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Charity – Secular Liberals vs. Religious Conservatives

While we have been on this subject a bit this bit of information seemed relevant especially since London atheist are assuring us that not one single pence of the £83,000 / $124,392.19 they have raised (as of Oct 23rd) will go towards helping anyone in any way.It now seemed appropriate also to note a study about donations in relation to secular liberals and religious conservatives.

Frank Brieaddy wrote an article entitled Philanthropy Expert: Conservatives Are More Generous, in which he notes:

“Syracuse University professor Arthur C. Brooks is about to become the darling of the religious right in America – and it’s making him nervous.

The child of academics, raised in a liberal household and educated in the liberal arts, Brooks has written a book that concludes religious conservatives donate far more money than secular liberals to all sorts of charitable activities, irrespective of income.
In the book, he cites extensive data analysis to demonstrate that values advocated by conservatives – from church attendance and two-parent families to the Protestant work ethic and a distaste for government-funded social services – make conservatives more generous than liberals.

When it comes to helping the needy, Brooks writes: ‘For too long, liberals have been claiming they are the most virtuous members of American society. Although they usually give less to charity, they have nevertheless lambasted conservatives for their callousness in the face of social injustice.’

He’s a number cruncher who relied primarily on 10 databases assembled over the past decade, mostly from scientific surveys. The data are adjusted for variables such as age, gender, race and income to draw fine-point conclusions.

The book’s basic findings are that conservatives who practice religion, live in traditional nuclear families and reject the notion that the government should engage in income redistribution are the most generous Americans, by any measure.
Conversely, secular liberals who believe fervently in government entitlement programs give far less to charity. They want everyone’s tax dollars to support charitable causes and are reluctant to write checks to those causes, even when governments don’t provide them with enough money.

‘These are not the sort of conclusions I ever thought I would reach when I started looking at charitable giving in graduate school, 10 years ago,’ he writes in the introduction. ‘I have to admit I probably would have hated what I have to say in this book’

_liberals give less than conservatives in every way imaginable, including volunteer hours and donated blood.

Harvey Mansfield, professor of government at Harvard University and 2004 recipient of the National Humanities Medal, does not know Brooks personally but has read the book. ‘His main finding is quite startling, that the people who talk the most about caring actually fork over the least,’ he said. ‘But beyond this finding I thought his analysis was extremely good, especially for an economist. He thinks very well about the reason for this and reflects about politics and morals in a way most economists do their best to avoid.’”


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