First off, strongly agreed that community matters and is worth investing in.
...you are less instrumentally rational than the average christian.
You may be less something, but rational targeting of effort (both doing something besides converting people, and being strategic at whatever you’re doing) utterly swamps quantity of effort here. Being charitable ≠ doing good.
The average christian donates about 10% of their income to the church.
Source, or are you just assuming people do what they’re supposed to? This (first search result) says the mean is 2.9%. (I would also bet that most Christians don’t know what they nominally should give.) (ETA: I read your comment after you deleted the paragraph acknowledging this.)
the christians are investing a lot of resources into their mission of converting the whole world to christianity
I feel obligated to point out (outgroup homogeneity bias, etc.) that far from all Christians see this as their goal.
After some math, 2.9% still feels like more than most people donate to their non-religious causes. 2.9% of the average annual expenditure is more than 1400 dollars! I am willing to accept that Christians are doing more for their cause than I am for mine. Mine is more effective, but unless I can say that Christianity is a net negative (I can’t), when you multiply it through the effectiveness, I still come out below Christians.
First off, strongly agreed that community matters and is worth investing in.
You may be less something, but rational targeting of effort (both doing something besides converting people, and being strategic at whatever you’re doing) utterly swamps quantity of effort here. Being charitable ≠ doing good.
Source, or are you just assuming people do what they’re supposed to? This (first search result) says the mean is 2.9%. (I would also bet that most Christians don’t know what they nominally should give.) (ETA: I read your comment after you deleted the paragraph acknowledging this.)
I feel obligated to point out (outgroup homogeneity bias, etc.) that far from all Christians see this as their goal.
After some math, 2.9% still feels like more than most people donate to their non-religious causes. 2.9% of the average annual expenditure is more than 1400 dollars! I am willing to accept that Christians are doing more for their cause than I am for mine. Mine is more effective, but unless I can say that Christianity is a net negative (I can’t), when you multiply it through the effectiveness, I still come out below Christians.
good points, thanks. I made some more edits.
I added a note mentioning that the mean is 2.9%, and that comment “Being charitable ≠ doing good.”
I replaced “their mission of converting the whole world to christianity” with “their vaguely defined mission”