Children in non-religious families are more generous

[Starlight]

A study published today on over a thousand children across a half-dozen countries, looked at their behavior in various tests designed to measure generosity. They found that the children of Muslim and Christian families similarly to each other, but both groups lost to the children of non-religious families, who were the most generous.

Apparently a non-religious upbringing results in more generous children.

The study also noticed a couple of other effects. When asked to estimate how generous their children were, religious parents estimated their own children as being significantly more generous than did parents of non-religious children... an estimation that did not match those children's actual behavior. Also, children in religious families tended to approve of much harsher punishments for people deemed to be misbehaving than did children in non-religious families.

[Bill the Cat]

. Also, children in religious families tended to approve of much harsher punishments for people deemed to be misbehaving than did children in non-religious families.

That isn't necessarily a bad thing...

[shunyadragon]

That isn't necessarily a bad thing...

It is not necessarily a good thing.

[Bill the Cat]

It is not necessarily a good thing.

Correct. But it CAN be.

[Adam]

I have always believed:
Religion is a necessary constraint on the behavior of most humans.
Some humans are an exception. Such rare birds (usually of an intellectual cast and caste) can get along fine without religion, And they pass their genetic superiority on to their children who by genetics AND by environmental association can get along fine without religion.
But if the masses in general totally lose religion, "Katy bar the door!"

[Roy]

Correct. But it CAN be.

It can also be a bad thing. Or a neutral thing.

[Starlight]

It can also be a bad thing. Or a neutral thing.

Regardless of bad or good, it goes a long way toward explaining why very religious countries often have very harsh penalties. eg Saudi Arabia, ISIS, and the US all regularly use the death penalty. Prison sentences in the US tend to be extremely high, with mandatory minimums in place for certain types of crime. These sorts of societies tend to have a fairly high emphasis on retributive justice and prison as being punishment.

Whereas in secular countries the prison sentences are often relatively short, with no death penalty existing. I have seen people often point to social science data that shows the severity of the penalties have little to no influence on the person thinking about committing a crime, and that therefore harsher penalties are relatively pointless. Rehabilitation is usually the main focus of the system in secular countries, rather than punishment per se.

[Bill the Cat]

Regardless of bad or good, it goes a long way toward explaining why very religious countries often have very harsh penalties. eg Saudi Arabia, ISIS, and the US all regularly use the death penalty. Prison sentences in the US tend to be extremely high, with mandatory minimums in place for certain types of crime. These sorts of societies tend to have a fairly high emphasis on retributive justice and prison as being punishment.

As do several non-religious countries, like North Korea, China, and Russia.

Whereas in secular countries the prison sentences are often relatively short, with no death penalty existing.

In some cases it does.

I have seen people often point to social science data that shows the severity of the penalties have little to no influence on the person thinking about committing a crime, and that therefore harsher penalties are relatively pointless. Rehabilitation is usually the main focus of the system in secular countries, rather than punishment per se.

I don't think that's entirely accurate. North Korea for instance, is not in any way interested in rehabilitation in their criminal justice system.

[Starlight]

As do several non-religious countries, like North Korea, China, and Russia.

The authoritarian government imposition of a particular religious viewpoint is quite a different dynamic to where religion or non-religion is chosen voluntarily by the people.

And a lot of Russians nowadays are members of the Orthodox church. You're thinking of the USSR.

[lilpixieofterror]

A study published today on over a thousand children across a half-dozen countries, looked at their behavior in various tests designed to measure generosity. They found that the children of Muslim and Christian families similarly to each other, but both groups lost to the children of non-religious families, who were the most generous.

Apparently a non-religious upbringing results in more generous children.

The study also noticed a couple of other effects. When asked to estimate how generous their children were, religious parents estimated their own children as being significantly more generous than did parents of non-religious children... an estimation that did not match those children's actual behavior. Also, children in religious families tended to approve of much harsher punishments for people deemed to be misbehaving than did children in non-religious families.

Whenever I read these studies, I can't help but smile because they are not going after their opponents hardest arguments, but after the weakest. The non-religious are not evil at all, if anything, they often can be too good. Look at this study and see for yourself. Why should a parent want to raise more generous children? I personally want to raise a child that has the wisdom to know when to be generous and when not to be because being too generous can lead to people taking advantage of you or hurting others more than helping them. Likewise, the punishment thing is another problem here because being too merciful can be just as big of a problem as not being merciful enough. This is nothing new either and something GK Chesterton observed over 100 years ago when he wrote:

The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone.

Orthodoxy, Ch 3
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/130/pg130.html

Thus you end up with 'studies' like this. Generosity, like all other Christian virtues, needs to be balanced out with stuff like the wisdom to help or not to help. Giving a drunk a dollar doesn't help him out in the least because you have just enabled him to buy yet more booze to support his drinking problem. In this case, the best thing you can do is not to give him money, but things like support through friendships or support though the giving of food to help them end their drinking problem. True Christian Charity is about giving people what they actually need and not about being generous for the sake of being generous. As I said above, this is the hardest argument of your opponents and it is just lazy to ignore this one. The modern skeptic is not evil, if anything, he exist where the balances of the virtues is thrown out of whack and runs wild.

[lilpixieofterror]

The authoritarian government imposition of a particular religious viewpoint is quite a different dynamic to where religion or non-religion is chosen voluntarily by the people.

And a lot of Russians nowadays are members of the Orthodox church. You're thinking of the USSR.

