His arguments and his "evidence" are so weak as to be risible. A survey shows that the religious right give to charity - but he does not attempt to define his central concept of "compassion". Surely there is more to compassion than merely donating to charities of choice ! Such as an inclusive attitude towards homosexuals -funny how narrow the range of his compassion is when it comes down to it. There is another related question which I've often wanted to put to Christians on the right - the ones who take the Christian Bible as the word of God - what do they make of the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" when it comes to bombing the hell out of Muslims these days ? Wouldn't true compassion plus God's commandment ensure that Christians would be in the forefront of a movement to stop wars for which their country is responsible ? But where are they when the children are dying in their name in Iraq and Lebanon ? I'd love to hear just how their compassionate consciences deal with the death and killing being promoted by George W. Bush, one of their annointed ones. Giving to charity is all very well, but this is like fiddling while Rome burns in the compassion stakes right now. I look forward to enlightenment ...

I dunno what bible you are reading Kang, but it doesn't say 'Thou shalt not kill'.

Your question also ignores the responsibility of the government to have compassion on their own people, to whom they are charged with protecting from external threats.

I'm also not sure what you mean when you say that having 'an inclusive attitude to homosexuals' is compassion? Why is encouraging people to do self-destructive behaviours compassionate?

It follows that a person who tries to imitate their God will turn out to be like the one they are trying to imitate. No one ever had more compassion than the Lord Jesus Christ. That is why many of His followers weep over the unborn who are slaughtered. Many give sacrifically to the poor and hungry. The label religous right in many media outlets is just an attempt to portray those who won't believe the religion of humanism (man is a god) as bigots. Often it is the left who are hard heartened and more passionate about their religion than those on the right.

Two points came to mind reading this piece.

1. The narrow perspective exhibited by the author to humanity in general, one can only posit what he would make of people like Martin Luther King (left wing, religious) or Mahatma Ghandi (non christian).

2. The lack of tolerance towards others - promoting right wing christianity above others.

At least Peter Sellicks' superior-than-thou articles held some intellectual merit. This article has no place on OLO. It is reprehensible in the extreme, insulting to the majority of human beings and a waste of time and space that could be better spent on real causes such as the crisis in Somalia, the tsunami destruction or the deaths of thousands of innocent people in the Middle East - all requiring urgent action as well as compassion.

Apart from a lack of evidence to support his claims, Arthur Brooks did manage to prove that the religious right are more inclined to PAY LIP SERVICE to the idea of compassion than they are to actively campaign for peace.

Scout try reading the article as a "conservative secularist" :( we appear to be the worst of the worst.

Hunting around I found the following comment on another review of this aspect of the research
"The positive connection between “religious observance and charitable behavior was consistent across religious groups in our study,” Smith and his team reported. Smith observed that charitable acts are part of the teachings of most major religions, and those who attend services weekly not only hear this a lot, but act on kindness to higher degrees than nonattendees. " http://www.stnews.org/Altruism-1140.htm

I wonder how their stats would look if one of the questions was something like "How important are ethics and values in your life".
They may not have looked at all the relevant determiners to reach this conclusion.

R0bert

If you live in a secular society, and do anything other than just religious actions, your a secularist. Swimming, eating out, watching a movie, walking on the beach, are all non religious acts so are secular. Working for a humanitarian NGO, is also a secular act. Living in a secular society also makes you a secularist. Very poorly thought out, presented and argued, but when it comes to god reality ceases to exist

This appears to be another attempt by the followers of god to try and make out their better than anyone else, even though the evidence is the complete opposite. Can't expect anything else from the USA, they create their own truth in deference to the reality.

As 95% of religious who do charitable work, purely do it to look good in the eyes of their god and the rest of the enslaved, so the figures would be high. However most humanitarian work is related to the effects of gods invasions of others lands.

As Robert pointed out, its the type of question asked that gives you the result you seek. How many non believers were asked compared to the religious asked. They probably stood outside the churches and asked them as they came out, not a bad bit of breast beating. But with all illusion, it'd be laughable if it weren't for the fact they believe it and will kill to prove how caring they, as we 've seen world wide.