Charitable Atheists

Irish people with no religion are slightly more likely to do charitable work than the average citizen, and Irish Catholics are slightly less likely to do so. David Quinn (Irish Independent, 5 December) argues the opposite, but he has misunderstood the census figures. Irish Protestants are the most likely to do charity work.

The charitable impulse is universal. David Quinn argues that it is religious, citing the large Red Cross presence after Hurricane Katrina. But the Red Cross is not a religious charity. Its symbol is based on the Swiss flag, as it was founded in Geneva.

The large Red Cross presence in New Orleans actually disproves the point Quinn was trying to make.

Ireland has over seven thousand listed charities, many of them secular. Bob Geldof, an Irish atheist, founded Live Aid. And internationally, the two largest charitable donors in world history are the atheist or agnostic billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.

Census Figures

The latest census shows that 5.7% of Irish adults help or volunteer for social or charitable work. Nonreligious people are just above this average, and Catholics are just below it. Up to 8% of Protestants do charity work, and the figure for other stated religions is slightly higher.

David Quinn mistakenly argues that one in ten Irish Catholics do charity work, compared to only 6% of nonreligious people. He gets these totals by adding in people who help religious groups and churches. But you cannot do this, for two reasons.

Firstly, any Catholics who do charity work, and who also help with their church, are included in both sets of figures. Quinn is counting each of them twice, as if they were two people.

Secondly, he defines his wrongly inflated total as “charity work”. But the census already gives us an accurate total for this. You can’t just add in under “charity work” thousands of extra people who did not say that they do charity work.

Secular Charities

More importantly, charity does not depend on religion. It depends on people caring about each other as fellow sentient beings. It depends on people wanting to end suffering and replace it with happiness, regardless of their beliefs about supernatural gods.

Religion is structured, and atheism isn’t. So a lot more charity work is done under the name of religion. But there are many secular charities. Ireland has an A to Z of over seven thousand charities, ranging from the All-Ireland Air Ambulance and Alzheimer Society to Zest 4 Kids and the Zoological Society.

Many excellent charities exist to fill human needs for humanitarian reasons. Oxfam and Concern tackle poverty and injustice. UNICEF works to protect and help children. Amnesty tackles abuses of human rights. The Lifeboat Association saves lives at sea.

Charitable Atheists

Atheists have founded many charities. Bob Geldof founded Live Aid. Screenwriter Richard Curtis founded Comic Relief and Make Poverty History.

Nonreligious people have been major philanthropists. Paul Newman donated $250 million to charity. Between them, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have donated an incredible $80 billion – which is twenty times the budget of the International Red Cross.

Atheists can also donate to religious causes. Last year an atheist businessman gave over $20 million for Catholic school scholarships in inner city New York.

In an ancient Hasidic fable, a rabbi is asked if it is ever right to act as if god did not exist. His answer: “Yes. When you are asked to give to charity, give as if there were no god to help the object of the charity.”

That’s exactly what atheists do.

Photo: Bob Geldof and Bill Gates at Live 8 – IT Jungle 

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