The two studies produced so far:

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/71-542-...009001-eng.pdf

PDF Page 25:

The amount cited is $1,038 to $295.

http://www.hoover.org/publications/p...w/article/6577

Here's another one:

http://www.independentsector.org/upl...V01keyfind.pdf

Thanks. How would you respond to the following objections?

First, quote your source:

http://rationaldreaming.com/2010/04/...non-believers/

This matters because it seems to be criticizing specific methodological issues related to just one of the three articles.

http://www.hoover.org/publications/p...w/article/6577

This is a question of self-identification versus self-reported actions. The definitions of the groups were given in the earlier part of the study:

I think it's an interesting question to ask, but I wouldn't really call it a "flaw" in the discussion. The question is merely a different one than the one being addressed.

This is similar to zumby's objection, except stated worse. Calling donations to a religious organization a "de facto membership fee" is wrong on many levels. It's not a fixed amount, and it's not something that has any direct consequences (or even theological consequences) for not paying. It's not like you get barred from church if they find you don't give.

Also, if I volunteer in the church's food pantry it doesn't count, but if I volunteer at some other food pantry it does? This sets up a very false dichotomy of the idea of service.

This is addressed in the article:

So while there is and old/young split, it is not reflected in the income.

It is also known that the poor give proportionally more than the rich:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/ma...ln-t.html?_r=1

This doesn't speak to absolute quantities of dollars given, but it does challenge the underlying argument being made.

Oh it is much worse than getting barred, you might get tut-tutted by the old grannies who give you disapproving looks. This is my usual experience if I go to my Mom's church (United, a liberal Canadian denomination). The point is that there are social pressures, and I would submit that this counts as a consequence.

But anyways, I don't have much of a horse in this contest. I took it as obvious that people going to church regularly are going to be more likely to donate money to their church. And I took it as well know that a large portion of churches offer some form of charitable service or other.

I'm prepared to believe it, I mean I guess if I'm going to go ahead and say that religion causes people to do bad things that they otherwise wouldn't, it seems reasonable that it also causes them to do good things as well.

The trick is to avoid eye contact

I'm a little surprised by this, but I also know it's not totally unheard of. For example, I've heard (unconfirmed) statements that the LDS church does financial audits of its members. So I believe things like this happen. And there is a bit of "social pressure" insofar as there is an expectation that you would give if you're a member of the church. Some churches also have membership classes where you sign pledges to do things ("As a member, I will give 10% of my income..."), though in many cases "it's between you and God" and they don't actually intend to come after you if you don't give your full pledged amount (they don't ever ask you what your income is, so they can't hold you to anything).

But I also don't think that it's that common for most independent churches. I've never been audited by my church, and I've never been directly pressured by anyone to put money in the offering plate. (I actually give through my online bill-pay service, so as far as anyone who is watching me in the pews at church, I'm a total free-loader.) I also know pastors who request budget/giving reports with names removed so that it takes away the sense of bias towards the bigger donors.

I don't have numbers. But I do have personal experience with the religious charities that work on LA's skid row. While there are secular facilities, the major missions that feed and house the homeless are all religious. Without them, we'd have people dying in the street.

And other posters need to stop denying Hitchens said religion poisons everything. Those were his exact words.

If I say "politics poisons everything", and someone points out all the good things that politicans did, and I reply "that's not what I meant", it seems to me that's a fatuous defense. Hitchens deliberately portrayed religion as not just false, but evil. He clearly wanted to hold it responsible for 9/11, for instance, or the Crusades. But in fact religion is not evil. It doesn't poison everything. And if his view was that it didn't always posison everything, he should not have said that it did.

Look, I suspect Hitchens knew damned well that religion doesn't poison everything, but he wanted to say something outrageous and polemical to sell books. But that's exactly what OP is pointing to. You can't try to obtain the rhetorical simplicity of the straw man argument and then hide behind the fallacy when someone points out that your rhetorically simple claim is stupid.

If you do a good deed because you believe it’ll help get you into heaven or whatnot, then you’re not doing good for goodness’ sake. So goodness is poisoned by introducing an ulterior motive to the deed. I think that’s what he means.

