:: The Rational Radical Blog ::

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Least Church-Going Rich Countries Give Most

Nations where fewer people attend church tend to be more generous in their support for development in poor countries than those where church attendance is much greater, according to the third annual edition of the 'Commitment to Development Index (CDI)', published this week in Foreign Policy magazine.

The Index, a joint project of Washington-based Foreign Policy and the Center for Global Development (CGD), found that Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, Australia, and Norway retained their top rankings among wealthy countries for their helpfulness to poor countries from last year. Italy, Ireland, Greece and Japan were the least helpful of the 21 countries ranked by the Index.

This isn't surprising, because so many churches and church leaders are just practicing right-wing pseudo-Chrisitianity, which is more akin to devil-worship than anything Christ ever taught. And of course, much of our giving is phony anyway, being undercut by our other actions:

[T]he U.S. Treasury last year imposed nearly two billion dollars in tariffs on imports from the four countries that were most affected by the tsunami -- India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand -- twice the 900 million dollars in relief aid approved by the U.S. Congress for the same countries last May.

And don't let the right-wing lie machine fool ya by its drumbeat of "Oh, our private charity aid is where we give, not thru the government."

While the United States was the most generous in terms of its private giving -- citizens gave an average of six cents a day to private charities that financed overseas aid -- U.S. ODA averaged only 15 cents per day per person, bringing the total to 21 cents/day/person. By contrast, Denmark, the leading aid-giver, spent an average of 90 cents/day/person, 89 cents of which came from the government and only one cent from private sources.

So we're still one of the most stingy countries.

Jack Clark 3:15 PM [+]   
Post #112483534827784924