The paragraph says “Development charities funded by US Christian groups…”. Certainly it does not say “All development charities…”, but neither does it say “Some (or even Most) development charities…” For better or worse, I took it to mean “all”.

But I recently heard a talk given by a former employee of WorldVision, the US-based world’s largest Christian-based development charity. The way he spoke certainly suggested that they were not that kind of organisation. I found this information about their work with sex workers in India: www.worldvision.org.uk/server.php?show=nav.2357 and this sponsor form that is very clear about their distribution of condoms: www.bugonline.org/upload/pdf/sponsor_form.pdf

My disappointment is not so much that “All” development charities funded by US Christian Groups have been tarred with the same brush, but more that, had I not heard the talk by the WorldVision employee, I would have been misled by what Ben Goldacre wrote. And if I would have been misled once, then, sadly, I will now have to be “twice shy”.

I’ve been working with an AIDS-related charity for about a dozen years now. AIDS-related charities in my area get two kinds of adult volunteers and donors:

* GLB (very rarely TQ) people (and their parents or older siblings) that know a gay man with AIDS and/or who died from AIDS, and

* Active/church-going Christians.

If the atheist contingent wants to have an impact on these charities, they might try showing up, or at least getting out their checkbooks. Straight atheist men are typically the least generous donors, especially for human service work.

It happens that I haven’t ever encountered anyone that would refuse donations from any (legal) source, but I could easily imagine an organization not wanting to alienate a significant fraction of their donor base by giving a substantial advertisement to a group that might offend their donor base for a relatively small donation. Losing even 5% of your reliable donors for a one-time gift is generally a poor trade.

Ben, if your “success” requires you to kill a morally significant human, then you are already a failure — just not the kind of failure that can be identified by looking into your bank account. Public policy folks heavily promote materialistic outcomes, but ignore compassion, caring, perseverance, and other virtues. Having fewer children, or having only children of the “right” kind, might make a person materially wealthier, but wealth is not the only possible definition of “success in life.” Treating children like they’re optional (and even disposable) things, rather than humans, does not make us better, more noble, or ultimately more successful. It’s true that people have been aborting pregnancies and killing infants (especially girls) for thousands of years, but this doesn’t make that behavior *good*.

There are also basic misunderstandings about History and the Catholic Churchs’ position on contraception and abortion. The talk about a compassionate God is irrelevant as humans were ‘created’ with free-will. Most of the myths to do with direct intervention were linked to particular Historical events or created by rabbis to explain or codify behaviour. Predestination and direct intervention were invented by Reformers to differentiate the ‘Elect’ and exclude everyone else – particularly Catholics by the way. And the Church view is that sex should take place within a loving committed and exclusive relationship where children are not viewed as an inconvenience to be got rid of and where life is sacrosanct under any conditions. If it is wrong to take a life once, it is wrong at any time and sophistry is not accepted. The fact the world does not live up to this is not the Churchs’ fault and anyone who professes to Christianity should live this way. The Church also spends more than any other organisation on aid in Africa without the previous strings – this isnt the 19th century any more.

In saying that as a Catholic I do not agree with everything about the Church and I symaphise with those whose lives are out of their control (although I’m 100% on taking a life being wrong, no matter how convenient). And as a scientist I think the only way we can understand the universe is through Science, through testing. I dont think these are mutually exclusive. To me the energy of the universe is God; the order underlying chaos theory (Maths being the most perfect Science) is God; the sheer wealth of coincidence, chance and randomness required for there not to be a God points in the direction of it. The personification is just to let our tiny human minds comprehend it. And I think anyone who dismisses any belief out of hand just because it isnt theirs closes their mind to the possibilities in an infinite universe!

Merry Christmas!

But back to the subject. Money for the Terrence Higgins Trust. Fantastic!

I apologise for not being clearer. I understood your original analogy and I disagree with it. However, in my argument I muffed a couple of steps so I will try it again.

In your analogy, your dog is hurt by a vaccination because it is painful and so he suffers. However, the suffering is worth it because he is subsequently immune from a disease which otherwise might make him unwell. He is unable to understand this because he is a dog.

