[SEQ RERUN] Can Humanism Match Religion's Output?

True, the Catholic Church also goes around opposing the use of condoms in AIDS-ravaged Africa. True, they waste huge amounts of the money they raise on all that religious stuff. Indulging in unclear thinking is not harmless, prayer comes with a price.

To refrain from doing damaging things, is a true victory for a rationalist...

Unless it is your only victory, in which case it seems a little empty.

I wouldn't feel empty about losing all of the money that went to Mother Teresa's order if it meant that residents of the Calcutta slums could have access to family planning. Fewer resources. Much better outcomes.

And so anyone with a simple and obvious charitable project—responding with food and shelter to a tidal wave in Thailand, say—would be better off by far pleading with the Pope to mobilize the Catholics, rather than with Richard Dawkins to mobilize the atheists.

The original post predates things like Nonbelievers Giving Aid.

I'm having trouble convincing myself of a good measure of "charitableness," particularly with self-reporting. Are donations to the church counted? If so, what fraction goes to the maintenance of that church as opposed to obvious things? That's like paying club dues.

How much of its earnings does the Catholic Church spend on all that useless religious stuff instead of actually helping people? More than 50%, I would venture.

It seems - as the finances here aren't at all public - that most (spent) Catholic Church money goes to hospitals and schools. (With "Catholic" hospitals, the financial contribution of the Church is relatively small.) And the amount of Church money coming from donations is relatively smaller still: they get their money from investment.

It is easier for a community to make big charitable contributions when it has its own bank and lots of time.

If we look at charitableness by country - this can be looked up, but I don't agree with any particular methodology - there's no big obvious correlation with religiosity. Within the United States, there is a correlation. In other, more secular first world countries, I'd be surprised if the correlation was significant.

But I know a much better correlate off the top of my head: income level. If you want to be more charitable, try making 15k a year. Or try being Jewish - a relatively large fraction of whom are secular. I have a hunch that being a minority group would help rationalists be more charitable, were we not so new and so atomized.

Edit: An afterthought. When it comes to doing obviously good things, the best proven institution is the secular state. I'd argue this for the social democratic sort in particular.

Edit 2: A second afterthought. Obvious good things may need some spelling out. There is a difference between maintaining the poor and fighting poverty. On what side of this distinction are Christian charities most concentrated?

Is this where meetups came from?

There is this story that I thought of when I originally read this. it can be found here. Like me, most of you who go through the link and read the speech will find obviously sub-optimal thinking. You will think "If it were an option of following this principle or not, I could not follow it. Even if I have no other principle to replace it with, I could not, in good conscience, accept this idea." This is were your rationality will destroy any group you try to create. If you cannot allow any sub-optimal parts in the organizations you participate in, then you will never participate in an organization of humans. The example I picked comes from a religious and irrational organization like Eliezer described, but it actually works, unlike co-ops of large groups of rationalists who refuse to accept sub-optimal planning in any form. So in this instance, Religion has a better policy than rationalists and, until you find an empirically proven policy that does better, you would do better to adopt it.

Every aid effective offered by religious groups is a secular aid. Medicine, food, soldiers, disaster relief, all of it and every bit of it. The aid that they alone can offer, prayer, is worthless. Religious aid is always and only is a co-option of secular aid or it is worthless prayer. Religion also is opposed to every secular moral advance until they are for it. Religious believers can't yell loud enough or often enough about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or Gandhi being a leader of civil rights and a religious leader. That can do so only by ignoring the thousands of years of pro-slavery and pro-caste system background these religions come from. They perverted their faith, they didn't prefect it.

So, sure, help where help is most effective or meets your needs best. Religion will always let you do the work then take the credit so it's okay to not fight them openly at every turn.