The context being discussed is this
Therefore it is not unreasonable of me to point out that the studies ITT do not differentiate between donations to charities that help poor people, those that do not, and those that may include some help to poor people as part of a wider charitable program.

I happily agree that some churches spend some proportion of their donations on the poor. However, I stand by the proportion being 'murky' as no-one has provided any data to clarify.

You have conceded there isn't a dollar for dollar correspondence between the amount given that helps the poor when donating to a church vs donating to a specific humanitarian charity. My point is that, if one wants to play a game of moral arithmetic, one needs to be doing the math correctly.

Taking churches out of the equation to make a neutral comparison, if we use the same thought process currently being used to tie together Lawdudes statement with the studies cited, someone who donates $100 to a trade union is doing three times more to help the poor than someone who donates $33 to Amnesty International. I'm sure you can see that this is nonsense.

The data supports the claim that religious people give more money to the broad spectrum of charities and NPOs, not that religious people give more money to the poor. This is the beginning and the end of my point.

Hope this helps.

In fact, just to save you doing a long obfuscating post let me boil it down to a single question:

Q: Please show how much aid is given to the poor from a) religious donations b) non-religious donations, using the data cited.

Given that we both know you can't answer this using data in these studies it follows that my point - that these studies don't neccessarily show that religion increases aid to the poor - is valid.

FWIW, I agree with Mr Beer that I don't have a problem with the idea that the religious are more charitable (one should certainly hope so, given their propensity to claim moral superiority) I just don't accept that "giving to the poor" and "donating to the broad spectrum of charities and NPOs" are the same thing.

Okay. I was discussing within this context:

I maintain that the article contains the false implication, and that it nullifies your usage of that as a reasonable source of information on the topic.

Right now, the evidence is clear that religious people give more in general than non-religious people. If you don't think it extends, fine. But I think you're doing precisely what I'm saying here, and you're on the side who needs to actually produce an argument showing that you're right.

My argument was that the Canadian study didn't bear out Lawdude's claim. I've since dug down into the data and shown that my point is valid. The fact that the article I linked to, which makes a similar criticism, makes a factual error doesn't invalidate my argument.

To keep things clear for those who haven't followed all the links, the article I linked to claims that charities designated as "Religion" do NO humanitarian charity work. This is wrong. In fact, some of these charities do an unspecified amount humanitarian charity work. But the problem runs a little deeper than just the "Religion" NPOs, as the study also includes things like business unions etc which are obviously not what we are talking about when discussing aid to the poor.

Therefore, as Aaron says, it's clear from this study that the religious give more money to charities and NPOs, but says absolutely nothing about how much is given to the poor.

Oh no I don't mean anything quite so direct as audits, or heck this can exist without any ability to verify donations at all. Peer pressure ends up actually changing people's behaviors even in times when there is no independent verification from the group. But people generally end up conforming to the aggregate behavior of the group and, desiring to feel a sense of shared identity with the group, will act in the way the group pressures...in this case donating.

If you say "politics poisons everything" I would let you say a few more words than three to explain the sense in which you mean this. Then I would agree or disagree based on what ever it was you meant by this.

Now you can disagree with the sense in which hitchens means his point. Heck, you can even think that "religion poisons everything" is not an appropriate label for the way he means it. The only stupid thing to do is to impose YOUR meaning on these three words NOT HITCHENS' meaning, and then reject the strawman you created.

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&...giving&f=false

Table 7.1 on page 112

Average amount contributed annually by households to nonreligious charities by members/non-members of religious organizations

But lawdude didn't even bring up that study. You did.

Not really, unless you're making a very BAD definition by rejecting anything that has in-group benefit. I don't see your analysis (reproduced below) as carrying any weight in this conversation:

Which is why I asked if he had a source. I mentioned the Canada study 'in passing' if you like.

Then please answer this:
The question above stands for this data too.

The claim I asked for data on is "religion increases significantly the amount of private aid to poor people". So far, none has been provided. I mean, **** it, I'll say that I think the claim is probably true, but there has been no data that demonstrates it to be true.

I suspect you've got your heels dug into the point where even if it were demonstrated to be true, you'd have a hard time accepting it.

