[Thor]

Originally Posted by Wiggum_PI

This is a pretty unfair statement considering there are many organizations around the world dedicated to helping people in need, that were started by people of faith.

Right, but the important and telling question is are they helping because of faith in God or because like biologically has been shown, empathy and concern for others is beneficial to a species as a whole.

But more clearly to put it like Hitchens does, what ever had been done only for the sake of religous belief that cannot or has not been done by secular values.

The fact that its only been decades really that secular charity could operate over the last 2000yrs has us at a disadvantage.

So I put it to you, what makes religious charity different from a secular charity, say like Doctors without borders, Red Cross, and unicef. All secular organizations.

The Mustard Seed which provides shelter for homeless people and helps them find employment and become self-sufficient again, was started by a Christian.

If it was started by a Bhuddist would it matter? How about a Scientologist?

The Salvation Army, Samaritan's Purse, World Vision, Habitat for Humanity, ....(there are tons more that could be listed), are all Christian organizations that try to help people and make the world a better place to live in.

Yup, while also having view that deny rights to Gay's and even in a few instance of these utterly attack those groups.

So again I ask, what makes religious charity better than a secular charity, other than religious charity groups have about a 2000yr head start.

It seems like bashing Christians is the "cool" thing to do on CP, and everyone is so focused on the negatives that they forget all the good and positive contributions made by people of faith.

Nope, we are fully aware of the good things. I'm sure on some middle east message forum Muslims are bashing Christians or atheists about their criticisms of the harm those religions bring.

The one thing that I find is the WEAKEST argument for religion is, religious people do good things! Look at the charity work.

Ok, fine.

But then lets look at their other projects. Fighting tooth and nail against every attempt worldwide to give gay couples rights equal to married couples. Claiming religious rights to the word "married."

Oddly enough, atheists and agnostics are having no issues getting married. The word married is not religious in nature, the history of Christian marriage is polygamy and women being married off in property exchanges.

So yeah, lets not kid ourselves, the only reason Christians today care about gay marriage is it offends them, much like it offended them when blacks were given the rights to vote and marry.