Christian, Non-Religious People Volunteer Level Same

[SecularMotion]

A recent U.K. report is giving fuel to British humanists who point out that non-religious and Christian respondents have practically the same level of civic engagement and volunteering.

Andrew Copson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association, argues it is not true that faith leads to greater civic participation and volunteering based on the U.K. Department for Communities and Local Government report titled, "The Citizenship Survey: April 2010 - March 2011."

The report, released Sept. 22, finds 58 percent of British Christians participate in civic engagement and formal volunteering at least once last year, compared to 56 percent of those with no religion – statistically the same.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/u-k-report-christian-non-religious-people-volunteer-level-same-57015/

[Demeter]

1. Bet you a buck the non-religious get more useful things done, too

and with less antagonism.

[cleanhippie]

8. +1

[LARED]

2. Mr. Copson is a dolt

Copson, pointing to the report, called for the abolishment of faith schools and special roles for religious groups in education.

Because there is some evidence (putting aside there is lots of contradictory evidence) that secular folks and religious folks have similar civic engagement and volunteering the State should step in and abolish large parts of the social fabric to protect the sensibilities of a few zealous humanists.

The irony is simply stunning.

[NMMNG]

3. This is from the UK

IIRC, faith schools are supported by the taxpayers there. Copson is merely pointing out the fact that the faith schools claims that they instill better morals and ethics, and make people better citizens, are obviously false. Accordingly there's no legitimate reason the public should be paying for them.

[LARED]

4. First it is not obviously false. There is merit on both sides of this argument

Second, Faith and public school are required to teach the same curriculum in the UK. Except for religous studies. Also faith schools are not fully funded by the state.

Let me add if you want to make the argument that no public funds should be used for faith schools, I have no problem with that. Make that argument not that faith schools should be abolished because there is a paper that state secular folks and religious folks have equally altruistic values. That's just silly.

[NMMNG]

5. I'd never argue that religious schools should be abolished

But I would say they should never get a penny of tax money. Why should religion be funded by the taxpayers?

[LARED]

6. It's really not that simply is it?

Publicly funding a school that teaches the state required curriculum in all areas with added religious studies is not exactly funding religion. And I do recall England still has a State church.

[NMMNG]

18. If they're teaching sectarian religion

rather than merely teaching about religion in a generic fashion, the state is indeed funding religion.

[edhopper]

7. Did he say that?

Where is the quote. This article, coming from a Christian source is terribly biased. They tell us what Copson meant, but don't give us his words. Perhaps he said State funding of religious schools should end. We don't know. And since they give half the article over to spurious counter arguments that fail to refute the study.

[LARED]

12. Good point.

Can't tell if he said that or not.

[Jim__]

13. He's quoted on the BHA site.

Here:

Speaking on the community cohesion figures, Mr Copson continued, 'These figures indicate the need to encourage a more inclusive approach to community cohesion, and abolishing divisive ‘faith’ schools would be an important place to start. They illustrate the madness of official policies – in education especially – giving a special role to religious groups.'

[LARED]

14. Thanks

Mr Copson has made his view pretty clear.

[edhopper]

19. Thanks

The article should have used the quote. Bad journalism.

[Jim__]

9. "... Robert Putnam ... says his research shows giving back to society is closely linked to faith ...

... organization and membership."

Note that Putnam's results do not necessarily contradict the UK report:

“It is simply a fact that religion generates networks of participation that are far stronger, more lasting, and more committed than secular civic organizations.”

Perhaps an explanation to why U.K. Christians and non-religious people have the same level of volunteerism in the new report can be found in polls that show many self-identified British Christians do not attend church and are not active in their faith life.

A U.K. poll released earlier this year found that most of the British public still identify themselves as Christian. The poll conducted by ComRes on behalf of Premier Media Group found that 57 percent of the United Kingdom consider themselves to be Christian.

But a 2007 survey by Christian charity Tearfund found that only one in 10 people in the U.K. attends church every week, and only one in seven go once a month. The survey of 7,000 people also found that although 53 percent of respondent said they are Christian, 66 percent of respondents said they have no connection with the Church.

[cleanhippie]

10. Just more proof that people can be good without god.

But I think we already knew that.

[laconicsax]

23. And not everyone is ok with that, it seems. n/t

[Exultant Democracy]

11. My experiance is that 9 out of 10 volunteers are women, 4 of every 5 guys is gay

while most are progressive liberals.

Now with volunteers for political campaigns the breakdown between the sexes gets a lot closer to 50/50.

[LARED]

15. In churches where I have been a member, volunteering is

not formal nor required, or something that gets compared to the secular world.

A number of years ago my wife had a serious foot injury, the families of the church provided dinner for us for about two weeks, picked up my kids for school, stopped by to help my wife during the day when I was at work. In general made sure we had whatever help we needed to get through a difficult time. All volunteers, no formal requests, no tracking of who did what and no one seeking brownie points because they volunteered. Another time the church provided a financial gift during a hard time.

This goes on every single day in churches around the world.

So if religious people and secular people have similar levels of activities around FORMAL volunteering maybe many of those religious folks don't know it only counts if it is formal volunteering or maybe they are just to busy helping church family to notice they are slackers compared to the humanist.

[Jim__]

16. I think what you are talking about is community.

Church is one of the last vestiges of community in modern society.

[LARED]

17. Yes, exactly

on both points.

[edhopper]

20. Tell the folks at OWS that

[Igel]

21. Somehow the words don't match the claim.

There are a few problems.

"Civic engagement" is a strange term. It (according to the report) include everything from completing a questionnaire about local services and issues, signing a petition, or taking part in a demonstration right on up to occupying an elected position.

Volunteerism is also once a year, as far as they're concerned.

If you measure participation by once a year activities, then you get one answer. I'm just not sure it's an answer to those who say that the religous volunteer or are more active than the non-religious. It's rather like having your boss say, "So, what have you done today?" and giving the answer, "Engaging in cellular respiration." It's a perfectly true and accurate response; it's just not an answer to the question that's intended.

I rather suspect that 'more' in this case involves time and expense, not a simple binary count. Heck, I've been especially active. I've answered several phone polls.

[ZombieHorde]

22. This is "On the Fence?" Really? Saying religious and non-religious people

volunteer the same amount is controversial here on DU? Folks must really hate the non-religious.

[Jim__]

24. "Folks must really hate the non-religious" ?????

What does hate have to do with it? Robert Putnam is non-religious. He co-wrote the book American Grace. Here is a brief discussion of the book by him from WSJ:

Of the most secular fifth of Americans, two-thirds said they gave money to charity in the previous year. That's an impressive number, but it pales next to the 94% of the most religious fifth who reported making a charitable donation.

We find the same pattern when we examine how much people give. On average, those in the most religious fifth donate $3,000 to charity annually. Those in the most secular fifth give approximately $1,000. The story is the same when we consider charitable giving as a fraction of household income: By this measure, religious Americans are four times as generous as their secular neighbors, even as they are a little less affluent than secular Americans.

The "religious edge" in giving isn't attributable to some other demographic characteristic common to religious Americans. These results hold up even after accounting for a wide array of other factors known to influence charitable donations, such as income, age, education, marital status, gender and race.

So which religion is the most charitable? As it turns out, the operative matter is not what religion someone practices but how religious they are.

Discussion is impossible when data is labeled hate. Putnam doesn't hate himself. IMO, religion is incidental to these facts. It has more to do with community;and it's important that we understand what's going on.