Kiva is “the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs around the globe.” Guess who are the top group lenders there?
That’s right, atheists! So far, they’ve lent $611,500 dollars.
If you haven’t already, please consider signing up and joining the kiva atheist community.
4,900 subscribers. 10,000 daily views.
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49 Comments
Ah, I see the Christians are giving them a run for their money ;)
Lended?
Can’t bring yourself to say lent? :-)
Ha, yes, lent is much more correcter. :)
Nope, sorry. Start searching for denominations. Don’t just type in “Christian;” type in “Presbyterian” or “Catholic.” This may prove that atheists are more clanny, but certainly not more generous.
I would hope they really weren’t the top if you combine all the other groups! Obviously atheists are a minority, so that would be crazy if it were true.
However, your “nope, sorry” is wrong. They are, in fact, the top kiva group.
Hmm.. Not really. If you add up the number of loans, or the number of members, or the total loaned for all of the search results for both Presbyterian and Catholic, and add that to “Kiva Christians”, it’s still not close to the totals for the atheists/non-religious group.
I think this is pretty interesting, considering many sky-daddy lovers consider themselves to be morally superior and more generous than devilish, “self-centered” non-believers.
From my experience, most think this, but when you really press them, they’ll admit that non-believers can be just as generous as believers. But it doesn’t qualify as being actually “good” because it’s not done out of a love of God/Jesus/Allah/Baal. It’s sad the way some folks think.
Which is all a bit arse about face, isn’t it? I mean, theists are good out of *fear* of their imaginary sky-daddy, whereas atheist are nice for the sake of being nice. Ergo, we rule and theists fail.
“No such thing as a “Sky-Daddy”..”
Perhaps there is such a thing in “fairy tales”. ‘Sound familiar? According to you, “fairy tales are true”—your own words(have bitten you in the a$$ again)
If adopting a child-like “faith” can make one “fairy tale” true, it can make *any* fairy tale true.
You can’t have it both ways, despite your daily insistance that you can.
Normally you make sense (from a “reasonable” standpoint) but not this time Boomslang. What does that have to do with anything I have ever said about fairy tales? Im not following you this time.
John C….”Normally you make sense (from a ‘reasonable’ standpoint) but not this time Boomslang.”
If, a) I am normally “reasonable”, and b) you haven’t altered or honestly questioned your beliefs based on anything I say….then until/unless you explain otherwise, I can say your beliefs are unreasonable.
Continues…..”What does that have to do with anything I have ever said about fairy tales? Im not following you this time.”
At a previous time, in a previous discussion, John C said…
“fairy tales are true”.
At a previous time, in a previous discussion, John C. said….
One needs to adopt a “child-like faith”[paraphrased] to understand his personal beliefs.
If one “fairy tale” can be “true”, so can another. That’s my point. I don’t think you are quite this obtuse; I think you get my meaning.
Was that reply on the wrong post, boomslang?
No such thing as a “Sky-Daddy”, at least not in Christianity-Jesus didnt model that, the truth is much…closer to you than in the proverbial “sky”. I thought you would have learned at least this little nugget by now Mcblog’s, :).
Agreed =)
lol…
Did you have anything pertinent to say to the topic or do you just always have to protest the terminology we use? It’s not like in the back of my mind, I’m thinking, well John says this all the time so I have to watch my words or he’ll correct me. If anyone needs correcting around here, it is you. Do you understand what metaphors are???
I think this is pretty interesting, considering many sky-daddy lovers consider themselves to be morally superior and more generous than devilish, “self-centered” non-believers.
I don’t see how this website really tells us anything about the morality of either group. At the very most, it’s anecdotal. There’s one website (that most of us have never heard of before now?) in which atheists give more money than other groups. And by give I we mean lend.
Is it more morally desirable to lend money than to not lend money? Personally, I don’t think so. But, even if it were, we can’t know much about religious/a-religious groups from this one example.
If you added all of the Christian denominations together and pitted them against the atheist/humanist (I’ll even give you “Flying Spaghetti Monster”), you’d get a different, and less convenient, result. But it matters little, in any case. I would never claim that atheists are less moral. But probably not more.
I think your effort to keep pointing this out has revealed an interesting point. Believers seem to have the tendency to keep from banding together.
They can’t even stand one another!
This is possible, albeit unlikely, but in any case beside the point. You seem to be utilizing “Creationist Tactic” #9:
http://unreasonablefaith.com/2009/06/18/creationist-tactics/
It was a joke. You know, stretching the truth to be funny?
