"Least Church-Going Rich Countries Give Most"

[GreenPartyVoter]

WASHINGTON - Nations where fewer people attend church tend to be more generous in their support for development in poor countries than those where church attendance is much greater, according to the third annual edition of the "Commitment to Development Index (CDI)", published this week in Foreign Policy magazine.

The Index, a joint project of Washington-based Foreign Policy and the Center for Global Development (CGD), found that Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, Australia, and Norway retained their top rankings among wealthy countries for their helpfulness to poor countries from last year. Italy, Ireland, Greece and Japan were the least helpful of the 21 countries ranked by the Index.

The Index also noted that both the 12 billion dollars in private and public aid pledged by wealthy countries and their citizens for victims of last December's devastating tsunami and the debt relief deal announced earlier this summer for some of the world's poorest countries contributed to improved performance by most donors.

At the same time, it stressed that both steps were actually quite limited in their impact when other factors, such as trade barriers, that also make up the complexity of interaction between rich and poor countries are taken into consideration.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0823-03.htm

[SteppingRazor]

1. Maybe because they're not donating money to churches instead?

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. Maybe? Although to be a fair a lot of church offerings go to charities

that deal with these kinds of problems.

Still, I was ashamed to know that we hamstrung our relief efforts as Americans with the tarrifs.

[Benhurst]

3. Yeah, to high-living, self-proclaimed "Men of God." NT

[Hidden Stillness]

4. Societies That Encourage Social Concern and Responsibility

It isn't that not going to church makes them more generous--an odd causal link either way--but it is that the countries with the strongest sense of government helping the people, with almost Socialistic programs, "We're all in this together," encouraging people being concerned about each other, where this happens. Basing society on a strong moral sense that we should respond and help others and our society where it needs it, etc., with other things, too: that you should not litter, that it is "immoral," etc.; those are the great countries (Scandinavia, etc.), where they know what is what, and respond.