I keep stating that the driving force here is religion I don't know how I can state that any clearer. The issue is though that a vast majority of the very religious tend to vote Republican so there must be reasons why they are drawn to conservatism ideology and Republicans. You have to remember the vast amount of religious in this country are Protestants which placed a larger emphasis on the individual like conservatism than say Catholicism (whose practitioners tend to be more liberal). So they are tied to one another, but I do keep stating that it is the religiosity of the members that make Republicans more generous.
Except by bringing this argument up in this thread, you are making it a hyper partisan argument.
Whenever this argument is brought up, it is usually done in a way that comes off as some smug dig conservatives make towards liberals to establish that conservatives are morally superior to liberals.
If you want to debate religious vs. non religious charity in a non partisan, you would have to start a different thread, its going to be partisan here.
It's not hollow you would have to assume that 100% of the 3% increase in donations to religious organizations is "going to some hucksters pocket" and 100% of the 45% increase in congregational giving is also "going to some hucksters pocket". Only if you assume this can you come to conclusion that religious do not donate more to charity which is an absolutely ridiculous assumption. That's not what is happening. The margins are too large particularly in congregational donations.
Yes, but you aren't putting facts into context. You are trying to invalidate the facts with anecdotal evidence. We know that not all congregational donations are doing good works, we know that not all religious organizations are doing good works. That doesn't invalidate what the study found. Like I said the assumptions you would have to make to come to this conclusion are not very realistic.
Fine you want to talk about figures and facts, what is the difference in charitable contributions between liberals and conservatives?
In terms of absolute numbers is the difference so big that it is not negligible?
Do you have absolute facts and figures on the difference in amount in regards to amount totals or percentage differences or do you not because churches generally don't open their books to the public?
When conservatives make these argument, they hardly ever seem to mention these qualifiers, which is the problem I have with it, it comes as self praise and condensation, rather then a honest attempt to justify religious charity, despite some of its flaws, which I think is an actual interesting discussing, but you cannot present in a none partisan way if you use it in a partisan context.
Again this comes off conservatives not learning the lesson of the parable of the very public rich man who donates to charity vs. the very private poor woman who donates far less.
If you have even one dollar going to Uganda lobbying efforts, that is one dollar too many, so yeah, I think churches need a proper accounting, before I am going to trust that they use their money for good works, there seems be no real accountability here. Without that, how are we supposed to weed out the good churches from the bad ones?
I'll reiterate Protestantism focused on the individual and out of this group came the concept of the Protestant Work Ethic which according to Max Weber goes hand in hand with Capitalism.
I have read Weber, thank you very much. I am not going to debate the pros and cons of the Protestant Work Ethic, that is far beyond the purview of this thread.
I will say capitalism is far different now from capitalism in Weber's time.
The form of Christianity the Republicans and the Religious Right created is like an ugly mutation of the Protestant Work Ethic. Its crass, commercialized, arrogant, selfish, self righteous, lacks an ability to self reflect and callous. It has invited in prosperity theology, seems obsessed with controlling other people's privates lives and frankly I don't think it does enough public good to balance out these other factors, compared to other less partisan religious groups.
I think if the religious right went away, other religious groups would pick up the slack and would do a better job then the religious right does.
You keep saying you are asking for nuance, but when I address the issue with nuance you call them qualifiers...
Because the way this argument is traditionally presented by conservatives is not the way you have been presented it.
Without these qualifiers, some conservatives could say "why do we need a welfare system, when conservatives give so much charity, those poor people must just be lazy". Without the proper context, this does come off as a justification for Republicans to demonize the poor, rather then an honest intellectual question worthy of debate.