The only time religion worked in my favor was when I first got my ex here and we were both going to church at the time. Cultural differences that we had caused many arguments. In desperation I went to the minister who had been trained in psychology. He talked to my wife privately and solved the problem every time. He did not recommend divorce nor recommend that either of us drink poison. The book of Mark was not involved here, but I'm not sure how it would have went with the coronavirus.

The conundrum of religion

If people stopped believing in bullshit there would be a lot less suffering on earth. It would be hard to convince me that anything good has come from religion when delusion is the reason for one's good deeds.

If people have to believe in a lie in order to be nice, then they are not nice people.

As a Psychologist I would say that religion relies heavily on a hormone, or what ever it is called medically, called Dopamine to be released from the brain thus giving a short term sense of Euphoria to the believer.
Raised levels of Dopamine are always found in people after sex for example, eating their favourite foods, and many many other circumstances as well.
Dopamine can be and often IS a very addictive hormone/drug btw, and the person who gets the most dopamine regularly will seek out even greater circumstances, etc, that will cause even more of it to be released just as, in my educated opinion, does any other Drug Addict.
Ergo, the Believer does what we'd call 'good' for both the dopamine 'rush' and the reward it brings PLUS the extra dopamine rush that they receive from any publicity they get as well AND the vague 'promise' of a 'Free' pass through the mythical 'Pearly Gates.'

That may be so, but they always seek out the maximum positive publicity for their efforts as possible whereas Non-religious Organisations simply go quietly about getting the job done with the least publicity as possible.

I often wonder if such acts of those believers do think about storing brownie points with a invisible god. Since they all fall short of said commandments, forgiveness is foremost in their minds. Agreed some good can come from bad things, for many do believe without holding it against those thinking differently.

Religion works for some as a coping mechanism. It can and has been used to also act as a channel for humanism, however I've also seen that it can have a caveat or two attached.
I think that my real question would be "Why wait until now to be generous"?

Unfortunately I must disagree with you, even poison can heal. The acts of "generosity" have to be seen as how they originate, out of religious guilt or because they want to go to heaven, very few are really unselfish acts, and nowadays I see tons of moronic religious crap in social media saying how the lord will protect you, the blood of christ will cover you with immunity and shit like that, I can't turn my eyes from those images just because of a few normal people who give selflessly. To me it is like saying the Nazis were healers and also harmful because they turned the German economy around when Hitler was elected in the late 30s. Everybody does good things, even the worst despots, at the end one must judge the balance of their deeds, religion is totally dangerous and harmful overall.

A few good deeds does not mitigate claiming christ will protect, god bless Merica, and carrying guns into state capitols. Or, supposed religious fanatics, some of whom just tried to shut down abortion clinics, saying it is time for the economy to open at whatever the cost. Nor demanding all sorts of bullshit.

I'm a real cynic here and would say that religious people can do very good things in spite of their beliefs.

It depends on what definition of faith you are using. If by faith you mean belief then the sentence means, "Belief in generosity and goodwill inspires acts of generosity and goodwill while people who believe in a magical, invisible friend are comforted at a difficult time.

If the definition of faith is believing in things without evidence, then the sentence has little meaning.

Wanting to help has nothing to do with religion.

Generosity and goodwill have little to do with altruism, and even less with faith. What generally comes from people during times of crisis is the best of humanity that religion likes to claim credit for.

Religion does more harm than good. One can be ethical and kind to others without religion. In fact, I never had a good foundation for ethics until I rejected religion. Now I am kinder, and have more generosity and goodwill than I ever had when I was religious.