# Are there any atheist service organizations that help the poor and homeless? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 14, 2009, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-atheist-service-organizations-that-help-the-poor-and-homeless/521221 "2009-12-14T16:02:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Sinaijon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Sinaijon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinaijon)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-atheist-service-organizations-that-help-the-poor-and-homeless/521221/61 "2009-12-16T20:05:11Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Self-reported happiness is not a very reliable or significant data point. I think there’s a lot of pressure in some religious groups to project oneself as happy whether it’s true or not. You know, if you guys want to get over the whole ‘elite pandering liberal’ stereotype, maybe the first step would be to acknowledge that happiness is a bit of a personal trait and the person best suited for judging it is the person experiencing it, not you. IE, who are you to tell somebody whether or not they are ‘actually’ happy? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-atheist-service-organizations-that-help-the-poor-and-homeless/521221/62 "2009-12-16T20:20:36Z")
There used to be a Communist [International Red Aid](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Red_Aid) organization. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-atheist-service-organizations-that-help-the-poor-and-homeless/521221/63 "2009-12-16T20:38:23Z")
> [@Sinaijon](#): > > You know, if you guys want to get over the whole ‘elite pandering liberal’ stereotype, maybe the first step would be to acknowledge that happiness is a bit of a personal trait and the person best suited for judging it is the person experiencing it, not you. > > IE, who are you to tell somebody whether or not they are ‘actually’ happy? That’s not what he’s doing. He’s not saying that they only think they are happy and he knows better; he’s saying they are lying. ---
**Author:** ![Sinaijon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Sinaijon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinaijon)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-atheist-service-organizations-that-help-the-poor-and-homeless/521221/64 "2009-12-16T21:27:58Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > That’s not what he’s doing. He’s not saying that they only think they are happy and he knows better; he’s saying they are lying. And how does he know that? Does he have some super secret insight to their personal feelings? Some special lie detector super powers? ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2009, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-atheist-service-organizations-that-help-the-poor-and-homeless/521221/65 "2009-12-17T06:07:20Z")
> [@Sinaijon](#): > > And how does he know that? Does he have some super secret insight to their personal feelings? Some special lie detector super powers? I don’t know why anyone would dispute that religiods are happier. They’re part of a group that has a common delusion. They have a super friend that listens to their personal wishes and smites their enemies. And they have a happy-happy-joy-joy place to go to once they’re dead. What’s not to be happy about? Atheists on the other hand have to deal with the majority of the population who believe in that crap. Of course we’re not as happy. Duh. ---
**Author:** ![dinoboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/65b543/32.png) [@dinoboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dinoboy)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2009, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-atheist-service-organizations-that-help-the-poor-and-homeless/521221/66 "2009-12-17T22:49:34Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > I don’t know why anyone would dispute that religiods are happier. They’re part of a group that has a common delusion. They have a super friend that listens to their personal wishes and smites their enemies. And they have a happy-happy-joy-joy place to go to once they’re dead. What’s not to be happy about? > Atheists on the other hand have to deal with the majority of the population who believe in that crap. Of course we’re not as happy. Duh. This is probably not too far from it… I haven’t looked at all of these studies yet but I have seen several and being only correlative they do little to support the hypothesis that religion is the causal agent that makes people happier. However, that correlation, along with what we know about tribal behavior, might suggest that belonging to an identity _group_ helps with ones happiness. One of the errors of (many of) these surveys (besides just being correlative) is methodology; if one wants to find the causal agent of happiness, you don’t bias the data gathering by _telling_ your subjects that is what you are doing. Also, (someone brought up tribalism already) people tend to be happier when they belong to groups that validate their own beliefs and similar likes. Religious groups are very good at this for a number of reasons, among which (in addition to the above) is that THEY created the beliefs in their members and _continually_ reinforce those beliefs. That reinforcement is important since it easily exposes dissent. Along these lines, I might mention that a fear of rejection from the group is a very strong motivator to at least appear compliant (happy) with this structure. From question wording, context, location and time asked, not to mention the complexities of human emotion and thought, there are just too many confounding variables affecting these types of surveys to take them all that seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2009, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-atheist-service-organizations-that-help-the-poor-and-homeless/521221/67 "2009-12-18T00:51:01Z")
> [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](#): > > But see? That’s the problem. To actively disavow a belief, you still have to be engaged enough in the idea for it to be something you disavow. If something is utterly meaningless to you, it’s not even going to be enough of a blip on your radar to merit some kind of disavowal. > > Think of asking the question: “Are there any groups - that specifically disavow Ewoks - that provide community services like feeding the homeless?” Disavowing Ewoks doesn’t come up much for people who don’t ever think about them. . . I think that’s mostly because we’re unlikely to have someone knock on our door and ask to talk to us about how the Ewoks love us. We’re also unlikely to be suddenly blindsided by hostility from Ewok believers who had assumed that we must also be Ewok believers and that only supremely evil people could possibly not believe in Ewoks. The strength of the disavowal has more to do with the avowals coming at me than with there being some special belief to the disavowal. I would love for the whole thing to be “utterly meaningless” and as soon as there’s no “but this is meaningful!! how can you ignore this!!!” coming at me, then it will be. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-atheist-service-organizations-that-help-the-poor-and-homeless/521221.md?page=3)