Who gives more, liberals or conservatives?

Here, inaccuracies that Rush has propegated.

http://www.fair.org/press-releases/limbaugh-debates-reality.html

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<A name=Reportedgiving>Reported giving

• 78% donated money to a non-profit organization or a church in 2000. This represents a six percentage-point decline from the 1999 (which was at 84%).
• The proportion of households that tithe their income to their church – that is, give at least ten percent of their income to that ministry – has dropped by 62% in the past year, from 8% in 2001 to just 3% of adults during 2002 (2003)
• In 2002, 6% of born again adults tithed. This represents an 8 percentage point decline from 2001, (14% of born again adults tithed) and a 6 point decline from 2000, (12% of all born again adults). (2003)
• Nearly 9% of the evangelicals tithed in 2002 – roughly three times the national average. (2003)

<A name=Reportedgivingtothelocalchurch>Reported giving to the local church

• Six out of ten adults (61%) gave money to one or more churches in 2000, a small decline from 1999 (66%).
• The average church donor contributed a mean of $649 to churches in 2000, down from the $806 in 1999.
• Nearly one-quarter of all born again Christians (23%) gave no money to a church in 2000 – which is significantly lower than the 39% of all adults who made no financial contribution to a church in 2000.
• More Americans claim to tithe than actually do: 17% of adults claim to tithe while 6% actually do so. (2000)
• 12% of born again Christians (compared to 3% of non born agains) tithed their income to churches in 2000.
• The average cumulative donations to churches by evangelicals totaled $2097. The average cumulative donations to churches by born agains totaled $1166. For evangelicals, cumulative donations totaled $2097. (2000)
• Slightly more than half of all adults (54%) donate some money to a church during a typical month. (2000)
• Busters are substantially less likely (36%) than are Boomers (58%), Builders (68%) or Seniors (68%) to give to a church in a given month. (2000)
• Married adults are more likely than are single adults to donate some money to a church in a typical month (64% to 42% respectively). (2000)

Source : Barna Research

What was that post and run about? Christians give more to churches? Anyone could have told you that.

Havoc said:

I don't really consider tithing to a church that goes into the building fund for nicer pews to sit your butt on to be in the same category as giving money to help unwed mothers train for a good job, but quite frankly that's where most church "giving" goes to. Rather than actually help the poor and desolate it goes to m aintaining the Church and Church programs.

For this to be a meaningful set of statistics I think that sort of "giving" should be factored out.

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Tithes usually do NOT go to the building fund, but to the budget which includes missionary spending. The Building Fund is normally separate and above the tithe!

newlamb said:

Tithes usually do NOT go to the building fund, but to the budget which includes missionary spending. The Building Fund is normally separate and above the tithe!

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My particular church, gives OUT 25% of the money taken in, most of that goes to needy causes, food, shelter, orphanages, that sort of thing.

I imagine most larger church's are similar, so money given to church causes helps to a large extent and is indicative to some degree of what passes for charity too....

Bruce S said:

My particular church, gives OUT 25% of the money taken in, most of that goes to needy causes, food, shelter, orphanages, that sort of thing.

I imagine most larger church's are similar, so money given to church causes helps to a large extent and is indicative to some degree of what passes for charity too....

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So what you're saying is that to determine the amount of charity given, you should divide the amount given to your church by 4, correct?

panterapat said:

As an interesting sidebar:

Contributions to the Democratic party are mostly large donations to the limit of the law from wealthy people.
Contributions to the Republican party are mostly small and well below the max. allowed by law, and given by the middle and lower income class of Americans.

Even in the Congress and Senate, a greater number of the millionaires are Democrats. And the Democratic party claims to be the party of the poor and working class.

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Really? I am intrigued to your source for this, since Howard Dean's average contribution for his presidential campaign has been $77, while Bush's has been in the thousands as an average.

quick note about the data - if you look at the mean contribution v. income, it sure looks like the Bush states are more generous, until you notice that the percentage of the people in those states that donated money was really pretty low. Large mean contribution? Small number of people actually donating? Sounds like either corporations donating or a small amount of oligarchs.

