Religious Are Less Tolerant, More Neighborly

[☆ TexasFreethinker ☆]

A new study shows that relgious people (doesn't matter what religion) are less tolerant than the non-religious, but are more neighborly in that they volunteer more of their time to help others.

 

From USA Today

 

... On the one hand, religious Americans are somewhat less tolerant of free speech and dissent. As just one example, in our survey we asked Americans whether someone should be allowed to give a speech defending Osama bin Laden or al-Qaeda. While most Americans said yes — we are indeed a tolerant people — religious Americans were slightly less likely to say so. The same pattern is true for many other measures of tolerance: While, in general, Americans are quite tolerant, religious Americans are less tolerant than their secular neighbors. Furthermore, the "tolerance edge" among secular Americans cannot be explained away by some other attribute that they share. Statistically, we have accounted for every imaginable way that religious and secular Americans differ from one another. When we do so, the story stays the same.

 

More religious, more involved

 

However, on the other side of the ledger, religious people are also "better neighbors" than their secular counterparts. No matter the civic activity, being more religious means being more involved. Take, for example, volunteer work. Compared with people who never attend worship services, those who attend weekly are more likely to volunteer in religious activities (no surprise there), but also for secular causes. The differences between religious and secular Americans can be dramatic. Forty percent of worship-attending Americans volunteer regularly to help the poor and elderly, compared with 15% of Americans who never attend services. Frequent-attenders are also more likely than the never-attenders to volunteer for school and youth programs (36% vs. 15%), a neighborhood or civic group (26% vs. 13%), and for health care (21% vs. 13%). The same is true for philanthropic giving; religious Americans give more money to secular causes than do secular Americans. And the list goes on, as it is true for good deeds such as helping someone find a job, donating blood, and spending time with someone who is feeling blue.

 

I wonder why the religious have such higher rates of volunteerism. Could it be that they truly are more compassionate?

 

Or, could peer pressure and readily available opportunities come into play too? I know when I attended church, there were always opportunities to volunteer my time, and friends and family to encourage me to do so. In fact, I'm going to be serving meals to the poor this Thanksgiving at my mother's church - the Southern Baptist church I grew up in. Not because it's the only place I could have volunteered, but because Mom asked me and I will have a good time around family and friends in addition to helping people.

 

This website is the largest non-religious community I regularly participate in, and it's difficult for us to get together to volunteer our time since we're spread across the globe.

 

I'm not trying to take anything away from the religious who volunteer their time to help those in need - to the extent they are doing good without religious strings attached I salute them. I just wonder if there were anti-religion "churches" that we all attended regularly and that organized volunteer opportunities and encouraged outside volunteer work in the community, would our volunteer rates would rise as well? Or, does losing religion also entail losing some compassion?

[Jds22]

Just my uneducated opinion.

 

Peer pressure definately plays a part. I can't tell you how many times I heard the phrase "If the lord leads you" or "If the lord places it on your heart" blah blah blah. Then you see your friends and family signing up and feel you have to do the same.

 

Another aspect that can't be overlooked is the concept of rewards in heaven for your earthly deeds. I'm not sure if all denominations teach this but the independent Baptist churches I attended definately did. The more you witness, help the poor, etc., the bigger your mansion will be.

 

I always figured I'd get a shack in the bad section of New Jerusalem or something like that.

 

[Overcame Faith]

I suspect that many religious people are better volunteers independent of their religious views and that at least some significant portion of them gravitate toward religion at least in part because they like the affirmative attitude concerning volunteerism they find in churches. Then there are those whose vounteerism is motivated by their view that they will be rewarded by god and see it as an opportunity to spread the gospel message either through direct verbalization or through their example. Finally, much of the volunteerism (as noted in the article) is directly related to their church activities like being Sunday school teachers.

 

I do think that the non-religious should step up their volunteerism and giving of money to help society in general.

[ClaraOlive]

I think that a lot of it is opportunity and the ability to work with people you already know. When people did volunteer work through church or Christian school, they would get together with their friends to do it.

 

It's a huge deterrent for me that I'm going to have to spend my volunteer time with a bunch of strangers. My last volunteer position felt like a job and an obligation, because I never really enjoyed working with the other volunteers. I was at the nearest local resource center to drop off some thrift store clothes, and the woman working there wasn't friendly or polite to me, and it's making me reluctant to go volunteer. I would do it if I were part of a group.

[☆ TexasFreethinker ☆]

.

[mwc]

I think home owners associations were invented by the religious. Little tracts of intolerant people all looking alike and being alike in some faux-friendly world that relies on nothing but conformity and rules to maintain. They're your best buddies until you want to be a little bit different and then, wham, they turn on you.

