The United States - A Christian Nation?

[Planey]

This article came from the Washington Post:

How can an Atheist know the character of Christ better than you guys on this board????

How would Jesus vote?

By Paula Kirby

Mitt Romney’s visit to London this week - a visit he handled so disastrously that both the prime minister and the mayor of London (Conservatives both) were piqued into mocking him publicly - has brought many Brits face-to-face with this year’s U.S. presidential election for the first time.

Britain and America have been described as two countries divided by a common language, but the bewilderment extends well beyond the linguistic: it spills over into religion and politics as well. Indeed, in the U.S., the First Amendment notwithstanding, religion and politics seem largely intertwined: right-wing politics especially.

And here our puzzlement only deepens. For in the United Kingdom “Christian” tends to be seen as a shorthand for “trying to be kind; trying to care about others; trying not to be selfish; trying not to be judgmental.” In short, it amounts to “trying to be a good person,” which , of course, those of us who don’t think of ourselves as Christian are trying to do too.

Concern for others and a sense of obligation towards them have long been a part of the British national character, or so we like to think. Our National Health Service, for instance, is one of the few things for which we notoriously reserved Brits can be depended on to show passionate support: our provision of healthcare, free at the point of delivery, for all who need it, regardless of ability to pay, is a source of real national pride to us.

The fierce, often vicious, opposition to “Obamacare” in the U.S. therefore left us completely baffled. All the more so because the most passionate resistance seemed to be coming from the very people most likely to claim their lives are based on Christian values.

I write, of course, as an atheist: but an atheist who used to be a committed Christian and who still remembers feeling deeply inspired by the sheer humanity of the character of Jesus as shown in the Gospels. Another time I might argue about the historical reliability (or otherwise) of the Gospels and take issue with other aspects of their message. But for now I want to take them at face value and ask: what would the Jesus of the Gospels make of some of the shibboleths of U.S. politics?

Let us start with the question of wealth. Far from emphasizing the importance of wealth-creation, Jesus repeatedly told his followers to forsake it; that it would get in the way of their relationship with God. His advice to a wealthy would-be disciple? Sell all you have and give it to the poor. And give it to the poor! No sign here that he thought of the poor as being to blame for their own predicament, people to be frowned on, people who did not deserve to have their well-being taken into account. Suppose Jesus really were alive today. Would he despise the poor? Ignore their needs? Begrudge their miserable welfare hand-outs? Cheer at the idea of letting the uninsured die of disease?

When did the Jesus of the Gospels ever proclaim that the poor and sick and unfortunate do not deserve your compassion? That you are not your brother’s keeper? That paying tax is an abomination?

The Gospels show us a man who shunned the respectable, reaching out instead to the poor and weak, seeking out society’s rejects and publicly aligning himself with them. Would the Jesus who healed abundantly have been outraged at the idea of “Obamacare”? At the suggestion that he should put his hand in his pocket to help ensure the poorest in the wealthiest nation on Earth did not have to live in fear of illness?

And then there’s the baffling issue of guns. To a nation in which not even our police are routinely armed, the power of the gun lobby in the US is simply incomprehensible: the reality of rampant gun-ownership in America seems to bear little resemblance to the “well regulated militia” foreseen in the Second Amendment. American Christians: can you imagine any circumstances in which the Jesus who said “Turn the other cheek” and “Love your enemies” would approve of your owning a gun?

To Brits watching from across the Atlantic, U.S. society seems worryingly divided. Not just between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots, but also between those who consider themselves respectable and those whom those same people do not consider respectable. I can think of no other industrially and commercially advanced country - much less an avowedly Christian one - in which it is apparently so acceptable to demonize those who do not share your beliefs, for example, or your sexual orientation. The sight of American Christians in full self-righteous fervor, working themselves up into a rage over other people’s beliefs and other people’s sexuality, is hard to reconcile with the Jesus of the Gospels, whose anger was almost exclusively reserved for those who dared to judge and look down on others; the Jesus who, himself, chose always to align himself with those so judged.