Here’s what’s wrong with the analogy:

The fact that babies die is not better for the babies themselves, nor is it better for their parents. Thus, dead babies differ from your analogy since those who suffer are not the same as those who benefit. On this point, unless we accept that it is not beneficial for babies and parents to suffer we need to question whether we should ever intervene in death or illness since surely it must always be “for the best” for that person “in a way that we can’t understand”. On the other hand, if it is true that it is not better for them and it’s just better for the rest of us then we have the moral problem of whether we should be happy to benefit from all the dead babies.

I think this makes it clear that your analogy needs some work. However, in the hope of avoiding a further analogy (perhaps one about a fat man and some other people on alternate train tracks), here is a better argument..

You contend that “mere humans do not have the intellect to understand why a compassionate god would allow suffering”. There are two statements here.

1) There exists a reason, A, which has convinced god that he must allow suffering.
2) There do not exist any humans who can understand A.

Statement 1) means that we need to ask god what A is, because no one else would know. God is notoriously silent on this (and any other) issue, and so A appears to be unknowable. Point 2) means that no human can possibly understand A even if he knew what it was. Thus, A is doubly unknowable because if I am human and I am told A, it can’t convince me of god’s reasoning because I can’t possibly understand A.

Your contention is therefore, by definition, untestable (by humans) and impossible to disprove. On the contention itself, science and logic are necessarily silent because there is nothing which can be said about something which is untestable, other than it is untestable. Here are some more untestable statements which, as I understand your argument, are equally impossible to disprove:

God got drunk and created humanity. Waking up the next morning, the other gods laughed at god for creating people to worship him (I mean, come on!) and for daring to call himself “god” like he’s the only one or something. God is a vengeful god (there’s some “evidence” for this in the bible) but he is a coward and afraid of the other gods. Blaming humanity for his embarrassment. he sets about torturing humanity for the rest of time by killing their babies and creating that plastic packaging which hurts your hands to open and is impervious to scissors.

or how about…

A number of different gods got together and earnestly, with good intentions, created humanity. Then they left us to it.

or…

Billions of years ago stars and planets formed from giant dust clouds. On one of the planets, after many many years of it not happening, life happened (it had to sooner or later). Many years later some of the life, called humanity, was walking around and said “I wonder what this life thing is all about then?” and he created god as a convenient, if unimaginative, one-size-fits-all explanation.

Hang on, that last one might just be testable.

Once again, apologies for clogging.

Yes, I was surprised too. Is it really the case that Christians would stop giving money to a particular charity if that charity accepted money from atheists. I mean, it’s not very Christian, is it? Perhaps the charities were being over-cautious. I hope so.

I think a rational humanist code, constructed using modern philosophical ideas, and incorporating our scientific understanding of how our world and our minds operate would lead to a much more suitable and useful moral code than any religion can supply. Of course it does beg the question “who defines the code)?”.

The only time I’ve heard of donations being rejected before was when Maggie’s Cancer Centres refused money frome ‘Jerry Springer the Opera’ after Christian VOice complained, which only made me vow never to give money to Maggie’s. That episode was presented as “CV deprives charity” so it rather backfired.

Are so many mainstream charities really running scared of the power of Christian Voice, or just assuming that most Christians are like them (even more depressing)?

@Jessicathejourno
I think you’re right too – when you say that informed humanism may not be a better moral arbiter than religion.

‘Those who think that science can only make statements about mathematical levels of proof are simply wrong.’ not sure why you say this, however not only is it true, but science can in fact never make such proof. we have theories which have empirical evidence (sometimes overwealming) to support them, not theorems.

‘I’ll only accept that when religions stop making empirical claims about the universe (God created it, Jesus was resurrected, hell exists, prayer can influence outcomes, etc.).’
I didn’t say they necessarily operated in entirely different spheres, but remember in order to scientifically falsify something it shouldn’t just make empirical statements, those statements also need to be actually tested. I don’t want to start discussing what is and what is not the view of established religions (thats for the believers to say) but rational people will stop believing empirical claims from religion when they get falsified, but they may not drop the whole religion, just change interpretation in light of evidence.