Atheists often claim to be “just as moral” as religious believers. Christopher Hitchens, for instance, in God Is Not Great, offers his rather vague and subjective assertion that no statistic will ever find that atheists “commit more crimes of greed or violence than the faithful.”
Yet, when comparing the morals of believers and nonbelievers, neo-atheist authors are careful to tiptoe around the issue of charitable activity. The reason that atheists studiously avoid the question of generosity is that study after study shows an overwhelming difference between believers and non-believers. Not surprisingly, the believers come out on top every time.
In the year 2000, researchers at U.S. universities and the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at the University of Connecticut undertook the massive Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, drawing 30,000 observations from 50 communities across the United States. The survey questioned individuals about their “civic behavior,” including their giving and volunteering during the year preceding the survey.
Analyzing the data, professor Arthur Brooks of Syracuse University divided respondents into three groups. He referred to the respondents who reported attending religious services every week or more often as “religious.” This group made up 33% of the sample. Brooks called those who reported attending religious services less than a few times per year or explicitly saying they have no religion as “secular.” These people made up 26% of the sample, leaving those who practice their religion occasionally to make up the remaining 41% of the sample.
Brooks found the variance between “religious” and “secular” giving to be dramatic. Religious people are 25 percentage points more likely than secularists to donate money (91% to 66%) and 23 points more likely to volunteer time (67% to 44%). In real dollars, this translates into an average annual giving of $2,210 among the religious as compared to $642 among the secular. Regarding hours volunteered, religious people were found to volunteer an average of 12 times per year, while secular people volunteer an average of 5.8 times. To put this into perspective, religious people are 33% of the population, but they make 52% of donations and 45% of times volunteered. Secular people make up 26% of the population, but they contribute 13% of the dollars and 17% of the times volunteered.
Interestingly, these data show that the determining factor in predicting charitable behavior is not so much one‘s particular religion, but rather the seriousness of one‘s religious commitment. For example, among those who attend worship services regularly, 92% of Protestants give charitably, compared to 91% of Catholics, 91% of Jews and 89% from other religions.
Another indicative finding of the study relates to giving to nonreligious charities. It turns out that religious people are more generous than secular people with nonreligious causes as well as with religious ones. While 68% of the total population gives (and 51% volunteers) to nonreligious causes each year, religious people are 10 points more likely to give to these causes than secularists (71% to 61%) and 21 points more likely to volunteer (60% to 39%). As examples, religious people are 7 points more likely than secularists to volunteer for neighborhood and civic groups, 20 points more likely to volunteer to help the poor or elderly, and 26 points more likely to volunteer for school or youth programs. Across the board, religious practice is directly correlated to generosity with both time and money.
These results are only surprising to someone with an ingrained anti-religious prejudice. Even the deist Voltaire — no friend to Christianity — felt obliged to admit the great benefit of religion to organized charity: “Perhaps there is nothing greater on earth than the sacrifices of youth and beauty, often of high birth, made by the gentle sex in order to work in hospitals for the relief of human misery, the sight of which is so revolting to our delicacy. Peoples separated from the Roman religion have imitated but imperfectly so generous a charity.”
In his analysis of charitable giving and faith, Brooks ends with a look at religion‘s pedagogical influence over giving and volunteering. “Houses of worship might teach their congregants the religious duty to give and about both the physical and spiritual needs of the poor. Simply put, people may be more likely to learn charity inside a church, synagogue or mosque than outside. If charity is indeed a learned behavior, it may be that houses of worship are only one means [albeit an especially efficacious one] to teach it.”
Neo-atheist tracts such as God Is Not Great rely almost exclusively on anecdotal evidence to make their case against religion. In asserting the superiority of atheism over religious belief, they simply string together vignettes showing horrible things done in the name of religion, in the hope that their stories will disgust readers enough to turn them away from religion. Yet, wherever a real comparison can be made between religious people and unbelievers, the statistical evidence always favors believers.
