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Religious children are meaner than their secular counterparts, study finds

What, do you expect them to be nice to all the unenlightened demonspawn trying to tempt them into an afterlife of eternal damnation?
 
Wow. I tend to shy away from Dawkins-style anti-theism - really try to be live-and-let-live about it all (not least because I'm no advertisement for non-belief, as I constantly have trouble with motivation and seeing any point in anything).

But this is quite a startling finding.

But...did they really control for all other factors?

Seems the largest single group was Muslims, and I could imagine that non-believers in Muslim societies are far from identical in their background to the believers. Perhaps they are more educated and drawn from more comfortable classes who don't feel the need to compete so ruthlessly?

Hence it could be correlation but not causation?
 
pmv said:
I tend to shy away from Dawkins-style anti-theism - really try to be live-and-let-live about it all
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I used to be that way being a thoroughly lapsed Catholic, but I am sick and tired of the conflict and death that the three major religions cause around the world. While there are good people in those religions, the bad ones are making trouble where they live and around the world. I want to see the good in religion but as a student of history I know that it's all talk to prop up their facades. Religion has been used to control societies for centuries through the manipulation of the fervently religious in their citizenry. They still want to do that, even if it means walking all over nonbelievers. If you boil Christianity down to its essence, it's an apocalyptic religion. Look into the goings on with nutty Christians and our Air Force in Colorado, for example. Those nuts want to suck up to the guys who fly the nukes because if you're going to have an apocalypse, I'm sure that some nukes are a great way to get things rolling. Islam and Judaism have their own issues, especially with each other that are too numerous to start listing.

These religions all profess to be peaceful and loving but our history seems to be lacking any proof of these claims that counter the damage these religions have done and are still doing to our world. That's why I quit giving them a free pass and so should others. They all need to be called out on this.
 
DrDoug said:
I used to be that way being a thoroughly lapsed Catholic, but I am sick and tired of the conflict and death that the three major religions cause around the world. While there are good people in those religions, the bad ones are making trouble where they live and around the world. I want to see the good in religion but as a student of history I know that it's all talk to prop up their facades. Religion has been used to control societies for centuries through the manipulation of the fervently religious in their citizenry. They still want to do that, even if it means walking all over nonbelievers. If you boil Christianity down to its essence, it's an apocalyptic religion. Look into the goings on with nutty Christians and our Air Force in Colorado, for example. Those nuts want to suck up to the guys who fly the nukes because if you're going to have an apocalypse, I'm sure that some nukes are a great way to get things rolling. Islam and Judaism have their own issues, especially with each other that are too numerous to start listing.

These religions all profess to be peaceful and loving but our history seems to be lacking any proof of these claims that counter the damage these religions have done and are still doing to our world. That's why I quit giving them a free pass and so should others. They all need to be called out on this.
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I am Catholic myself. Haven't been to a church service in years. When I lived in Thailand, I went to the Buddhist monk temples with my gf. She's Thai, so she was allowed in. I had to sit outside because I was a foreigner. So anyway, I'm currently practicing Buddhism. To me, it all makes sense. I can use what I'm learning and apply those principles into my life. You could do the same with other religions, but it just doesn't do the same for me.

For example, Buddhism teaches you about detachment. How being attached to this life leads to suffering. How true is that. Things like Karma. The eight fold path. The 4 noble truths. What did I learn about life as a Catholic. Not much. Oh yea, I learned that I'm doomed for a fiery hell if I don't repent. Seems like their #1 thing is to scare you into becoming a follower. Which is exactly what they did back thousands of years ago. They would scare the populace into believing their way. If not, then you're DOOMED. Priest back then had a lot of power. Thankfully, science made religion irrelevant.
 
I'm not surprised one bit. I was raised a fundie, we were some of the cruelest children around. Looking back at how I treated people in my youth makes me sad, and I was one of the "nice" ones.
 
My purely anecdotal observation is that more anti-theistic people often seem to be those raised religious, or who grew up in religious communities. The most anti-religious people I've known have all been ex-Catholics.

I guess I'm kind of neutral about it because I've never really had to deal with religion and its influence very much, personally. Didn't grow up with it, never known many believers.

My main point is I still think the original study might be confusing correlation and causation. Non-religious households could easily differ in ways other than just religious beliefs from religious ones, especially in societies where religion is the norm. I don't see any mention in the paper of correcting or controlling for other demographic factors.

