The Agitator

Bear with me on this!

Any research I’ve seen that looks into propensity to donate as it might relate to an individual’s religiosity comes to the same conclusion … the more important religion is in the life of an individual, the more likely they are to make charitable gifts. Always see a strong correlation.

Perhaps we should just take that as a truism of some sort … don’t most religions urge us, after all, to care for our brothers and sisters, the less fortunate, and so on? Should there be any surprise here? Indeed, where religion is important in the life of individuals, they appear to sacrifice more — i.e., give away a larger proportion of their income.

Are secular humanists, non-practitioners, atheists, etc doomed therefore to be slackers when it comes to giving?

I’m thinking about this having just read this exchange between the notable writers, social commentators and brothers, Christopher and Peter Hitchens.

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life invited the two of them to address — no, not fundraising! — but rather the question of whether civilization needs religion in order to preserve values, ethics and order.

I was interested in the exchange because I happen to think that moral values and ethical sensibilities (versus, say, “enlightened self-interest”) drive an enormous amount of giving …  a sort of “civilized” behavior (or “civilised” as the Hitchens would say).

Christopher Hitchens, contributing editor to The Atlantic, Columnist for Vanity Fair, is the author of more than 10 books including the best-selling manifesto God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Says he:

“…in huge parts of what we might call the industrialized modern world, tens of millions of people, in effect, live in a post-religious society. It’s hard to argue, I think, that they lead conspicuously less-civilized lives than their predecessors who felt that there was a genuine religious authority that spoke with power.”

“Notice how in your daily media intake, the much-maligned word secular has lost its pejorative character almost entirely.

In other words, suppose you were to read today that the new prime minister of Iraq was the leader of a secular force that didn’t have any religious allegiance. Would you be, A, terribly upset, B, enormously relieved or, three, thrilled beyond measure? (Laughter.) Ought you to be thinking this, those of you of faith?”

Peter Hitchens, columnist for The Mail on Sunday, is the author of four books including The Abolition of Britain, a major seller in that country, and the recently published The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith, which he wrote to counter Christopher’s book, God Is Not Great. Replies Peter (after describing two incidents in Britain of appalling violence):

“…in large parts of England, particularly in the poorer parts, the behavior of individual human beings towards one another has sunk to levels not far distant from the Stone Age … this kind of thing is so common at a low level in the grimmer suburbs of English cities that it is actually normal for a lot of people. This was not the case until quite recently. How has this decline in civilization come about? Well, I think it has come about at least partly because there is no longer in the hearts of the English people the restraint of the Christian religion, which used to prevent this sort of behavior.”

“…I haven’t come here to say that civilization’s impossible without religion or indeed without Christianity. There are non-Christian civilizations. There are civilized countries which aren’t really based upon religion at all, such as Japan …

But the extraordinary combination, which you in this country and I in mine used to enjoy and may for some time continue to, of liberty and order seems to me only to occur where people take into their hearts the very, very powerful messages of self-restraint without mutual advantage, which is central to the Christian religion.”

I realize that many of you won’t be able to take the time right now to read something so tangential to the duties and challenges facing you today. But I urge you to stash away this exchange between the two erudite Hitchens brothers away for a a rainy day, when you feel like being provoked.

Tom