If you look at the percentage of the population that actually gives to charities, a different picture emerges: traditionally democratic-leaning states are the more generous: NY, RI, Mass, CA.

panterapat said:

The study was not run by or affected in any way by Rush or his associates. they simply REPORTED on the study.

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That study bruce posted proves that Christians give more to churches then non-christians. While I'm hardly surprised that Rush misread that as christians give more to CHARITY (charity is close to church, right?) it doesn't make it correct. In addition to take that as liberal and conservative assumes that all christians are conservative, and all non-christians are liberal, an insane assumption at best.

"In addition to take that as liberal and conservative assumes that all christians are conservative, and all non-christians are liberal, an insane assumption at best."


I disagree. Liberal or not though, the study does show christians give more. Churches are nonprofit org. like any other charity and are counted as such.

Outspoken said:

"In addition to take that as liberal and conservative assumes that all christians are conservative, and all non-christians are liberal, an insane assumption at best."


I disagree. Liberal or not though, the study does show christians give more. Churches are nonprofit org. like any other charity and are counted as such.

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No, the study shows that christians give more to CHURCHES which says nothing about CHARITIES. For instance the Habitat for Humanity would NOT be counted because it's not a church.

ThePhoenix said:

No, the study shows that christians give more to CHURCHES which says nothing about CHARITIES. For instance the Habitat for Humanity would NOT be counted because it's not a church.

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???

Charity, is whatever is allowable as a DEDUCTION on the Income Tax returns. The goverment CALLS church giving a charity, they even have it in the SAME line on tax returns, lumped with all other charities.

Church giving is the same as any other charities.

I know you think differently, but that is your OPINION, legally, they are one and the same.

"Liberal or not though, the study does show christians give more."


that's some wild extrapolation, ya got there.

take another look at the percent of returns showing contributions

panterapat said:

A recent study explored which states have contributed the most money to charity as derived from their tax returns.

The top twenty states in giving all gave their electorial votes to Bush.
The bottom twenty states in giving (excepting one) gave their electorial votes to Gore.

What does this tell us???

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Any inference taken from this is going to guilty of several logical fallicies.

1) Many acts of giving are not tax deductible. I give to the ACLU and to Howard Dean's campaign. Those don't count on my taxes.

2) Giving your time to a worthy cause is priceless. Our animal shelters from coast to coast are run an mantained by many Earth-first "liberals" who dedicate their time in liue of money. This isn't reflected on tax returns.

3) Just how is Florida divied up? It's bad enough to steal Florida's votes, but stealing Florida's goodwill? That sucks, man.

4) I live in a state that voted for Bush, so even my donations to charities that are tax deductible are actually being counted as generousity in the name of conservatives? That's complete whack. I'd have to stop giving money in order to appear more generous!

5) The data is from 2002, and doesn't take into account any social/economic factors. The terrorists attacks propably effected people's wallets in New York more than in Alabama. The continued dot-com crash would of also effected NY and California tremoundously but leave most Bible-belt states untouched.

6) I saw something similar from a couple of years ago, where Utah was deemed the most generous state. But most of that "generousity" is found in the form of irrating Mormons knocking on my door on my days off. I'd expect a good deal of the giving found in the conservative states to be similar Church donations - dedicated to saving souls for Jesus primarily. In that case, I don't feel particulary shamed.

So, as you can see, there's still a lot of work and research to be done.

But, if you appreciate simple references, I'd like to remind you that a popular Barna survey found that the Bible belt states have the highest divorce rate.

So I'll make you a deal: I'll admit conservatives give more to charity if you admit that liberals take their wedding vows more seriously.

panterapat said:

"So I'll make you a deal: I'll admit conservatives give more to charity if you admit that liberals take their wedding vows more seriously"

I don't have any facts on the matter but IMO I'd guess that the divorce rate is about the same for liberal, conservative and everything in between.

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Well, you guessed wrong. Here's some facts posted at religioustolerance.org obtained by a Barna Research study:


[font=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]Religion [/font][font=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]% have been divorced[/font]
[font=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]Jews [/font][font=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]30%[/font]
[font=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]Born-again Christians [/font][font=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]27%[/font]
[font=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]Other Christians [/font][font=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]24%[/font]
[font=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]Atheists, Agnostics [/font][font=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]21%[/font]