Researchers are starting to apply the tools of the social sciences to study religion, and one of the big questions they are asking is whether religion makes people more generous. The answer is complicated and much debated. Religious people make more tax deductible donations, but without controlled research it has been hard to sort out how much of their giving is simply to promote their own religion or to pay for what economists call "club benefits." A recent study by the Nottingham University Business School suggests that religion has little effect on generosity per se, except toward insiders. Religious participants, including Christians, Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists became more generous than nonreligious only when they were told that the other participant was a member of their own faith.
A Kiva lending team that calls itself "Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Freethinkers, Secular Humanists, and the Non-Religious" is Kiva's the top ranked team in terms of total microcredit lending.
MORE: http://www.alternet.org/belief/busting-myth-christians-are-more-generous-non-believers?akid=10017.275909.wFFZtD&rd=1&src=newsletter789871&t=5&paging=off
