not ask whether or not you were an atheist, they won't even ask you if you're really poor or just pretending. They just give.

But lets cut to the chase. Hunger in the us is a wholly artificial situation. We can fix that, and when we were done fixing it life will still not be perfect, but it will be better*. Reducing the religiosity of charity has proven to be a more effective way to deliver charity even and especially for religious charities. Ultimately, though, there should be less need of charity and more of it when needed. My wife and I ran and supplied a food bank from a non profit farm we operated for years - and this was for people who worked long hours at what counted as a decent wage. Before that I volunteered and donated to foodbanks at the churches my inlaws attended. We were always short labor and product, especially fresh product, and the framers and hvac techs needed to install decent cold storage. The food bank you went to is very likely to be in the same situation. You have the address, if you wished atheists did more, go be the change you want to see.

*this, ultimately, is the motivating fear of religious regresives that leads them to gut secular programs to their own detriment. The example of an alternative to their organizations is not tolerable, much less a successful one.

[Sandman]

True, Thumpalumpacus, but when I was at the food bank, several people ahead of me took the food from the lady handing it out and walked away like they were entitled to it.
Without so much as even a thanks. Not sure the food bank workers are after so much recognition. When I registered and filled out the paperwork I was mostly ignnored by the lady at the front desk. Your experience with food banks may be different.

Didn't even see them advertise the place. Had to find out from a government worker.

I'm sure there are many Atheist and Secular volunteers out there.

But lets face it the christians really did the work of establishing your food bank.


I've been pretty independent otherwise, and I'm not sure how many have really helped me out.

The evidence I have seen I have seen is that christian workers go without credit too.

So I really can't tell how many of who secretly helped me.

They have the big charities tho, and more of them.

Mind you I'm not saying I like them. I'm not saying they are good. They are not.

@[b]The Grand Nudger [/b]Okay Humans are a low entropy systems, that means they tend to, (but not always) increase entropy/destruction around them in order to maintain their low entropy existence. Importantly this does not preclude the existence of charity. I tend to think though that its our wars, political foolishness and such that are responsible for food shortages. Always a competition between our best and worst nature.

I've done charity, your probably right about me doing more.

[Fake Messiah]

For what its worth, kinda wish Atheists did charity better than them.

You just seem uninformed because there are many secular charity organizations that help people and win Nobel prizes like UNICEF, Doctors without Borders, World Food Program, Humanists International, Save the Children, Children International, Oxfam, Amnesty International, Kiva, etc.

[The Grand Nudger]

True, Thumpalumpacus, but when I was at the food bank, several people ahead of me took the food from the lady handing it out and walked away like they were entitled to it.
Without so much as even a thanks. Not sure the food bank workers are after so much recognition. When I registered and filled out the paperwork I was mostly ignnored by the lady at the front desk. Your experience with food banks may be different.

People in lines at food banks are very often quiet - many of them because they are ashamed.   

Didn't even see them advertise the place. Had to find out from a government worker.

I'm sure there are many Atheist and Secular volunteers out there.

But lets face it the christians really did the work of establishing your food bank.

Less than wrong, but largely irrelevant, so...

I've been pretty independent otherwise, and I'm not sure how many have really helped me out.

The evidence I have seen I have seen is that christian workers go without credit too.

So I really can't tell how many of who secretly helped me.

They have the big charities tho, and more of them.

No, and no.  The community of giving is small and all of it combined delivers less nutrition than wic, snap, usaid, the us military - etc, and we haven't left just one secular country's secular activities.  

Mind you I'm not saying I like them. I'm not saying they are good. They are not.

I like food banks at churches, I think they're great.  It's the rest of the shit they get up to that concerns me.