Whether we speak about the evils and bloodshed of atheist regimes, the generosity and charitable giving of religious people, or simply the happiness derived from religious faith, religion beats atheism hands down in every area. This fact alone will give pause to any unbiased observer.
Legionary of Christ Father
Thomas D. Williams
(.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address))
is Vatican analyst for CBS News
and author of, most recently,
Greater Than You Think: A Theologian
Answers the Atheists About God
(New York: Hachette, June 2008).
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This study was confined to the U.S. in which the population of atheists is less than 2% as you know. Other studies which examined charitable giving and acts have not shown this result. In fact Sweden and Australia were ranked first in charitable giving in two different recent studies. Both nations are quite secular as you well know. Scandinavian countries and Australia give a much higher percentage of their GDP to poor nations than does religious America when both public and private charities are combined. In fact, secular Australia gave more money to the tsunami victims of 2004 than did religious America on a population base 1/15th the size of the U.S.
Denmark, Norway, and Sweden have much lower crime rates, especially violent crime rates than America, less poverty, and far less inequality. They have universal health care and provide much more assistance for those in need in their societies. And yet less than 5% of their populations attend church, the majority of people reject belief in God, Jesus Christ as their savior, and the divine status of the bible.
So, you can seize on one study and assert your moral superiority but the evidence, as a whole doesn’t support it all. And Friedrich Nietzsche was correct when he said “Christians spend too much time judging.”
Sociological studies have shown for decades that religious people have negative views towards atheists ranking them lower than any of studied group.
Secondly, when you speak of an “ingrained prejudice” on the part of atheists, this is false. The prevalent attitude among the 750,000,000 estimated atheists worldwide and moreover in Europe is indifference towards religion. However, in the U.S. you might consider why many atheists are speaking out against religious institutions and influences in our society from reflection and not something “ingrained.” (It is more commonly the case that “ingrained” beliefs are the result of indoctrination and your institution specializes in that.)
One reason is that sociological studies, many more than the mere two you cited above, have shown a deep intolerance and negative views of atheists to the point where one must virtually be silent to avoid put downs from religious people. Atheists have been consistently rated at the bottom of every group studied, lower than gays and Muslims for example who tend to be negatively viewed. In other words, some of this dislike on the part of atheists is a backlash against being bashed by politicians, clergy, and ordinary citizens who in many cases don’t even know an atheist. For example, the actions of Hitler and Stalin are often falsely presented as having something to do with atheism. But atheists have no more empathy for Hitler or Stalin than do Southern Baptists and it was the Catholic Church which established an official relationship with the Nazi Party in Germany.
Other reasons for this response are the rise of the religious right, its influence in politics and support of what many of us view as plain bigotry. The anti-gay, anti-evolution, anti-stem cell research, and opposition to virtually any form of government assistance for the poor or using the government for the public good has a lot to do with this response. Anti-gay views are almost always grounded in religion, especially yours. And the shameful spin and cover up of the child rapist scandals of your church, its unwarranted insertion into politics with bishops and priests saying that they won’t give communion to certain politicians are other reasons.
So, I invite you to step outside your religious framework briefly and consider the other side and why some people are tired of being referred to as “godless atheists,” blamed for problems that they have nothing to do with, and falsely portrayed as lacking charity. We don’t tiptoe around the issue because the claim is false when you look at the larger picture and you can retire your arrogant claims of moral superiority.
The study you cite is skewed by the fact that the “religious” participants have an organized social heirarchy (their church/diocese etc) and a respected leader—the priest—leading the charge. They give more because they are asked to give more, more often, and see their peers doing so in a communal setting. People without religion have no readily comparable equivalent so you end up comparing the mass giving of relgious congregations with unprompted, inconspicuous acts on individual giving by secular people. I submit that those you term religious would give a lot less were it not for the public ritualization of fundraising.
What we need is for a cohesive, rational, positive secular sense of community and belonging that people used to get from their church, before coming to the realisation that the supernatural and dogmatic elements have no place in modern society and thinking. Man created God, and charity and compassion are human—not divine—values. Athiests can be just as moral and giving, given the right environment and leadership.
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