(I mean, even a finding that religion and mean-ness are _correlated_ is interesting and raises doubts about the idea that relgion makes people more moral, but it's not quite fair to go from that to assuming that one causes the other...Also Is a sample of a bit over 1000 large enough for a global study? Maybe it is, I'm just wondering)
 
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soulcougher73 said:
Well when you get taught to hate and certain things people do are sins etc, of course you’ll come out hateful.
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If the idea of God exists because there is a potential within all people to experience an oceanic God-conscious state, one that can be described variously but for conversation's sake by me here as the outpouring of love at the realization of the oneness of being, the result say of the collapse of dualism of thinking, then such an understanding of God would not be possible to believers or non-believers who have not experienced this conscious state.

If such a state of affairs is our actual condition then we live in a prison of thought. The notions of good and evil can exist only when there is the absence of the God-conscious oneness of love. Theoretically, then, in the world of thought, there are believers and non-believers and some who are awake in a different conscious state.

The result, therefore, in my opinion would be that a non God-Conscious state would give rise, as a result of the duality causes by thinking in language, of the notion of good and evil, a division of the oneness of being, and that in turn would lead to the belief, also nonsensical, that I as a person could be evil. A religion that teaches hatred of evil, therefore, will teach you to hate yourself, because the first thing that you learn in this life is that the demands you place on others as a child require super-humans to meet. It won't be long and the child with impossible demands will find out just how worthless his egotism really is. Suck it up baby, life is hard and you get through it by being competitively mean.

Perhaps things are something like that.
 
In many cases, they're being raised in an environment of exclusion, one which teaches that they are 'saved' simply by being born, and that everyone else is 'damned' and 'the enemy' simply by not having been born as one of them.
 
"Children from religious households “frequently appear to be more judgmental of others’ actions”, it said." No shit. Most of the Christians I know look down on other religions and people that don't belong to theirs. Religion ironically is at the root of most of the hatred and bigotry, and contains some of the most judgemental and hypocritical people imaginable. Fuck 'em.
 
God is merely our Idea of what a perfect conscious being would be like. An aspirational goal for all to strive to become. In that sense I don't find God Belief to be completely objectionable, I think it's unnecessary, but that's another discussion. If people's "God" inspires them to become better members of Society, good. Unfortunately, many religious people have decided that the Idea of "God" espoused by Ancient People is "True". Those people were oblivious to many things we fully understand most of our lives. It is not a Wise thing to knowingly follow Ignorance.

If people don't keep their "God" updated, it will end up as Mythology.
 
sandorski said:
Your point?
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Well, as pmv pointed out, we should be careful about equating correlation with causation when it conforms to our biases. Secondly, even if correlation does mean causation, it seems that religion has benefits in some circumstances (lower suicide risk) and ill effects in others (meaner children). If you had to choose between meaner children with lower risk of suicide, or friendlier children with higher risk of suicide, which would you pick?
 
Atreus21 said:
Well, as pmv pointed out, we should be careful about equating correlation with causation when it conforms to our biases. Secondly, even if correlation does mean causation, it seems that religion has benefits in some circumstances (lower suicide risk) and ill effects in others (meaner children). If you had to choose between meaner children with lower risk of suicide, or friendlier children with higher risk of suicide, which would you pick?
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Would really depend on the relative risks, wouldn't it?
 
Atreus21 said:
Sometimes I wonder if there's any such thing as an honest atheist.

https://www.researchgate.net/public...Aroused_When_Daring_God_to_Do_Terrible_Things
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That one's kind of funny. But we can become emotionally aroused when watching superhero movies, or telling ghost stories to ourselves - that doesn't mean we believe spiderman is real.

Atreus21 said:
But at any rate, I'd be wary of drawing conclusions like you do. For example, what conclusions should we draw from religion being a protective element against suicide, or from the larger issue of higher suicide risk among atheists?
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Now, that doesn't surprise me at all. I can believe it's true, just from introspection as much as anything. But I would never dispute that religion can be helpful to the believer. Having faith can give you the strength to keep going in rough times (also, having the belief that suicide will send you to hell probably plays a role as well).

The case against it - such as it is - is that it can also cause collateral damage to others.

The same, incidentally, is probably true of a belief in communism.
 
When fear and hate are used to "motivate" and control you're always going to have a bad outcome. If Christians would focus on the teachings of Christ instead of the worst parts of the bible the US would be a better place.
 
Atreus21 said:
Well, as pmv pointed out, we should be careful about equating correlation with causation when it conforms to our biases. Secondly, even if correlation does mean causation, it seems that religion has benefits in some circumstances (lower suicide risk) and ill effects in others (meaner children). If you had to choose between meaner children with lower risk of suicide, or friendlier children with higher risk of suicide, which would you pick?
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What an odd choice to make. I'd choose friendlier children, because I want a better world.
 
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