Fundie Claim #13: Atheists and charity
6/15/2008 | 11:40 PM | Evolved Rationalist
Fundie: Christian missionaries preach the gospel to the most remote areas of this globe. They build churches, schools, hospitals, and so on. What about atheists? Where are the atheist charitable organizations? Atheists do not do charity in the name of atheism, but Christians do charity in the name of Christianity. What is the point of getting rid of religion then? It still does not make any differences nor does it contribute anything to the betterment of the world.
How does preaching the gospel alleviate the suffering of the hungry children in the war-torn countries all over the world? Or is the gospel preached so that god won’t damn those suffering people to hell after their deaths for not licking Jesus’ feet and thanking him for having a divine purpose in their suffering? The fact that Christians really believe in this makes me feel nauseated.
I am not denying that Christian aid and volunteer workers have done good deeds, but let’s take a look at a quote below:
"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." [Albert Einstein]
When Christians do good deeds solely for the sake of their religion, they remain forever on the lowest stages of moral development. As Kohlberg puts it, they are simply slaves to doctrines that they follow because of fear of eternal damnation and their wish to suck up to their sky daddy. Therefore, they remain infantile, lacking the ability to think for themselves. Such Christians often claim that their religion makes them incredibly moral, but what they don’t realize is that their moral development has been stunted by their blind adherence to Christian doctrine.
Atheists perform good deeds as they are aware of the need for the betterment of humanity, not for the selfish purpose of earning oneself points in heaven. Unlike Christian hypocrites, atheists don’t see the need to equate atheism with charity for propaganda or selfish purposes. Atheism is just an ordinary everyday matter, and so is charity. Using charity as an excuse to propagate a particular set of religious beliefs is nothing more than a cheap evangelistic ploy.
Churches often organize charitable activities for their members to participate in, while atheists, having no comparable social structure often individually participate in charities (many atheists also participate in theistic societies in addition to secular ones such as the Red Cross). Again, I know through my own personal experience in volunteer work that many atheists do participate in charity. The only difference is that we don't do it because we are atheists. We don’t need to get on our atheistic high horses and loudly proclaim this fact to the whole world. We feel that things like these simply needs to be done for the well-being of our fellow humans, not for the benefit of getting ourselves into an imaginary paradise.
There are many other atheist and nonreligious charity organizations out there, and this fact will remain true no matter how many lies the Christians tell to make atheists look like evil, heartless baby-eaters. The Atheist Alliance International, International Humanist and Ethical Union and The Thomas Paine Foundation are among the scores of other godless charity organizations across the globe. There are many more to be found if a fundie is willing to do a simple internet search instead of blabbering on and on ignorantly.
A Christian who does good deeds only because he wants to earn points with in heaven or to advertising his faith is arguably is acting from purely selfish motives. On the other hand, an atheist seeks to improve the lives of other human beings who are in need without trumpeting a particular set of beliefs. Think about it, and decide who the truly compassionate one really is.
Would we be better off without religion? Put plainly, religion is like a parasite that causes humans to invest time, energy, money and resources in building and maintaining institutions devoted to ignorance and superstition. Think about it: For every church or mosque built, how many hungry mouths could be fed? How many hospitals could be built with the money that is wastefully squandered to build the biggest, grandest looking church in town? Can’t all the money that is spent on the likes of, say, the Vatican be used to actually contribute to the betterment of humankind?
Religious people take great pains to toady to their invisible sky-daddy without realizing that all their effort and resources could be used to actually help people in the here and now? Their focus on the afterlife and Jesus-ass licking is a wasteful disgrace and a landmark of hypocrisy in people who claim that Christianity (or religion) is the cure to the world’s problems.
For goodness sake, how could you fundie fools contribute more to the world through religion when you’re so freakishly obsessed with the afterlife, sins and guilt?
Posted in
Atheist Refutation of Fundie Claims
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Great post Sha-, er, I mean, Evolved!
ER, if you don't mind me tooting by own blog a bit, here is one thing that every atheist blogger should be doing.
Sorry, meant "my own blog"!
Who is 'Sha-'?
I noticed you have the RRS badge on your sidebar. Are you aware of what happened between Greydon Square and Brian Sapient last weekend?
Are you aware of what happened between Greydon Square and Brian Sapient last weekend?
Yes. I was at the convention.
Yes. I was at the convention.
Wait, I wasn't... What happened?
Actually on the topic, it's MUCH EASIER to get charity tax status if you've got "Church of" in your name. Or so I've heard.
Wait, I wasn't... What happened?
Ahhh. Caught up now. Yipes.
Exactly. Look at how much time is wasted on the religion when it could be spent on actually helping people.
In Christianity a Christian is supposed to reach a point where he works ot because God tells him to but because he wants to out of his love for God and his love for others.
A Christians duty is to God and Man
An Atheists duty is to Man alone.
Despite one superficial difference they are on exactly the same level.
My favorite argument is that secular hospitals are just called "Hospital", without having to draw atention to the fact where the money came from.
Also, you missed one of the bigger secular charities: The red cross.
Yes, they're secular, don't let the cross (or crescent moon) fool you.
Sciencefreak,
It is Shalini Sehkar!! EXPOSED!!!!!!!
You know another common fundie claim?
"My two year old is possessed by demons, so I had to kill him."
It's all the rage. There are demons lurking everywhere. Superstition uber alles.
