Religious children are meaner than their secular counterparts, study finds
After saying "I think the U.S.A. being more Christian, more punitive would follow sorta naturally." near the bottom of the post this post sits in reply to i felt to check it -- thus the few in this post.
Religious belief appears to have negative influence on children’s altruism and judgments of others’ actions even as parents see them as ‘more empathetic’
Harriet Sherwood Religion correspondent @harrietsherwood Sat 7 Nov 2015 04.10 AEDT Last modified on Sat 15 Jul 2017 06.28 AEST
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The moment of truth. No pressure, kid. Photograph: Allen Donikowski/Getty Images /Flickr RM
Children .. https://www.theguardian.com/society/children .. from religious families are less kind and more punitive than those from non-religious households, according to a new study.
Academics from seven universities across the world studied Christian, Muslim and non-religious children to test the relationship between religion and morality.
They found that religious belief is a negative influence on children’s altruism.
“Overall, our findings ... contradict the commonsense and popular assumption that children from religious households are more altruistic and kind towards others,” said the authors of The Negative Association Between Religiousness and Children’s Altruism Across the World .. http://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(15)01167-7.pdf , published this week in Current Biology.
Unfortunately, in his recent post, "Do we need religion to be ethical?" Thomas Plante, PhD, makes statements that perpetuate common misinformation with regard to religion and secularism. While I doubt that Plante intended the comments to be disparaging toward secular individuals, they most certainly are. In fact, considering that the statements come from an educated man and not some uniformed member of the general public, they are especially troubling.
Plante casually claims that religious people are "better citizens" and "behave better." And without citing any sources, he tells us: "Research has consistently found that religious people are less likely to engage in criminal behavior, marital infidelity, alcoholism, unprotected sexual activity. . ."
In other words, according to Plante, if you're not religious you might be a good person, but on average you are more likely to have these undesirable characteristics. This is a bold assertion that, of course, immediately puts secular individuals on the defensive. (Just imagine if the same claims were made against any other minority group.) It is precisely claims like these that lead to many Americans having an unfavorable view of atheists and other nonbelievers.
So religion makes you meaner? Not according to the evidence
The Drum By Simon Smart Posted 13 Nov 2015, 2:28pm
[...]
The problem is, despite the theoretical experiment that produced these results, the weight of evidence for real world experience looks completely different. One might recall Robert Putnam's American Grace: How religion unites and divides us (2010), which emerged from two comprehensive surveys conducted into religion and public life in America.
Putnam reports that on every measurable scale, religious Americans are better volunteers, more generous financial givers, more altruistic and more involved in civic life, than their secular counterparts. Religious people are better neighbours, more community-minded, more likely to volunteer, and not just for church activities. They are more likely to give blood, to give money to a homeless person, to provide financial aid to family or friends, to offer a seat to a stranger and to spend time with someone who is "a bit down". The list goes on.
However we should note the author Simon Smart is, Simon is Executive Director of the Centre for Public Christianity .. https://www.publicchristianity.org/staff/ .. which could affect his objectivity.
No problem there, as in 2014 they did. It's as much a reporting requirement by Charity Navigator as a problem for the Clinton Foundation and it's atypical set-up. [...]
--- 3Saints -- re charity, actually charitable giving, versus tithing/giving to a church -- further to my initial reply at http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=93745445 (and any future following), and to (linked in) fuagf's reply at [excerpt outed here church giving vs charitable giving to the poor .. some 5% in many cases of your charitable giving to the church goes to those the church says it does .. here is some of the proof F6 alluded to .. ] http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=93795107 and following -- here are some of the posts on this board with/linking relevant items -- (linked in):
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