I've given money to religious charities in certain circumstances.  I'm not that hard core though, I place immediate relief of suffering above my distaste for religion.

Sometimes you don't have a choice.  I've also used community services sponsored by religious institutions, especially the Catholics.  In my rural area they perform some functions that no-one else does.

So for me, if I have a choice between religious and secular, I'll pick secular.  But if my choice is between nothing and something religious, I'll pick something religious every time (Well, for charities anyway.  And I suppose there are exceptions.  I wouldn't donate to a Scientologist charity unless it was life and death, for example).

     Right On !!! At least now I don't feel like a hypocrite.Well said my friend.

 I have never donated in my life.  And I do not plan to.

I am not a hypocrite.

               Early in December I get to play Santa Clause, for the Seven 7 Sisters charity in Guyana for the third straight year; try wearing the full monty santa in 85 degree heat.  The Seven 7 Sisters supply grocery bags full of food to the elderly and poor In Cummings Lodge Guyana [ their home town] and christmass presents to over 100 children who otherwise wouldn't get any.  Each child also gets a picture sitting on Santa's lap.  Most of the recipients of the charity are of Hindu & muslim familys,  with a few [very few] christian recipients,  that's just how the neighborhood is. The Seven 7 Sisters co-ordinate exactly who is needy and who isn't through the local Imam & Pandit and their respective Mosque & Mandir.  They also clue us in on the local christians in need.  Does this make me a hypocrite? Well hell yes,  but we could not figure out the neediest without the Imam & Pandit.

               Guyanese when ever they have a party [weddings, birthdays etc.] always cook too much food for the party. The Seven 7 Sisters , when they are in town gather up the excess food and take it to certain neighborhoods in Georgetown  and hand it out to the homeless, in nifty take-out containers to boot.

                The Seven 7 Sisters charity is run by my wife and her 5 surviving sisters [ one died]  and the extended family;  that's  a lot of manpower involved and some of them are even religious, just not christian.  If anyone here wants to contribute money?  DON'T!! We are well off and we do just fine. Donate some money to RRS,  Brian needs it more then us.

               Here in Canada, I can easily donate to secular charity's,  so I can avoid hypocracy and still get a tax right-off,  and that nice gooy feeling inside.

Doesn't sound problematic.

Personally, I would have a problem donating to a religious charity, but I also have a problem paying sales tax in any country where abortion rights aren't respected; or buying things that were made in that country if there's an alternative.

Sales tax -> Police funding -> Persecute women and doctors -> Suicides and death from infection and blood loss + (worse yet) unwanted and improperly cared for children.

Needless to say, I'm very careful about what I put money into- so I would potentially be a hypocrite if I did support religious charities (depending on the religion and the views they espouse), but only because I'm critical of funding such abuses and anti-educational practices.

Ability to act revolves around funding, and it's the strongest voice we have.

I would suggest that you find a secular alternative if you can- or start one- but I won't call you a hypocrite for donating if you aren't against that kind of thing.

Without a doubt there comes a point in our lives when labels have to be scrapped. I will not financially support religion. But I certainly wont let someone starve to death if they ask for food.

I have given money to charities knowing the people benefiting from them are religious. I also have given money to friends to help them pay bills knowing they are religious. There is nothing wrong with being compassionate to those whom we find have absurd beliefs.

All of us here would want some sort of help if we were hungry or physically hurt. There are points in our lives where being a human should come first and we can all bitch about each other's beliefs later.

Regardless of a group's ideology, humanity prevails in the end among the sane and rational. I have no doubt that most individuals here would donate to a religious charity to help those who are impoverished. Yet I am doubtful that devout theists would donate to an atheist charity group. That would be a sin in their eyes.

@Rich/Ubuntu:  That is a great point.  For example, if we're talking about food charities, I would pick a religious charity that gets 95 cents out of every dollar turned into actual food in bellies over a secular charity that only gets 50 cents per dollar.

http://www.charitynavigator.org/ <-- Site reviews charity efficiency, also has lists of charities if you are looking for a cause.

Having grown up in Arizona, they live there because all the decent land was given to the white settlers.  The Indians got what no white person wanted.  And for many years, the Res' were cheated out of mining and grazing revenues by the US government.  So the infrastructure is poor at best, and there was little money for local education.  Why do they stay?  Tradition, family, the effects of family breakup (forced boarding school attendance early in the last century), and the genetic propensity to alcoholism.

(Don't go there.  Genetic propensity need not mean every one with the gene will be alcoholic.  It just means those with the gene have a harder fight to not get addicted or to get off the sauce once on.)

     You make it sound like they have a choice,well they don't! This is a very quick history of "broken treaties". The four corners of the USA was chosen for three of the tribes,the Pueblo Indians have always lived in the desert,but  now with some Zuni Indians that live with them (they totally lost their land to Manifest Destiny) the Ute Indians come from California around what we call Malibu,they were Mountain Indians,but the great white chief in Washington had them moved to the desert,cause the white chief wanted their land for the expansion of the USA.then you got the Hopi tribe also from California,and then the Navajo Indians which was once spread along the northwest territorials from Canada down to California and over to New Mexico area.As the USA expanded more and more tribes lost their land base,due to mining for Gold,Silver,Coal, and then Uranium after WWII, Indians were moved where they would not be in the way of the white-man.

They do, and little you've said has refuted that.

BTW;

I'm well aware of the atrocities and genocide committed under the banner of "Manifest Destiny", and even before it.