You’re right; I overreacted to an innocent observation. I apologize, Daniel.
No problem, thanks for the apology.
Not so fast, bucky. It’s a nice statistic, although be aware of hidden biases. You’re only looking at a single cross-section of society – those who use the internet, as Kiva appears to be ‘net based; those who are comfortable using Paypal as opposed to credit cards – which may represent a larger chunk of the atheist demographic than the Christian demographic. I’d be more convinced if this was, for example, direct debits (do you have those in the US? Like standing orders or something?).
For example, if you break down the numbers (just looking at Atheists vs “Kiva Christians”); while the average loan is about the same (~$30), the average donation per member is about $137 for Atheists and $216 for christians. The difference in the numbers simply reflects the fact that there are more atheists on Kiva, not that Atheists are on average more generous than Christians. Personally, based solely on this data, I’d take the opposite conclusion.
Also, given the fact that you do (in theory) get your money back from Kiva, does this really reflect a tendency in either party toward “charitable giving”?
Well I’m not sure if charity can be described as — if I do this I’ll get to spend eternity in paradise and if I don’t do this I’ll be punished for eternity.
Find me a single Christian who believes this. In my experience, you’re more likely to find Christians who believe that if they give freely to charity and those who need it in this world, then God will provide for them – in this world.
It may be tangentially connected – I have a theory that for many Christians their religion runs on low self esteem (“I am a horrible, filthy, sinful, bad person and I completely depend on the Jesus in order to be anything else”); and I think charitable giving may be an attempt to demonstrate that they have reformed, or at least salve their aching consciences. But most of the Christians I know would view what you describe as trying to buy your redemption, and most of them (the ones who paid attention in church anyway) would agree that you can’t do that, either with good deeds or with money, becaused redemption comes through grace.
Also, bear in mind that there is no genuine altruism – everything you do must have a benefit to yourself, even if it’s only psychological. I used to do charity collection at university, and we described it (to each other) as “selling peace of mind” to passers by.
I have a personal hunch that christians do give a lot more to charity than atheists, and not out of fear of hell or their own conscience, but simply because it’s (often) enshrined and emphasised in their institutions. Atheists, as has been mentioned before, do not really have a proper institution. It’d be interesting to do a survey of the charitable giving of those who identify as “secular humanist” as well as “atheist” give more than those who identify simply as “atheist”.
Find me a single Christian who believes this. In my experience, you’re more likely to find Christians who believe that if they give freely to charity and those who need it in this world, then God will provide for them – in this world.
I can’t speak for Catholics — there is the entire theology about merit and good works that accrues in heaven — but for Protestants, I think that’s partially fair. Because salvation is through grace, what we do doesn’t ‘earn’ us anything. I know plenty of Christians who believe that if they do give to others, God will meet their needs. Which leads naturally into your comment…
Also, bear in mind that there is no genuine altruism – everything you do must have a benefit to yourself, even if it’s only psychological. I used to do charity collection at university, and we described it (to each other) as “selling peace of mind” to passers by.
I don’t understand altruism to mean that there are not benefits but rather that those benefits are not the motivator for action. For example, if I volunteer as a mentor (which I do), I will invariably derive some sense of satisfaction — perhaps my mentee thanks me or praises me to his peers or our case worker. An altruistic action doesn’t preclude that sense of satisfaction but is rather an action that is taken for its own sake. I mentor because there are hundreds of thousands of children in my state who need a stable adult figure in their lives; it’s the right thing to do.
It may be tangentially connected – I have a theory that for many Christians their religion runs on low self esteem
Maybe. Maybe not. I have no idea how one would go about testing this, other than contracting a professional research institution. In any case, that’s certainly not what drives my faith or my charitable acts.
I have a personal hunch that christians do give a lot more to charity than atheists, and not out of fear of hell or their own conscience, but simply because it’s (often) enshrined and emphasised in their institutions.
Ah, but there are a lot of things that are enshrined and emphasized in Christian institutions that are mostly ignored by large numbers of the actual Christians who make up these institutions. For example, I haven’t seen any evidence whatsoever that Christians cheat on their spouses less than atheists – yet their institutions have enshrined and emphasized the idea of marital fidelity for a very long time.
And why would atheists need an institution to enshrine good behavior?
Well my comment was slightly tongue in cheek but there still is the question of whether morally believers are in a worse position because acts of kindness as supposed to be for their own sake with no reward but it is also taught that being a good person will gain you entry to heaven. The non-believer giving to charity has no concept of heaven as a reward.
