Faith does breed charity

[linwood]

Found at The Guardian ...

Roy Hattersley
Monday September 12, 2005
The Guardian

Hurricane Katrina did not stay on the front pages for long. Yesterday's Red Cross appeal for an extra 40,000 volunteer workers was virtually ignored.
The disaster will return to the headlines when one sort of newspaper reports a particularly gruesome discovery or another finds additional evidence of President Bush's negligence. But month after month of unremitting suffering is not news. Nor is the monotonous performance of the unpleasant tasks that relieve the pain and anguish of the old, the sick and the homeless - the tasks in which the Salvation Army specialise.

The Salvation Army has been given a special status as provider-in-chief of American disaster relief. But its work is being augmented by all sorts of other groups. Almost all of them have a religious origin and character.
Notable by their absence are teams from rationalist societies, free thinkers' clubs and atheists' associations - the sort of people who not only scoff at religion's intellectual absurdity but also regard it as a positive force for evil.

The arguments against religion are well known and persuasive. Faith schools, as they are now called, have left sectarian scars on Northern Ireland. Stem-cell research is forbidden because an imaginary God - who is not enough of a philosopher to realise that the ingenuity of a scientist is just as natural as the instinct of Rousseau's noble savage - condemns what he does not understand and the churches that follow his teaching forbid their members to pursue cures for lethal diseases.

Yet men and women who believe that the Pope is the devil incarnate, or (conversely) regard his ex cathedra pronouncements as holy writ, are the people most likely to take the risks and make the sacrifices involved in helping others. Last week a middle-ranking officer of the Salvation Army, who gave up a well-paid job to devote his life to the poor, attempted to convince me that homosexuality is a mortal sin.
Full Story

Thoughts?

 

[Sunstone]

Being against religiosity does not necessarily make one a moral person. It is one thing to criticize the excesses of religion, and it is quite another to do something positive about the suffering in the world.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

I blame Jesus.
If it wasn't for him we could leave others to rot.


Terry
_______________________________
Blessed are those who bring peace, they shall be children of God

 

[linwood]

I`m sorry I should have perhaps posted the entire article.
The point of the article isn`t to bash faith, in fact it is supporting faith in the aspect of doing good for humanity.
This is essentially a well known atheist writing an article condemning atheists for not being as charitable as those people of faith.
He doesn`t believe secular charity exists or does enough to actually help people.

I think he`s right to an extent.