Things of no Consequence

"If my father were alive today, he would be in his 90s. He grew up financially well off in the Depression but his disinheritance by his father and service in WWII opened his eyes to the suffering of most of the world. He did not contribute to charitable religious organizations, preferring to support governmental or secular groups. Here’s why: I vividly remember driving by the Salvation Army store one day, and my father saying he wouldn’t give them a cent. When I asked why, he said, “they make those poor bastards say a prayer before they’ll give them a hot meal.” He believed, rightly or not I cannot say, that religious charities served the poor only to recruit them to their faith. The thought of a man bending his knee to a god he didn’t believe in, in exchange for a hot meal, made my father sick. Government doesn’t make you say a prayer before they give you a hot meal. This has always been a very powerful argument, to me, for supporting public social programs over private charity."