With you other point of why you feel that believers give more. I’m not sure if it’s not more to do with believers being involved in institutions and therefore having the opportunity to give to charity is much greater. In any organisation it only takes one person to have the idea to support a charity for more to join in. Non-believers are not exposed to this type of environment in general. A simple example is charity giving at work — who gives when the wouldn’t have really thought about it and who also gives because they feel embarrassed not to? A second point is that believers are often giving to charities which may be seen to support there own cause i.e. charitable giving tied up with spreading the word.
Of course all this is purely speculative but in my experience this is no fundamental correlation between belief/non-belief and charity.
because acts of kindness as supposed to be for their own sake with no reward but it is also taught that being a good person will gain you entry to heaven
A fundamental doctrine of the Protestant Reformation was exactly the opposite of what you just claimed, i.e., good works are not meritorious.
So entry to heaven is based on what exactly — don’t worry about being a ‘good’ person as long as you beleive in god?
For Protestants, salvation isn’t based on 1) One’s actions or 2) One’s beliefs. Rather, it is based on Jesus and the grace that is given as a gift through him.
don’t worry about being a ‘good’ person
I didn’t say that the Reformers argued that being a good person is unimportant, just that it’s not salvific. The only way such a doctrine is problematic is if one assumes that good works are meritorious and therefore salvific (which you did above); in other words, if you’re only reason for doing good is to stay out of hell, removing that threat undermines the motivation to be a good person (as you rightly observed). But, if doing good isn’t done because one’s trying to escape hellfire, then removing that threat doesn’t impact behavior.
“So entry to heaven is based on what exactly — don’t worry about being a ‘good’ person as long as you beleive in god?”
It would appear so. By the looks of things, there is only one “sin” that is relevent—the “sin” of nonbelief—-the only “sin” that’s not forgivable. The other “sins”..i.e.murder, rape, child-molestation, etc., are pardoned(or overlooked), provided one accepts “Jesus” as their personal “Savior”, yada, yada. This means, in “Heaven”, believers will be associated purely by belief, not by their behavior/previous behavior. This is why I find it puzzling when Christians who don’t murder, rape, steal, etc., try to disassociate themselves from those Christians who do. It’s like……why bother?….you’ll could very easily be seated right next to these people for “eternity”.
I always find the whole dogma of it doesn’t matter what you actually do as long as you believe in me rather strange to say the least. What sort of person would worship a god that thought that?
I didn’t claim atheists are more generous based on this, I only said atheists were the top Kiva group, which is true.
That is true. My impression from the comments was that that’s what a bunch of people had taken away from it.
Seems like a neat initiative, Daniel; thanks for posting it.
It’s sort of unfortunate that we (myself included) have turned this into a debate about who’s more moral than the other.
I read Daniels opening comments to mean something like, “There’s this neat initiative, and we (atheists) are among the top contributors! Cool. Maybe you should join the effort.”
I didn’t read it as a jab at anyone else, religious or otherwise. Heck, I blog about/promote Christian charities. I don’t do that because I’m trying to hold me or my religion up over against you or yours (or lack of); I do it because I take a sense of pride of what’s being accomplished and that others with whom I have some type of connection are also involved.
It’s sort of disappointing to me that my first thoughts were in accord with David’s above; I assumed that Daniel was trying to make a point over against me and mine. He’s not, and it’s telling to me that my knee-jerk reaction was to be skeptical. I’ve gotta work on that.
A point that could be made, though, is that this is an initiative that’s attracted generous people from all walks of life — couldn’t it be a great model for tolerance and cooperation? Why isn’t that my first thought instead of suspicion?
I had this idea first, I just didn’t know how to implement it. When I heard about Kiva, I was pretty psyched that there was a way to do this kind of stuff. Once I actually get an income, I’ll definitely sign up.
Haha I saw this myself on Kiva just the other day. Way to go!
What about the Christian Children’s Fund? I mean, I’m an atheist, I think Kiva is one way to “give,” but what statistical evidence is there for the charitable effects of being a particular religion or not, and the incentive to be charitable? I can say yeah, this is one site, you get your money back though. But it is helping anyway. Then you take a person with Christian beliefs and assume they only give to charity because they believe in god and hell and heaven. Is it difficult to conceive that Christians can do a good thing because they think it’s a good thing to do? There are a lot of charities for the needy, how do we rank then? That would be a meaningful statistic.
