Interesting article from the Guardian:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/06/religious-children-less-alt...
Quote:
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, published this week in Current Biology.
“More generally, they call into question whether religion is vital for moral development, supporting the idea that secularisation of moral discourse will not reduce human kindness – in fact, it will do just the opposite.”
Who would have thought it?
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so brainwash cults don't help child development?? now I am thoroughly confused..........
I would have thought it !
It's nice to see a positive survey.
However one should never take these too seriously whether positive for us or negative. I have a caution about psych studies of this nature, where they boil down a huge range of cultural differences to simplistic tests.
There was an survey recently where a range to psychological tests which had 'demonstrated' things about altruism, perception of immigrants, prejudice etc were retested -- many of them failed to find the same results as the original highly publicized papers.
I'm not sure these are any more reliable than the 'pick your perfect mate' surveys in pop magazines.
I tend to affirm what this study concludes, if only because my own personal experiences with religious zealots align with its findings. I find atheists, in general, to be less domineering, less oppressive, more open, more calm, more rational, more thoughtful, less black-and-white, more honest (how can anyone who claims to know an unknowable eternal cosmic superpower, be honest?) and a lot more genuinely kind. Atheists often help other people for altruism's sake, whereas religious people tend to have an ulterior motivation.
the talking heads in the media on both sides seem motivated purely by self interest :/