Romney, of course, is a Mormon. But many of those who support the right-wing politics he espouses will be mainstream Christians. Christians, it must be said, whose Bibles must contain very different accounts of Jesus’s teachings than the one on my bookshelf.

By Paula Kirby | 07:49 PM ET, 08/03/2012

Tags: Paula Kirby, atheists, Election 2012, Jesus

Planey

[bonnie]

And then there’s the baffling issue of guns. To a nation in which not even our police are routinely armed, the power of the gun lobby in the US is simply incomprehensible: the reality of rampant gun-ownership in America seems to bear little resemblance to the “well regulated militia” foreseen in the Second Amendment. American Christians: can you imagine any circumstances in which the Jesus who said “Turn the other cheek” and “Love your enemies” would approve of your owning a gun?

Seems to be working well

The most violent country in Europe: Britain is also worse than South Africa and U.S.

By James Slack

UPDATED: 18:14 EST, 2 July 2009

..

Britain's violent crime record is worse than any other country in the European union, it has been revealed.

Official crime figures show the UK also has a worse rate for all types of violence than the U.S. and even South Africa - widely considered one of the world's most dangerous countries.

The figures comes on the day new Home Secretary Alan Johnson makes his first major speech on crime, promising to be tough on loutish behaviour.

Britain has an even worse violence rate than South Africa

The Tories said Labour had presided over a decade of spiralling violence.

In the decade following the party's election in 1997, the number of recorded violent attacks soared by 77 per cent to 1.158million - or more than two every minute.

The figures, compiled from reports released by the European Commission and United Nations, also show:

The UK has the second highest overall crime rate in the EU.

It has a higher homicide rate than most of our western European neighbours, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

The UK has the fifth highest robbery rate in the EU.

It has the fourth highest burglary rate and the highest absolute number of burglaries in the EU, with double the number of offences than recorded in Germany and France.

But it is the naming of Britain as the most violent country in the EU that is most shocking. The analysis is based on the number of crimes per 100,000 residents.

In the UK, there are 2,034 offences per 100,000 people, way ahead of second-placed Austria with a rate of 1,677.

The U.S. has a violence rate of 466 crimes per 100,000 residents, Canada 935, Australia 92 and South Africa 1,609.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said: 'This is a damning indictment of this government's comprehensive failure over more than a decade to tackle the deep rooted social problems in our society, and the knock on effect on crime and anti-social behaviour.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...l#ixzz22gDC1NoB

[bonnie]

This article came from the Washington Post:

How can an Atheist know the character of Christ better than you guys on this board????

Concern for others and a sense of obligation... But for now I want to take them at face value and ask: what would the Jesus of the Gospels make of some of the shibboleths of U.S. politics?

Let us start with the question of wealth.

A Nation of Givers

By Arthur C. Brooks

From the March/April 2008 Issue

Filed under: Culture, Public Square

Americans are remarkably charitable. But what sorts of people give the most? And how do we compare with the Europeans?

Q. How much do Americans give? Is the amount we give going up?

A. In 2006, Americans gave about $295 billion to charity. This was up 4.2 percent over 2005 levels, and charitable giving has generally risen faster than the growth of the American economy for more than half a century. Correcting for inflation and population changes, GDP per person in America has risen over the past 50 years by about 150 percent, while charitable giving per person has risen by about 190 percent. That is, the average American family has gotten much richer in real terms over the past half century, and charitable giving has more than kept pace with this trend. Q. So where do the donations go?

A. A large majority of U.S. citizens donate money each year to houses of worship and charitable organizations. Most estimates place the percentage of American households that make monetary contributions each year at 70 to 80 percent, and the average American household contributes more than $1,000 annually. But it is not the case that American giving goes entirely—or even mostly—to religious institutions. About a third of individual gifts go toward sacramental activities, primarily supporting houses of worship. The rest goes to secular activities, such as education, health, and social welfare.