I think they do some nutty things for nutty reasons, but I can hardly believe they all always do good things for nutty reasons. Sorry, can’t get on board with this characterization.
What characterization? Daniel only stated that atheists were the top lending group on Kiva. Nowhere did he say that this proves atheists are more generous and charitable than Christians.
Stop putting words in his mouth, people.
I read Kodie’s comment as more about the comments, not Daniel’s post. Don’t wanna put words in someone’s mouth….
Yeah, that’s exactly what it was. I was replying to some general comments, not Daniel. I guess though I don’t see the big “victory” of atheists being the largest donor group of one organization. I see there that I called it a donor group. It’s lending. It’s a fantastic idea. If the recipients of these loans needed the money but were at the other end of a charity where you don’t get repaid, would people be as motivated to help them? Most charities that come up with ideas are for feeding hungry people and paying for their medicine… sure, that’s ok. But a charity where people are gaining financial independence? That’s sort of new, right? And then they pay you back even? What a deal all around. That’s two ideas that are new to me, ideal in theory, and progressively “hand-up, not hand-out” using the internet and like, whoever invented transaction applications like paypal.
I’m for it, I think it sounds reasonable for a change, not that the hand-outs aren’t needed in even worse situations, but yeah, how are we (atheists) ranking on that side? I mentioned Christian Children’s Fund in particular because if you’re home in the day with the tv on, you know it by name. Is it a good charity? I don’t know. I think when people like Oprah put the spotlight on their charity in an area, and you still think well, they’re walking around in filth, is it really helping if Oprah’s a drop in the bucket? I think that. I’m just a little maybe jaded? Atheists win at Kiva – I don’t see the big whoop. We may be more technologically savvy or partial to the effect of helping someone make their own money.
And I still don’t think all religious people give to charity because of the god thing. I seriously think this is a flaw in reasoning that needs to be commented on. I’m a person on the receiving end of appeals for charity, and well, I cannot even begin to comprehend the overwhelming majority of people (who are adherents of some religion) see and hear the same things I do, and set aside their emotions for an opportunity to score with the big guy. They see people in need and they give to people in need, as whatever heartstrings are pulled, I cannot conceive most of them are doing it to be selfish. They may think that god put this in front of them to respond to with goodness. They may think that god put that goodness in them to do what they can and should for the needy. They may thank god for putting them in a position to be able to help people who are needy. That’s all very superficial, and we know that, but in the end, does it matter – their response to the call to help people in need was because it was the right thing to do and they could do it, and it is good. I say this knowing some people give a lot to charity so other people can see how rich they are, and whatever social aholes they may be, you can’t say they aren’t generous. Those people may even be atheists. The OP is a little extra-proud, I’m not getting it.
I can say yeah, this is one site, you get your money back though
Does the fact that you get your money back make this less charitable? I didn’t look at the site that closely, but is it a nonprofit? Do you get a tax write off as a charitable donation? Do you make any interest off the loan?
Yes, it’s still helping… just not sure it is actually “charitable” (with respect to taxes and tax law).
Reading this coment back, it might come across as if I’m asking rhetorically to prove a point. I wasn’t. I was asking what people thought, not rhetorically and not with an agenda. I’m not sure that Kiva is a ‘charity’ and I’d be curious what others think.
I think it’s the charity recipients you ask, were they helped? What is charity, is it helping people or giving a certain amount of money with no expectation of seeing it again?
Kodie– I think you have to look at charities with a pragmatic eye– in a results based fashion. Does the program do research to determine it’s effects or does it incorporate some kind of best practice? For instance, Kiva is based on a program started in India (and the founder of that program won a Nobel Peace Prize), and this program has been demonstrated to have positive results.
One of my problems with many Christian charities is that they base their programs on the bible and not necessarily on best practice or research. This is a problem because it doesn’t take into account accidental side effects of the charity. If you feed a starving child and she grows up to produce 10 more starving children, then you have worsened the problem and not made it better. Further, prosyletizing desperate people is not some merciful act to give them hope, it is colonialist aggression against an existing culture with the intention to destroy it. This results in higher levels of despair, alcoholism, etc in populations that have been stripped of their cultures.
When I seek out a charity to support, I look for ones that provide empowerment to the people they serve: secular education (of skills useful to that particular community– like agriculture skills), health care, food supplementation in times of need, and micro-loans are all methods of serving a population that can be combined to suit the community– in short, I look for charities that consider the whole person in relation to the whole community, and, IMO education is the best approach, especially when it is conducted by members of the existing community.