> 31% of all donations, or $127.37 billion, went to Religious organizations. Much of these contributions can be attributed to people giving to their local place of worship.

aka club memberships, and advertising spend to push their preferences on other people.

What do you think those churches do with the money?

This sort of thing: https://www.aircraftcompare.com/blog/american-pastors-with-p...

If you think that this is common, or generally what sort of things that churches do with the money that is donated to them, then I think that you have a very distorted view of American society and should probably work to educate yourself before commenting on this further.

The reason something like that makes the news is because it's not the norm. The Christian charities and missions going on worldwide far outweigh any other organization and regardless of your opinion it's far more than most people do to help anyone in 3rd world countries.

While that might be true, from an outsiders perspective looking at things like: the anti-immigration agenda, the death penalty, and the almost willful refusal by a large minority to wear masks (to name a few) - you can see how somebody might draw the conclusion that for a country whose population strongly identifies as Christian, it seems to be lacking in basic Christian ideals such as compassion and empathy.

I think you're mistaken about what empathy entails. It's not empathetic to let illegal immigrants in with no plan on how they're going to be taken care of and spit in the face of people who are legally in this country. Americans aren't anti-immigration they're anti illegal immigration and there's a massive difference.

It's also not empathetic to give people life sentences over the death penalty. If you want to discuss wrongly convicted people and the death penalty that's a good argument but the idea that it's better for society and the justly convicted individual to remain alive in prison for life is asinine.

What do masks have to do with empathy? I think that's just being used as a bludgeon to force people into wearing them because they're "bad" people if they don't. I don't find it empathetic to tell people they're required to put a face covering on or they're an awful person who wants to kill people. In fact, forcing your beliefs on other people is one of the most UN-empathetic things I can think of.

It's not empathetic to take the easy route and just give people material things, assuming that'll make them happier or better people. This is the entire problem with the left wing mantra. I would argue the idea that dumping welfare checks in minority communities so they'll learn to be reliant on a system of handouts, while simultaneously telling them the system is against them is the opposite of empathetic. Especially, when it's not followed up with other forms of help. Sometimes being empathetic means you need to harsh up front in order to improve things in the long run. Teaching people to be self reliant is one of the most empathetic things you can do.