Q. Are Americans more or less charitable than citizens of other countries?

A. No developed country approaches American giving. For example, in 1995 (the most recent year for which data are available), Americans gave, per capita, three and a half times as much to causes and charities as the French, seven times as much as the Germans, and 14 times as much as the Italians. Similarly, in 1998, Americans were 15 percent more likely to volunteer their time than the Dutch, 21 percent more likely than the Swiss, and 32 percent more likely than the Germans. These differences are not attributable to demographic characteristics such as education, income, age, sex, or marital status. On the contrary, if we look at two people who are identical in all these ways except that one is European and the other American, the probability is still far lower that the European will volunteer than the American.People who give to charity at least once per year are twice as likely to donate blood as people who don’t give money.Q. Do Americans mostly give because our tax system rewards it?

A.The U.S. federal government and state governments make monetary gifts to public charities tax deductible. So if a taxpayer gives $1,000 and pays a tax rate of 35 percent on her last dollar of income, her donation saves her $350 in taxes.

The amount of taxes not paid because of donations is huge: it represents the single largest government “matching grant” program ever. The Internal Revenue Service estimates that in 2002, individuals donated and deducted $142.4 billion in monetary and in-kind gifts. Breaking this figure down by income class and applying 2002 marginal tax rates for these classes, we can estimate that this represents foregone income tax revenues—and hence a government subsidy to nonprofit organizations—of about $37.2 billion.

Still, tax deductibility is actually irrelevant for most people. IRS records show that only about a third of people who file tax returns itemize their deductions—which means that most Americans (particularly middle- and lower-income citizens) don’t even claim the deductions to which they are entitled. Even among households earning over $120,000 per year, only about 40 percent itemize their deductions. Furthermore, research shows that virtually no one is motivated meaningfully to give only because of our tax system.Q. Monetary giving doesn’t tell us much about total charity, does it? People who don’t give money probably tend to give in other ways instead, right?

A. Wrong. First of all, there is a bright line between people who give and people who don’t give. People who do give time and money tend to give a lot of it. According to the Center on Philanthropy, the percentage of givers donating less than $50 to charity in 2000 was the same as the percentage giving more than $5,000. Similarly, the same percentage of people who only volunteered once volunteered on 36 or more occasions in 2000.

Second, people who give away their time and money to established charities are far more likely than non-givers to act generously in informal ways as well. For example, one nationwide survey from 2002 tells us that monetary donors are nearly three times as likely as non-donors to give money informally to friends and strangers. People who give to charity at least once per year are twice as likely to donate blood as people who don’t give money. They are also significantly more likely to give food or money to a homeless person, or to give up their seat to someone on a bus.Q. We often hear that religious people give more to charity than secularists. Is this true?

A. In the year 2000, “religious” people (the 33 percent of the population who attend their houses of worship at least once per week) were 25 percentage points more likely to give charitably than “secularists” (the 27 percent who attend less than a few times per year, or have no religion). They were also 23 percentage points more likely to volunteer. When considering the average dollar amounts of money donated and time volunteered, the gap between the groups increases even further: religious people gave nearly four times more dollars per year, on average, than secularists ($2,210 versus $642). They also volunteered more than twice as often (12 times per year, versus 5.8 times).

Very little of this gap is due to personal differences between religious and secular people with respect to income, age, family, or anything else. For instance, imagine two people who are identical in income, education, age, race, and marital status. The one difference between them is that, while one goes to church every week, the other never does. Knowing this, we can predict that the churchgoer will be 21 percentage points more likely to make a charitable gift of money during the year than the nonchurchgoer, and will also be 26 points more likely to volunteer.

Q. But aren’t they just giving to religious charities and houses of worship?

A. These enormous differences are not a simple artifact of religious people giving to their churches. Religious people are more charitable with secular causes, too. For example, in 2000, religious people were 10 percentage points more likely than secularists to give money to explicitly nonreligious charities, and 21 points more likely to volunteer. The value of the average religious household’s gifts to nonreligious charities was 14 percent higher than that of the average secular household, even after correcting for income differences.

Religious people were also far more likely than secularists to give in informal, nonreligious ways. For example, in 2000, people belonging to religious congregations gave 46 percent more money to family and friends than people who did not belong. In 2002, religious people were far more likely to donate blood than secularists, to give food or money to a homeless person, and even to return change mistakenly given them by a cashier.

