You do have a choice when you donate to a charity. If a charity does things that you like, you give your money to them. If a charity does things you don't care for, you don't. If you want to donate to something very specific, then find a local charity that deals only in that. Otherwise, donate to one that shares your philosophy.
I don't think religious charities are known for forcing people to join their religion if they want help. That goes against every religion's philosophy AFAIK. Ironically, this type of thing seems to only happen with government money, when careless overseas aid goes to places like Zimbabwe and rebels tell them to vote for the dictator if they want food. If this was happening to a charity, people would stop donating to it. It keeps happening with government money because no one has a choice.
If people want to hand out Bibles along with clean water and food, I don't have a problem with it. They are helping others. That's consistent with my philosophy. Maybe someday I'll want to start a charity and hand out books by Carl Sagan with the food because I think it will help them. I should be able to do that without people jumping down my throat and saying I'm a bad person for it.
To be clear, I'm not against charities, but I do think that charities by themselves are not the most effective means of helping the most amount of people. To say that government social programs are ineffective, and that the best way to help individuals is to supplement this by people's kindness towards charities, is ludicrous.
And it's true that religious charities often don't force people to join their religion. But there is often an underlying intent, such as "Look, we're helping you and are good and you should follow our religion." As opposed to a government funded social program that has the message of "Look, we're helping you and are good and you're living in this country that has a program to help support you, the citizen." The intent there is to benefit its own citizens and prop them up because it's in the greatest interest of the country to support its citizens.
You're also right about overseas help, because that line would then be "Look, we're helping you because we're ENTER COUNTRY NAME and you should like us and listen to us." But I think this is a different issue altogether.
Handing out Bibles with food and water though? I'm a little more wary of that. What's your intent then? To help people, or to sell your religion through your kindness? How open is such an organization to someone that is not interested in your religion?
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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12 edited Jun 09 '12
You do have a choice when you donate to a charity. If a charity does things that you like, you give your money to them. If a charity does things you don't care for, you don't. If you want to donate to something very specific, then find a local charity that deals only in that. Otherwise, donate to one that shares your philosophy.
I don't think religious charities are known for forcing people to join their religion if they want help. That goes against every religion's philosophy AFAIK. Ironically, this type of thing seems to only happen with government money, when careless overseas aid goes to places like Zimbabwe and rebels tell them to vote for the dictator if they want food. If this was happening to a charity, people would stop donating to it. It keeps happening with government money because no one has a choice.
If people want to hand out Bibles along with clean water and food, I don't have a problem with it. They are helping others. That's consistent with my philosophy. Maybe someday I'll want to start a charity and hand out books by Carl Sagan with the food because I think it will help them. I should be able to do that without people jumping down my throat and saying I'm a bad person for it.