> invest time, money, and care into aiding the poor and the needy

Actually most organized religions are criminally inefficient at this. As an example the Catholic Church in Germany earns about 6 billion euros per year, completely tax-exempt. 50% of that actually comes from tax money. Now, if you look at social institutions which claim to be funded by the church, it is usually only 5-40% (rather the lower end) that the Catholic church contributes and the rest comes from insurance companies, contributions by the patients/care receivers and, again, from taxes. The church does not contribute to religious education at all and there also is no freedom of strike in the German Catholic church and many similarly miserable exception clauses.