People of faith tend to give a higher percentage of discretionary income to charity? Wow. Of those that give, some of their gifts go so religious based charities as opposed to secular? Color me shocked. Really, this is a "dog bites man" study. Nothing surprising here.

That's why the non-religious are more charitable when it comes to, you know, actual charity.

Many people of faith donate time, which would not be reflected in the data. Or donate product to a food pantry and claim no deduction. No gripe with anyone who chooses to help those with less, regardless of motivation.

But donating to a food pantry is actual charity. Paying a Mormon missionary's travel expenses is not.

Or teaching ESOL classes. Or Citizenship classes. Some just doesn't show on a balance sheet. Paying a missionary's travel expenses can be as well.

It's a blasphemous misuse of the word to think otherwise.

Charity is helping the needy, not helping the non-needy.

When a portion of the proceeds goes to pay the salaries of the executives that run the organization?

The problem, we see, is that church going charity does not create a better society for people when we look at the data for the south. Fewest college graduates, most out-of-wedlock pregnancies, less social mobility... while states who tax and spend the money to level the playing field in their nations have better outcomes on all these issues - and they're also far less religious.

So, religion is a failure, as far as improving the living conditions in a state or nation compared to nations that don't rely upon religion, or those whose populations shun religious ideology in favor of redistribution of wealth to create more egalitarian societies.

That's what the discussion should really be about. Is charitable giving a substitute for adequate social policy in a nation?

Obviously the answer is no.

It does not necessarily follow that those poor, uneducated persons giving birth to children out of wedlock are particularly religious.

You still didn't answer the question. If tithing to a church doesn't qualify as charity because some of the proceeds pay the pastor then any charitable organization that pays it's staff falls under the same standard. This is not a zero sum exercise; many faith-based programs operate beside secular programs and both provide assistance.

You are trying to pretend that religious influence in those states is not related to the higher rates of out-of-wedlock births? It doesn't matter if the person is religious or not.

If the culture is such, this will have an impact upon things like access to birth control or reliable information about the same, the cultural pressure to forgo birth control to be able to maintain a fiction about "who does, who doesn't" etc.

The point is that the states with the highest rates of religious giving correspond to the states with the higher rates of fundamentalist religious believers and those states ALL have the WORST outcomes on social policy in this nation.

Since their beliefs reject social policies that improve the quality of life for people in nation after nation - it doesn't really matter if united way is paying a staff or if some church is. The point is that religion is a NEGATIVE for quality of life indices on important issues in the U.S. and around the world.

The more religious an area is, the worse the human rights record is as well.

that there is a direct, causal link between the degree of religious belief and the presence of a higher rate of out of wedlock birth. Causation is not correlation, after all. Still didn't answer the initial question, I see. So, if tithing is not charity because some of the proceeds pay the pastor then it follows that gifts to the United Way also are not charity as some of the proceeds go to pay the salaries of the executives.

and the information is out there if you want to know. If you look at the prevailing belief in a state or region and look at what the belief states about birth control and then look at the rate of out-of-wedlock births, oh sure, that's not absolute causation, but on the other hand, those parts of the nation that do not engage in this religious belief system have fewer residents who suffer the outcome of the religious belief system.

Higher rates of out-of-wedlock births

http://www.livescience.com/5728-teen-birth-rates-higher-highly-religious-states.html

The failure of abstinence-only sex education.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/02/20/3310751/abstinence-failures-charts/

Surely I don't need to post a million links that indicate abstinence-only sex education is a product of religious belief and that conservatives, for instance, worked with the Bush administration to deny funds to African nations when condom availability and information, especially for women in those nations, was part of the mix, do I? You can look that one up yourself. They have contributed to the spread of AIDS by a refusal to admit condom use works better than preaching abstinence.

Here's information about religious belief, evolution and quality of life in various nations, as well as the U.S. Religious belief interferes with people's understanding of science, and evolution in particular, and, obviously, reproductive science since, again, out-of-wedlock births are the product of abstinence-only education, while comprehensive sex education is not.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002185204

Along the same lines - people who are authoritarian parents are more likely to have children who abuse drugs. Who is more likely to take this all or nothing stance? Those with authoritarian belief systems. Where are those authoritarian belief systems located? Within fundamentalist belief systems.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025098917

Religious charitable giving includes fund drives to build mega churches, not just a pastor's salary, btw. THE POINT of this, however, is that conservatively religious states in this nation are failures for their citizens. With one exception - the Mormon church, which provides a social safety net to its members in Utah.

I don't give a shit if part of charitable giving goes to a pastor or an executive's salary when the data indicates that religious charitable giving is a failure and no substitute for sound social policy.

That was my point. Again, don't give a shit about salaries. Give a shit about outcomes.

Since we also know, from data, that western nations with low numbers of conservative religious believers are also the nations with the highest quality of life indices and if we know, and we do, that religious conservatives demonize "socialism" as "ungodly" - because it removes power from them, and decreases membership in places where people feel coerced to belong to a religion in order to be able to survive (see Utah, as well as the south), it's pretty clear that religion has a negative impact upon quality of life by the very nature of the beliefs it teaches.

so you can sit in a better pew or pay a guy who can soothe your conscience or perhaps get a better spot in the old afterlife. Call me cynical, but my experience has been that many of those giving to their church get something back for themselves or their family.

I took the first relevant google search link I came to, so there may be an actual breakdown by state too, if I dig a little deeper.

From the article:

A new study released by The Chronicle of Philanthropy seems to suggest that the most religious states (especially in the South) are also the most charitable:



But take a look at that wording: “Both to religious and to secular groups”… In other words, church counts as charity? Money you give to fatten your megachurch pastor’s wallet and proselytize to people counts as charity? Doesn't that skew the results?

Well, let’s see what happens when you exclude donations given to churches and religious groups. When you do that, the least religious states (in the Northeast) take the lead:



http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/08/22/are-atheists-being-stingy-when-it-comes-to-charity

Plenty of churchgoers give to their churches, and then they figure they've done their bit and won't contribute a cent (or a second of time) to any other charitable group or cause.

Many of the charities they do support are faith based and get rolled into the global number. Whatever your motivation; assisting those who are struggling is a good thing.

That's why I didn't say, "ALL churchgoers ... etc. etc."

I don't think the study really proves much of anything. Faith based people would be expected to steer their charitable giving to faith based programs; secular based people to more secular based programs.

Might be pressure to conform.

Or, more cynically, trying to bribe their way to heaven.

A lot of churches pressure people HEAVILY to donate. And guilt them if they refuse.

And collection plate. My theory from observing Southern Baptist Churches is that some of that money goes away to their national conventions while most is recycled to those same parishes for paid staff, programming, etc.

I see the charitable effects of such giving as modest to mediocre in terms of help for the many.

They are bastions of hate for cult members. It is indeed a shame that churches cannot find a way to live behind their walls instead of trying to promote their childish beliefs and assert their mind control agendas onto unsuspecting children incapable of comprehending the evil to which they are being subjected.

Preachers scream "Tithe" and they pass the plate sometimes two or three times a service. This shouldn't count as 'from the heart' giving.

It's a well known and studied problem with survey data about behavior. People will understate "negative behavior" (drugs, drinking, etc.) and overstate "positive" behavior (charitable, church attendance, exercise, etc.) even when the surveys are anonymous.

in areas like Utah where their religion is dominant, tithing is "required". More than likely, your boss is Mormon and someone on the church finance committee will ask him how much you make.