Okay, now I'm more interested. Your original claim was; >If you didn't benefit from the donation, you wouldn't have made it. If I understand you correctly, yo

Okay, now I'm more interested. Your original claim was; >If you didn't benefit from the donation, you wouldn't have made it. If I understand you correctly, you are claiming that the vast majority of charitable donations a) do not materially or socially benefit the donater, b) are still selfish (in that donating the money offers greater personal advantage than using the money in other ways), and c) would not be given if those benefits were not received in return. Could you give some examples of what kind of donations you're talking about, because I'm not sure we're communicating from the same basic understanding of what a charitable donation is.