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[Strife26]

Are we arguing the argument or the paper?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

MZ's post suggests that this thread is intended to be a debate, with his paper as the starting premise.

[Max White]

No one would ever form an atheist charity because that doesn't make any sense. Atheism is just not believing in any deities, there's nothing in there about charities. MZ's argument is that a secularized society is superior to a openly religious one, and as such secular charities are important. No, secular does not equal atheist, but that doesn't matter. The point is to replace religious charities that are known to have ulterior motives for doing what they do with secular charities that do not and are only being altruistic.

That is making the assumption that people would be as charitable while involved in a secular charity. Some people are doing good because they think that is what their god wants them to do, so religious charities act as a rally point to gather support from a large target audience.

And let's be honest, the suggestion of 'Replacing religious charities with secular ones' is verging on the idea of a totalitarian society, where you rob a man of the right to do something good based on he's beliefs.

Yo. We aren't debating whether or not secular charities count as atheistic. We are discussing if it is viable to make people think that as a possible tactic in writing a philosophical paper. It doesn't actually matter if they "count" or not, as long as A] making the reader think that would help our case and B] we are able to make the reader think that by whatever method is employed.

Point and case, I am atheist, and even I bought it up. It is an unconvincing argument, and degrades the paper for it. It is best either dramatically improved, or removed. It does neither A nor B, so it fails the litmus test.

[Strife26]

That's what I got out of it, so we'd be arguing the argument, right?

I'm still not sure how ideal we should debate though, do I argue against "turning all churches into secular soup kitchens" on the basis that it's certainly illegal as all hell or on the basis that removing the religious element will cause a massive dry up of charitable funding?

[Max White]

Bring up both, I did, to some level.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

That is making the assumption that people would be as charitable while involved in a secular charity. Some people are doing good because they think that is what their god wants them to do, so religious charities act as a rally point to gather support from a large target audience.

If religious people can't find it in themselves to still be charitable when not specifically doing so to spread their religion, then they aren't good people anyway.

And let's be honest, the suggestion of 'Replacing religious charities with secular ones' is verging on the idea of a totalitarian society, where you rob a man of the right to do something good based on he's beliefs.

I never said this was something that would be enforced by law. I don't know MZ's opinion on that, but my thoughts are more akin to changing society gradually so that religious charities are no longer important and secular charities are, but both would still be legal.

[Max White]

If religious people can't find it in themselves to still be charitable when not specifically doing so to spread their religion, then they aren't good people anyway.

So what your saying is that religion is causing bad people to do good things?
Sounds like a worthwhile thing to me.

[Strife26]

However MSH, religious types give a lot to secular charities as well, and heck if ANY of the money I give to special projects at my church is about spreading the faith any more than maybe the volunteers wearing "St Mark's Church" T-shirts and inviting people to stop by if they'd like.


I'll lay down a nice, simple arguable point. Religious people tend to do more good than non-religious people because whenever they think about their faith, it's a constant reminder that God wants them to be a good person.

[Grek]

Can't believe I forgot to bring that up. You should remove the bit about "turning all churches into secular soup kitchens", both for the reasons above and because it is sure to wildly offend the religious people that read your essay. Which is probably not in line with your presumed goals of getting a good grade on the paper.

[Aqizzar]

So yeah, back to talking about the paper.

Like everyone else said, it's basically two weak papers wearing a trenchcoat to look like one full paper.  Pick one theme and drive it.

The best way to head off counterpoints, especially for an academic paper, is to acknowledge them in the text, and refute them with sources.  Remember that you're proving a point in one paper, not writing a textbook.  Find something credible that agrees with your premise and quote it, just make sure it actually says what you think it does.  Academia loves to see you head off logical faults by embracing and explaining them.

Also, I'm seeing very few citations and quotes.  I realize it's basically an argument paper, but it's still academic, there's never a good reason not to cite sources and lots of them.

[Glowcat]

That is making the assumption that people would be as charitable while involved in a secular charity. Some people are doing good because they think that is what their god wants them to do, so religious charities act as a rally point to gather support from a large target audience.

If the requirement for their charity is a brand controlled by people of their religion then they aren't being motivated by goodness or by the belief that their lawgiver wants them to do good as we would define it.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

So what your saying is that religion is causing bad people to do good things?
Sounds like a worthwhile thing to me.

No, I'm not saying that. You are saying that. I think that most people would still be charitable in a secular manner who are charitable in a religious manner. In any case, even if it were true that religious people give more in religious charity, it would be more than outweighed by religion's other negatives.

I'll lay down a nice, simple arguable point. Religious people tend to do more good than non-religious people because whenever they think about their faith, it's a constant reminder that God wants them to be a good person.

That doesn't apply to everyone Strife. It probably applies to you, since that's how you think of it, but we still see how religious motivations for this altruism cause problems. For example, the Roman Catholic Church shutting down and threatening to shut down adoption services in areas where same-sex marriage and adoption is soon to be legalized.

[Strife26]

I stated it as a vacuum and a general statement. I'll counterpoint that those adoptive services wouldn't exist without religion in the first place, look to the sheer historical suckiness of orphanages run by the government/ for profit; then I'll argue that specific case of organized religions doings non-ideal things is a fault of organization, not religious morality.

[Max White]

No, I'm not saying that. You are saying that. I think that most people would still be charitable in a secular manner who are charitable in a religious manner. In any case, even if that were true, it would be more than outweighed by religion's other negatives.

So then why are so many charities founded in the name of religion? If people are just inherently charitable independent of faith, then wouldn't it be more evident from people just founding secular charities? Hell, wouldn't it be evident in the proportional charity workers based on religious views compared to those with atheistic views? While we could put our head in the clouds and say it would be great to have all this giving without having others world views get in the way, the fact of the matter is that a lot of the giving is because of these specific world views, even if it involves zombie carpenters.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

So then why are so many charities founded in the name of religion?

Because "Food for Faith" is a good strategy for converting people, if an extremely immoral one.

If people are just inherently charitable independent of faith, then wouldn't it be more evident from people just founding secular charities?

It is evident. There are secular charities aplenty, as MZ mentions in his paper.

I stated it as a vacuum and a general statement. I'll counterpoint that those adoptive services wouldn't exist without religion in the first place, look to the sheer historical suckiness of orphanages run by the government/ for profit; then I'll argue that specific case of organized religions doings non-ideal things is a fault of organization, not religious morality.

What makes you think these orphanages are good places to live? We don't know that.

Their organization is based on religious morality, which I find to be lacking in general.