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I won't belabor it, but I am certain that altruism is not a strong natural tendency in most people. It must be learned, developed, chosen. I would not suggest that empathy or sympathy are completely lacking in most people, but there is a powerful tendency to be selfish, and to "love those who love you." Nor is the state what I would consider a good example of help to those of lesser means. This is politics, but the state tends to entrench people of low means in their position, tends to undermine the best likelihood of real help in the process of making people dependants. I'm not looking for debate on this theme, but I do disagree with the premise that the state has any tendency to act with real altruism. There are nearly always self-serving motives. Nor can I see a correlation between less church and more helping of the poor. I can see that the state's approach to poverty (no matter how well intentioned) has facilitated some very destructive trends that have undermined families, heightened crime and immorality, and grown a tremendous, expensive, rigid and unmanageable bureaucracy.
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