Atheists and agnostics are more driven by compassion to help others than are highly religious people, a 2012 study found. That doesn’t mean highly religious people don’t give, according to the research published in the July 2012 issue of the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. But compassion seems to drive religious people’s charitable feelings less than other groups.
“Overall, we find that for less religious people, the strength of their emotional connection to another person is critical to whether they will help that person or not,” study co-author and University of California, Berkeley social psychologist Robb Willer said in a statement. “The more religious, on the other hand, may ground their generosity less in emotion, and more in other factors such as doctrine, a communal identity, or reputational concerns.”
The statistics on charitable giving appear to be badly skewed, in the US anyway. In the United States people are pleased to tell you that they collectively give more than any other country to charity. But their high level of giving is partly to churches, for expenditure on bricks, mortar and the income of the clergy. It also goes towards the conversion of benighted heathens in foreign lands, and this is regarded by many as socially divisive (for instance, see the current mayhem in Nigeria, caused by a white-induced conversion of southern Nigerian tribes under colonial rule).
Epicureans would say that there is nothing wrong with giving to churches, but it is on a par with giving to a local sports club, book club or community centre; it is not charitable giving. It caters to those anxious to be accepted by a local group. Charitable giving is to the sick, the homeless, the poor, the mentally ill, to those less fortunate than yourself. The extant evidence shows no mention of charity in the writings of Epicurus, but you can be sure that he would have been generous. An important aspect of Epicureanism is creating a world where everyone has a fair deal, and gets along with everyone else and the poor and hope-less are cared for.
I wonder who conducted this study, and how representative their population .How valid and reliable is it?
Most socially compassionate endeavours were started by christians… i.e. hospitals, schools, attempts to stop the slave trade; orphanages, etc. and nearer to my time and place, the food banks so needed in Britain at the moment – they too, are started and run by … Christians. Thousands of pounds are given by Christians to Tear Fund and other Christian Agencies which feed and educate many in third world countries.
As for the psychology of giving; yes, Christians are told to give and not to count the cost, and that can be seen as a ‘doctrine’, but I can vouch for the genuine compassion felt amongst my co-religionists for the refugees around the world; the hungry and the abused.
On an academic note, empathy is evenly distributed over the poplulation. Individually, it can be measured on a continuum between zero (the extreme psychopath for instance) and very high. Christians have no more nor less than anyone else.
Another doctrine worth mentioning: “When you give to the needy, don’t announce it….to be honoured by men…but when you give to the needy don’t let your right hand know what your left is doing that your giving may be in secret.” Matthew Chapter 6.
So how do these researchers know how much Christians are giving???
I don’t know much about the survey or how reliable it is. But, despite the rule that Christians shouldn’t advertise their charitable giving, there is a feeling that they seem to assume that, as a group, they are the only ones giving. I don’t really think it has much to do with the religion or lack of it. You are either generous- minded or you are not.