The data you require to be convinced is simply not available. Deal with it. So if you want to be stubborn about it, I'll not bother trying to convince you anymore.

But I suggest that you look up directories of soup kitchens in urban places and take a look at what you see. Here's one for Brooklyn:

http://brooklyn.com/modules.php?name=Food_Pantries

Tell me how many of those you think are not associated with a religious organization of some sort.

Edit: Based on this conversation, I would suspect that you're from a demographic that doesn't actually have that much direct interaction with the local poor in urban settings. Your focus on the international aid organizations suggests that you're primarily helping "at a distance" and not helping in more personal and tangible ways. This might be something worth pursuing for your own benefit (oh, and the benefit of those you end up helping).

This just isn't true. I've said that I think religion probably DOES increases aid to the poor, but for me, it's not about what you know in your heart, it's not about what you want to believe, it's about what you can demonstrate to be true. You'll notice that in Splendours thread here I've tacitly said that the study asdf posted (showing that religious people are less likely to list compassion as a motivating factor for charity) does NOT constitute proof of that claim. Would I like it to be true? Sure. Doesn't mean I'll accept it as proof? **** no.

Agreed.

Not many? Do you see how this is data that actually supports Lawdude's claim while the Canadian study and the right-wing thinktank study you posted do not?

Nah, **** those guys. With no God in the picture I don't need to help anyone.

If you really lived life in this way, you'd probably not do anything at all because of a complete absence of beliefs to guide your thinking. Most of your beliefs are almost certainly not supportable in the way you're requiring for the purposes of this thread, and most of them are probably significantly LESS supportable. It's this type of nonsense position that atheists on this board sometimes take that makes them look dense and clueless.

What a shocker! Not only do YOU not take it as proof, but almost NOBODY takes it as proof. Congratulations? Oh, and we have the "multiple studies" to support the position in this thread.

(Also, why do you *WANT* it to be true? Do you have a desire "to claim moral superiority"?)

I don't see how. Since most of those organizations are religious organizations, they'd be included in the giving totals presented by both groups. Every single data set supports the claim. (I'm surprised, given your "standards of proof," that you find an internet listing more convincing that the studies. I think that merits a psychological study of how you're processing information.)

1) You don't need proof to believe something, but you need to be aware of when your beliefs are not supported by evidence. This whole tedious exchange really boils down to

Lawdude: Religion increases significantly the amount of private aid to poor people.
Zumby: Source?
Aaron W: The data you require to be convinced is simply not available.

Complaining about asking for evidence is only to be expected from a Christian, but even so, this weird rant about skepticism is laughable.

2) This is lol. You accuse me of only accepting evidence that supports my atheism then, when I point out that this is demonstrably not the case, you adopt the position of trying to make out that I'm trying to big myself up when all I'm doing is refuting your point. Lovely stuff.

3) Sure, a directory isn't hard data, but given that the data I've asked for specifically relates to 'helping the poor' it follows that a list of places that help the poor is somewhat more convincing than studies which include all NPOs as one entity.

The distinction is clear, but I guess you're not paying enough attention to your words. Being "convinced" is not the same as "demonstrating" a claim. Because you have a poor sense of what you require, you're creating a very slippery scale in which you're bouncing around among multiple conditions.

Your sense of understanding is now completely useless as you've got the following phrases in play (which all mean different things):
* Probably true
* Believed to be true
* Convinced that it's true
* Demonstrated to be true
Until you clarify the standard that you're *ACTUALLY* looking for, this is all gibberish. You've also got a pretty tenuous hold on your concept of "evidence" but that's an entirely different conversation.

What does any of this have to do with your atheism?

All I can do is shrug at you, because there's literally nothing more of value to say on the topic. Every parsing of the available evidence supports the same conclusion.

My interpretation of this conversation:

Lawdude: Religion increases significantly the amount of private aid to poor people.
*Zumby: I'm insulted because this reflects poorly on me. This can't be true.
Everyone else: It sure looks that way to us.
Zumby: Crap. I'm wrong. But I can't admit it.

* Alternatively: Religious people suck and can't do anything good. This must be false.