Comments on: Would You Donate?

By: Mriana

Mriana — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 01:34:07 +0000

You know, RevoLutheran, I was thinking pretty much the same thing ever since I saw this thread. I give to the WWF, but just because they care for wildlife doesn’t mean they are non-theists or theists. At the same time, if there was a group of hungry children and someone was helping them and needed help, I wouldn’t be asking if they are religious or not. I’d try to help some how. It makes no sense to worry about secular or religious when a group of people need assistance.

By: RevoLutheran

RevoLutheran — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 18:17:27 +0000

I’m a Christian, so I’m going to look at the question the other way. I would absolutely give money to an organization doing any work I believe in. If someone is feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, taking in orphans, educating the impoverished, protecting the abused, taking a stand for the environment, providing drugs for the AIDS pandemic, or otherwise making the world a better place for people to live in, I would give the money regardless of whether the organization is Christian, Jewish, secular, or whatever…and I would do so believing that it is the Christian thing to do. (I know that not all Christians agree, but that’s my stance.)

I acknowledge that the logic might not work analogously in reverse, but I doubt anyone is trying to use the Thanksgiving dinner as a recuitment tool for Christianity. My advice: do whatever you think is the right thing to do. It sounds like you want to do something to help the homeless, so if you decide not to donate, you might wan to try to find another way to help. Maybe you could talk to the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless if you need ideas — http://www.chicagohomeless.org/

By: Rob Linford

Rob Linford — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 00:35:14 +0000

I am definitely an atheist and I have no problem (and do) donate money to the Union Gospel Mission. It is about the only place a homeless person can find a hot meal and a bed during a 10 degree night here in Spokane. How could anyone not support them? 100% of the money goes to food and operating expenses. The proselytizing is free of cost and donated by the folks that are kind enough to work there. If there was an atheist mission I would send my money there, but there isn’t, and without my and others support homeless people would be freezing to death up here. Besides, if “Finding Jesus” raises a drunk or drug addict out of the gutter and saves their life, who am I to say that’s a bad thing. I don’t understand it and think it’s bizarre, but being delusional is better than being dead.

There are certainly religious organizations that help people which I cant donate to because the ratio of proselytizing vs. helping is skewed towards the bible. I believe a lot of African missionary work falls in this category.

I personally think it takes a black heart to avoid donating to something like the Union Gospel Mission simply because it is Christian based and the poor folk have to listen to a prayer before they eat their only hot meal of the day. People who are so virulently anti religious that they cant accept that sometimes religious based organizations do good need to lighten up, or at least prove they don’t have a black heart and start their own religion free aid organization.

By: Slut

Slut — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 00:06:03 +0000

I prefer not to give money to religious organizations. There are other secular charities which I support instead. I also pay taxes and vote Democratic, because I think it’s important for society to provide the safety net and social services these people need.

Religious organizations are great at making you feel sorry for people on religious holidays but the problem is much bigger than one meal on one day of the year. I know if I donate to a religious group at least part of the money and time will be spent on trying to indoctrinate people into their religious beliefs. To me, the harm that does is worse than the potential hunger.

By: Maria

Maria — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:53:05 +0000

I agree. By all means do your homework and find a charity whose methods you wholeheartedly support. The important thing is that you give. It is supremely unimportant whose team gets to take credit for it.

well said!

I’m seeing some confusion here. Mighty Favog wrote, for instance, “It occurred to me that we might ask the reverse: “’should the religious donate to help people knowing that their donation may be used to fund atheist activities?’” Maybe I’m mistaken, but I supposed/assumed that a secular charity would not require its beneficiaries to listen to a 2-minute sermonette by Ayn Rand or Bertrand Russell before feeding them. I thought a secular charity would just provide the service without “services” of any kind. But various people here seem to suppose that atheists wouldn’t feed the hungry without preaching for our side. Are they right? I wouldn’t like to support an atheist charity that did that either, and I’m an atheist.

good points. I agree

By: Jimbo-b

Jimbo-b — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:50:53 +0000

I prefer not to donate to religious organizations. I’m sure they do a lot of good, but you never know what underlying agenda they might have; such as spreading the gospel, etc.
When being direct with my charitable acts, I would prefer either working at a soup kitchen or sponsoring a child as others have suggested.
But when it comes to charity donations, I think the best idea is to think outside of local communities. Donate money to UNICEF and other worldwide organizations. People in America (even the poor!) have is good compared to other countries. I’m not trying to be callous toward homeless Americans, but from a utilitarian perspective, third world countries need our charity more than we need it.

By: Mike C

Mike C — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:45:17 +0000

I don’t think there has to be a huge amount of hand-wringing over this issue. Figuring out whether a charity makes good use of resources and is in line with your values is the responsible thing to do. Whether non-proseletyzing is one of the criteria is nobody else’s business. It’s not as if there is a scarcity of organizations needing donations, I would think it would be quite easy to find one where you could donate without misgivings.

I agree. By all means do your homework and find a charity whose methods you wholeheartedly support. The important thing is that you give. It is supremely unimportant whose team gets to take credit for it.

By: monkeymind

monkeymind — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 15:47:17 +0000

Steven has a point. The whole “we give more, no you don’t” argument is a turnoff.
I don’t think there has to be a huge amount of hand-wringing over this issue. Figuring out whether a charity makes good use of resources and is in line with your values is the responsible thing to do. Whether non-proseletyzing is one of the criteria is nobody else’s business. It’s not as if there is a scarcity of organizations needing donations, I would think it would be quite easy to find one where you could donate without misgivings.

By: Dave

Dave — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 15:36:13 +0000

In my experience Catholic charities don’t generally proselytize do the recipients of the charity, as do many of the Protestant ones.

I’ve been to both Catholic run and Protestant run soup kitchens and the Catholic ones don’t require attendance at a service, whereas the Protestant makes everyone sing silly Christian songs and listen to someone berate them for a few minutes before chowing down.

By: Karen

Karen — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 15:13:30 +0000

I agree with Mike C.: Most of the poor and homeless who came to my church for help with food were already fervent Christians. Or at least, they knew the lingo and used it when they were getting help from the food co-operative that I founded and ran as a volunteer for several years.

We did not insist that those who participated make any confession of faith, pray or listen to a sermon. This idea was controversial amongst the church-members, but I felt that was demeaning for those of different religions who wanted to participate. Eventually the church assigned a pastor to come down to the co-op on food distribution days to talk to people who were interested in listening to the gospel.

But the vast majority – 60-70% – were already Christians or lapsed Christians and they knew the gospel message inside-out.