I think its a real stretch to claim that many or even most religious charity workers do what they do because of fear of hellfire.
You're quite right about the apparent invisibility of secular charity efforts, and the reason: that atheists are only atheists insofar as anyone brings up religion. At all other times, we're just members of whatever group happens to do be doing something we care about or think is worth fighting for. Tossing in advertising for atheism just doesn't come up.
Although atheist do charity sometimes, it is nothing because they will still end up in hell. Repent!
Shalini Sehkar has been EXPOSED!!
Christislord is RIGHT!!!!!
We WIN the debate!!!!!!! I am not an ape!
Mike Huckabee for America!
Creationist, let us defend our faith and defeat the Darwinists!
Huckabee is a Godly man, but didn't he quit now???????
Quit what? Vote Huckabee 2008!
Get a life, trolls.
Creationist and Christislord12, why aren't either of you trying to address ER's claim that Christians do charity for shallow reasons?
'Cos neither of them are real people. They're just to add comic relief. It would be silly if they started to put forward serious debate since they're probably both Ms. Sehkar or a colleague and it would be like she's arguing with herself.
As to charity. Yes, stop praying, use the time you would have spent praying to do something tham makes money (I dunno, mow lawns or wash cars) and donate the money to a charity. Much better. As opposed to people who don't even give money but "remember the unfortunate in their prayers", which does no good and costs them nothing.
I've always found prayer theologically dodgey anyway. Why pray? If implies that either god didn't know about the problem or that you can change his mind. Either way it's not good for the concept of an omniscient or omnipotent god is it.
Shalanonymous you wade into a thicket of difficulties here. Good deeds? Compassion? Feeding the hungry? Who says that any of these things are transcendent moral good? You do which only proves that you cannot adhere to your own worldview.
If there is no God then there can be no transcendent standard of morality. If there is no transcendent standard of morality, then there can be no absolute definition of what is good and evil. It is all just opinions and your opinion is nice and fine, but what gives you the right to foist it on other people?
What you are really doing here is taking Christian conceptions of what is good and right and acting as if they are applicable to all humans (which we also believe!). Thanks so much for proving that you cannot live in an evolutionary framework and for the excellent apologetic for a God-given Moral Law. You truly are an evangelist!
Bollocks! A secular morality is SUPERIOR to that held as part of a religious belief because then you do the right thing because it is right, not because of a big beard in the sky.
Morality and altruism evolved as part of our social behaviour. You can have a transcendent standard of morality based on the standards set by the society you live in. And yes, they do change. So what. Some people who were held as moral paragons in the past would probably be seen as right bastards now. Nevertheless, the golden rule "treat others as you would wish to be treated" holds true, which is why it has been discovered again and again (it's not unique to the bible).
Religious morality hung itself on a pre-existing moral structure, and added to it to maintain it's power and hold over the population.
Social darwinism wouldn't have any truck with charity. If they couldn't look after themselves then sod 'em would be its take. Social darwinism is in fact in direct opposition to the evolved altruism which is the part of basis of our moral code.
The christian moral code is based on this, so there is much we agree on, but intellectually we can go further. Equal rights for women for example (shock!) or allowing legal same sex partnerships (horror!). Nothing wrong with that.
There is a balance between freedom and responsibility that has to be part of a social moral framework, otherwise we collapse in anarchy, back down to the most primitive of human societies. Our modern society is a work in progress, a great experiment, and nobody quite knows where it's going to go. Might be that in 100 years it'll have turned into something I'd abhore, neverthess the standards of that morality have to be enforced to some degree for the stability society requires, yet being flexible enough to change as times change. Not an easy balance, but much more preferable to waving some religious text and demanding total unchanging adherence.
Alright lets set a few things straight;
first of all most religious people doing charity spend less then 1% of their time praying and the other 99% of their time doing. Saying that parayer is impeding Christian charity is about as ridiculous askling for funds is impeding Atheist charity. My church does to car washes, raise funds, etc. We don't just sit in a dark room and pray all day like you seem to think.
Second of all no one believes in a man with a beard in the sky, the modern concept of God is not that primitive, sorry.
And thirdly what is the difference between a society founded on the rules of the society alone and a society founded on the morals of a religion? They are essentially the exact same thing. Both are constant, both are reliable. I don't have a problem with women's rights or the rights of any gender for that matter. The bible may not change as a body of teachings but it does allow laws to be changed and new laws to be made. There is no problem in my opinion with having a moral system based off the bible but also have a secular legal structure.
Yes perhaps some Christians don't spend enough time serving others but that doesn't mean all of them do, and very few of them do it out of fear of hellfire for the simple fact that charity is not going to get you into heaven in the first place.
Ponder said: "You can have a transcendent standard of morality based on the standards set by the society you live in. And yes, they do change."
Umm...transcendent would mean "true for all people at all times in all cultures." Perhaps you could use a little study in logic because "transcendent morality" and "change" are mutually incompatible.
There are moral absolutes that cut across all societies- care for the children, respect life, try to treat others with the compassion and dignity that you would yourself like to be treated and look after the world, it's the only one we've got (at the moment).
Some studies to contemplate atheism and morality:
http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html
http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2006a/032406/032406h.htm
http://pressesc.com/news/80931072007/atheist-doctors-more-likely-care-poor-religious-ones
http://www.adherents.com/largecom/baptist_divorce.html