 

So why would you have a study that shows that religious people are all better at volunteering? Maybe because they want to "influence" things? Many xians tend to feel bad for not being missionaries but think of themselves as such so all these little things are how they do it. A little something here. A little there. They're showing "jesus" through their little actions. And it makes an influence since people will see the good little xian doing whatever they will think that being xian is good and want to be one too. Secular people have no need to make this demonstration so they don't. Just like they don't have an HOA so they keep their house however they want. The little xians will sometimes cut their neighbor's lawn if they're away so the HOA won't get on them but they won't bother if they don't know the person or disagree with them so the HOA will get on them. Outside the HOA no one needs to bother unless they feel like it. The pressure is off. You pick and choose how to deal with your house and your neighbors (unless you live in an anal city or something which is another story).

 

mwc

[★ Citsonga ★]

Forty percent of worship-attending Americans volunteer regularly to help the poor and elderly

 

40%?

 

I say again, FORTY percent????

 

For some reason, my bullshit detector is going off right now....

[mwc]

Forty percent of worship-attending Americans volunteer regularly to help the poor and elderly

 

40%?

 

I say again, FORTY percent????

 

For some reason, my bullshit detector is going off right now....

I imagine some of these same people helped conduct the survey too.

 

They're just very, very helpful people...

 

mwc

[Thackerie]

I think home owners associations were invented by the religious. Little tracts of intolerant people all looking alike and being alike in some faux-friendly world that relies on nothing but conformity and rules to maintain. They're your best buddies until you want to be a little bit different and then, wham, they turn on you.

 

So why would you have a study that shows that religious people are all better at volunteering? Maybe because they want to "influence" things? Many xians tend to feel bad for not being missionaries but think of themselves as such so all these little things are how they do it. A little something here. A little there. They're showing "jesus" through their little actions. And it makes an influence since people will see the good little xian doing whatever they will think that being xian is good and want to be one too. Secular people have no need to make this demonstration so they don't. Just like they don't have an HOA so they keep their house however they want. The little xians will sometimes cut their neighbor's lawn if they're away so the HOA won't get on them but they won't bother if they don't know the person or disagree with them so the HOA will get on them. Outside the HOA no one needs to bother unless they feel like it. The pressure is off. You pick and choose how to deal with your house and your neighbors (unless you live in an anal city or something which is another story).

 

mwc

 

+100 (I hate HOAs!)

[Vomit Comet]

Hey, wait a minute! I remember reporting that I did "volunteer work" fairly often when I was a Christian, but 90% of that was working as a youth leader helping to brainwash kids, or working as an usher helping little old ladies sit down, or working back in the sound booth making sure the worship team didn't sound like shit. Or, for that matter, pulling weeds in the church's sideyard, cleaning out the church attic, helping paint the church bus, and shit like that, so that they wouldn't have to pay Mexicans to do it.

 

I did a lot of "volunteer work" but most of it didn't really do anything to improve the larger social world. Most of my "volunteer work" was in terms of the mundane gruntwork necessary to perpetuate a church organization.

[★ Citsonga ★]

Hey, wait a minute! I remember reporting that I did "volunteer work" fairly often when I was a Christian, but 90% of that was working as a youth leader helping to brainwash kids, or working as an usher helping little old ladies sit down, or working back in the sound booth making sure the worship team didn't sound like shit. Or, for that matter, pulling weeds in the church's sideyard, cleaning out the church attic, helping paint the church bus, and shit like that, so that they wouldn't have to pay Mexicans to do it.

 

I did a lot of "volunteer work" but most of it didn't really do anything to improve the larger social world. Most of my "volunteer work" was in terms of the mundane gruntwork necessary to perpetuate a church organization.

 

Exactly.

 

Similarly, religious people do give more money on average than nonreligious people, but the vast majority of that money goes to church building funds, pastoral salaries and missionaries spreading superstitious nonsense. If only the donations that actually accomplish something worthwhile were counted, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if nonreligious peoples' percentages are significantly higher than the religious.

[Redeye_Reprisal]

I think you'll find that 2/3 of all so called "volunteer" work the church engages in is undertaken with the intent to proselytize.

 

Which is vile. At least in my opinion.

[Vomit Comet]

I think you'll find that 2/3 of all so called "volunteer" work the church engages in is undertaken with the intent to proselytize.

 

Either that or helping build the set for the cheesy Christmas play.

[DayLight]

 

I wonder why the religious have such higher rates of volunteerism. Could it be that they truly are more compassionate?

 

 

I think people are who they are by nature. Some are born compassionate. And some are born not too compassionate. And so among religious people, there are the compassionate ones and the not so compassionate ones.

 

I do not think that religion makes one more compassionate. I think that the quantity of good deeds definitely has to do with peer pressure and the rewards/punishment system from "heaven".