Q. How much do the rich in America give, compared with everyone else?

A. In order for a person to give money away, he or she must have it in the first place. Not surprisingly then, income and charitable giving in America are positively related. For example, in the year 2000, families earning $20,000 or less gave an average of about $450 to charity, while families earning more than $100,000 gave away an average of a bit more than $3,000. The top 10 percent of households in income are responsible for at least a quarter of all the money contributed to charity, and households with total wealth exceeding $1 million give about half of all charitable donations. The American rich are generous, on average.

Low-income working families are the most generous group in America, giving away about 4.5 percent of their income on average.Yet when we measure monetary giving as a percentage of income in order to ascertain the level of one’s “sacrifice,” we find a surprising result: it is low-income working families that are the most generous group in America, giving away about 4.5 percent of their income on average. This compares to about 2.5 percent among the middle class, and 3 percent among high-income families.

One common explanation for the fact that the working poor give so much is, not surprisingly, religion. The working poor tend to belong to congregations that are relatively literal about Biblical injunctions to give. Data from 2000 show that these poor American families were roughly twice as likely as middle-class families to be Seventh-Day Adventists, Pentecostals, or Jehovah’s Witnesses. They were also significantly less likely to belong to more “mainline”—and less stringent—denominations such as Episcopalian, Methodist, and Presbyterian.

Who gives the most in America: conservatives or liberals?

A. There is a persistent stereotype about charitable giving in politically progressive regions of America: while people on the political right may be hardworking and family-oriented, they tend not to be very charitable toward the less fortunate. In contrast, those on the political left care about vulnerable members of society, and are thus the charitable ones. Understanding “charity” in terms of voluntary gifts of money (instead of government income redistribution), this stereotype is wrong.The fact is that self-described “conservatives” in America are more likely to give—and give more money—than self-described “liberals.” In the year 2000, households headed by a conservative gave, on average, 30 percent more dollars to charity than households headed by a liberal. And this discrepancy in monetary donations is not simply an artifact of income differences. On the contrary, liberal families in these data earned an average of 6 percent more per year than conservative families.These differences go beyond money. Take blood donations, for example. In 2002, conservative Americans were more likely to donate blood each year, and did so more often, than liberals. People who said they were “conservative” or “extremely conservative” made up less than one-fifth of the population, but donated more than a quarter of the blood. To put this in perspective, if political liberals and moderates gave blood like conservatives do, the blood supply in the United States would surge by nearly half.

One major explanation for the giving discrepancy between conservatives and liberals is religion. In 2004, conservatives were more than twice as likely as liberals to attend a house of worship weekly, whereas liberals were twice as likely as conservatives to attend seldom or never. There are indeed religious liberals in America, but they are currently outnumbered by religious conservatives by about four to one.

Q. Aren’t people who favor social spending just as charitable as people who give money to charities?

A. It depends. Many Europeans feel that they “give” through their taxes, and in some European countries they have the high taxes and generous social welfare benefits to show for it. This argument doesn’t work so well in America, however, because we don’t have the same redistributive policies.

In America, $1 given privately tends to increase GDP by about $15—an excellent rate of return by any standard.About 80 percent of American liberals say they think the government should “do more” to reduce income inequality, versus just 27 percent of American conservatives. This is another reason, besides religion, liberals in America give less than conservatives. For example, in 1996, people who believed the government should not take greater measures to reduce income inequality gave, on average, four times as much money to charity each year as those who believed the government should equalize incomes more. This result persists even after correcting for other demographics. It even holds for all sorts of nonmonetary giving. For example, people who stated in 2002 that they thought the government was “spending too little money on welfare” were less likely than those saying the government is “spending too much money on welfare” to give food or money to a homeless person.Q. Why shouldn’t the government expand to cover our current charitable giving through taxes, as is done in Europe?

A. First, there is evidence that giving makes people happy. A number of studies have concluded that giving affects our brain chemistry. People who give often report feelings of euphoria, which psychologists have referred to as the “Helper’s High.” They believe that charitable activity induces endorphins that produce a very mild version of the sensations people get from drugs like morphine and heroin.

Second, there is evidence that private giving is implicated in economic growth. Per-capita charity and per-capita GDP in America have moved together over the years. Evidence that the two forces cause each other comes from an analysis of how past values of one variable affect future values of the other. This analysis shows that a 10 percent increase in current GDP per American would lead to a 9 percent rise in charitable giving. At the same time, a 10 percent increase in giving per person would provoke a 3 percent increase in GDP. Given the size of our economy, this means $1 given privately would increase GDP by about $15.

In sum, if we substituted our private charitable giving for government redistributive programs, we would pay a price in terms of economic growth, personal prosperity, and even happiness. Charitable giving should be seen not just as a nice detail about American life, and even less as a mere tax deduction. It should be seen as a national priority.

[Guest]

Seems to be working well

Good articles btw.

[bonnie]

Concern for others and a sense of obligation towards them have long been a part of the British national character, or so we like to think. Our National Health Service, for instance, is one of the few things for which we notoriously reserved Brits can be depended on to show passionate support: our provision of healthcare, free at the point of delivery, for all who need it, regardless of ability to pay, is a source of real national pride to us.

The fierce, often vicious, opposition to “Obamacare” in the U.S. therefore left us completely baffled. All the more so because the most passionate resistance seemed to be coming from the very people most likely to claim their lives are based on Christian values.

The passionate resistance comes from those that do not want what passes for "christian concern" by socialized medicine. Christian concern is a easy phrase to utter.Passionate resistance comes from those that believe that many that scam the system or could do far more to help themselves should not be taking away from those truly unable to do so.

My family has strong Canadian roots with many members Canadian citizens.Why have they come here to a unchristian nation to get much needed medical care in a timely manner?

Why was an online friend of mine put on a four year waiting list for back surgery in the medical utopia of Australia?

She was unable to pay out of pocket for private insurance so to the back of the line you go.

A very close family member in England has to suffer thru a very painful disease, neurofibromatosis (NF)which requires the removal of a recurring tumor on her neck until it reaches the point of being bedridden and life threatening? Chritian country?

Why don't those countries that condemn the US step up and pay for the medical technology provided by the US they use to provide more timely medical care? Countries of socialized medicine,step up,research,patent and manufacture your own medicnes that you hand out "free" to your citizens.Leave ours alone and see how well that works out for you.Forbid your citizens to come to a unchristian nation to be treated in a timely manner.New technology,produce your own and leave ours alone.Pay your own way

The liberal Huffington Post

Kenneth Thorpe.Chair of Dept. of Health Policy & Mgmt. at Emory University's School of Public Health

Posted: January 14, 2011 09:28 AM stumble While there are many opinions about our nation's health care system (particularly in Washington), there's one overwhelming area of consensus -- the United States leads the world in medical innovation.

Who pays for this?

In addition to the best and brightest practicing medicine and state-of-art medical facilities, we have benefited from having the best and, usually, the earliest access to the latest medical technologies and innovations. In large part, this is because they were discovered, developed and produced here in America.Consider the following: We have access to diagnostics that allow us to detect health issues early. We have medical devices that open blocked blood vessels, replace joints and even limbs. We have medicines that have turned HIV into a treatable, chronic condition and significantly lowered death and disability rates from heart disease, many cancers, and stroke, among other diseases.

Not only has medical innovation helped reduce the toll of disease, it has created jobs and inspired economic growth: from the scientists here at Emory and those at once small start-ups that now employ thousands, to the iron worker helping to build a facility, the manufacturing worker assuring a quality product, the clinicians participating in clinical trials and the statisticians analyzing resulting data. In short, at a time when the United States has actively shed jobs, the biomedical sector has consistently added them.

[lazarus]

South Africans suffer more than 20,000 murders each year - compared with Britain's 921 in 2007.

In Britain, an affray is considered a violent crime, while in other countries it will only be logged if a person is physically injured.

[Dr. Shane]

By Paula Kirby

Someone with an obvious axe to grind. Poor soul. I pray God gives him peace.

[Planey]

Me, or her??

Graeme

[Guest]

Originally Posted By: Planey

By Paula Kirby

Someone with an obvious axe to grind. Poor soul. I pray God gives him peace.

You got the obvious part right.