Russian Orthodox 15-20%, Muslim 10-15%, other Christian 2% (2006 est.)
note: estimates are of practicing worshipers; Russia has large populations of non-practicing believers and non-believers, a legacy of over seven decades of Soviet rule
https://www.cia.gov/library/publicat...k/geos/rs.html

[Abigail]

Children tend to take their que from their parents, so it could well be that Christian parents are more likely to make their children aware of any bad/mean behaviour in themselves. As to religious parents rating their children as more empathetic and concerned about justice, it could be that, having taught this to their kids they expect them to be this way. Also I suspect that Christian parents punish bad behaviour whilst non-religious parents reward good behaviour. The Christian child might be less generous and appreciate this is not quite right so look for a reason to justify it (the guy deserved it because he is mean). The non-religious child might be generous because he expects to be rewarded (I gave him lots because he is lovely ...and I am sure you will say I am too and reward me for this).

[Jedidiah]

Religious individuals versus non religious individuals is not a very meaningful comparison. There are certainly better. What groups, for example, are the most generous as a whole?

[Jichard]

Whenever I read these studies, I can't help but smile because they are not going after their opponents hardest arguments, but after the weakest.

I mean, some of your very own fellow Christians, use Romans 1 to claim that non-believers are liars when non-believers claim not to believe that God exists. These Christans claim that we're suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. So it's not our fault that we have to remind many religious folks that non-religious people can be, and are, moral. This seems to be necessary to help combat the anti-atheist prejudice that leads to people (for example) trusting atheists as much as they trust rapists, or forming negative, unjustified stereotypes of non-believers:

"Do You Believe in Atheists? Distrust Is Central to Anti-Atheist Prejudice"

"It could be argued that distrust of atheists may be less the result of prejudice and more the result of rational expectations, given the connection between religiosity and prosocial behavior. This logic, we argue, is faulty on at least three counts. First, distrust effects in our studies far exceeded any evidence of actual atheist untrustworthiness (e.g., morally equating atheists with rapists has no empirical foundation).

Second, situational effects of religion may better predict prosocial behavior than do trait-level religious beliefs (Norenzayan & Shariff, 2008). In studies where religious primes increase prosocial tendencies and honesty, typically the effect of self-reported religiosity is null, at least in modern Western societies. Finally, there are multiple motivations for prosocial behavior; although religious belief appears to be one such source of prosociality under some contexts, it is far from the only source available, and it is exceedingly likely that most atheists act morally, albeit for nonreligious reasons (e.g., Beit-Hallahmi, 2010). Although the connection between religion and prosocial behavior does not rationalize distrust of atheists, it does raise interesting questions about life in largely nonreligious societies. Religion appears to be a “social glue” in the world, yet the least religious countries are actually among the most cooperative and peaceful on the planet (e.g., Zuckerman, 2008).

[...]

Watchful institutions may replace watchful gods as guarantors of cooperation, but institutions can only be created by initially cooperative groups. Given that religious prosociality, but not secular institutions, directly implies distrust of atheists, the aforementioned finding that anti-atheist prejudice is exaggerated in strongly religious countries (Gervais, 2011) becomes clearer, as these countries also tend to rely the most on religion to guarantee cooperation. Freed from this constraint, people from countries that depend primarily on secular institutions do not tend to distrust atheists (1202-1203)."

"On the Receiving End: Discrimination Toward the Non-religious in the United States"

"The present study examines perceived discrimination faced by religious ‘nones’. After distinguishing between atheists, agnostics, and ‘nones’ who are deists or theists, we use nationally representative data from the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) to study the contexts in which these various types of religious ‘nones’ have reported experiencing discrimination. The strongest predictor of such discrimination was not theological atheism or agnosticism but self-identifying as an atheist or agnostic when asked what one’s religion is. Context-specific predictors of discrimination are age, region of the country, rural versus urban location, parents’ religious identifications, educational attainment, ethnicity and race. Results are consistent with the view that people who hold more pronounced views are more likely to report discrimination."

"Psychological Distress Among Religious Nonbelievers: A Systematic Review"

"We review 14 articles that examine differences between nonbelievers and believers in levels of psychological distress, and potential sources of distress among nonbelievers. Various forms of psychological distress are experienced by nonbelievers, and greater certainty in one’s belief system is associated with greater psychological health. We found one well-documented source of distress for nonbelievers: negative perceptions by others [emphasis added]."

"Understanding Atheism/Non-belief as an Expected Individual-differences Variable"

"A diverse and growing literature on irreligion reveals that distinct personality and cognitive styles are associated with atheists and non-believers. They are slightly less social than religious believers,less conformist, and more individualistic. Atheists in particular are over-represented among scientists and academics, and their high intellectual achievement may stem in part from their preference for logic and their enjoyment of rational reasoning. Lacking interest in a reality beyond this world, non-believers focus their moral concerns on social justice and the here-and-now. This suggests that non-believers possess cognitive and personality strengths, in contrast to the negative assessments that have been historically the norm [emphasis added]."

The non-religious are not evil at all, if anything, they often can be too good. Look at this study and see for yourself. Why should a parent want to raise more generous children? I personally want to raise a child that has the wisdom to know when to be generous and when not to be because being too generous can lead to people taking advantage of you or hurting others more than helping them. Likewise, the punishment thing is another problem here because being too merciful can be just as big of a problem as not being merciful enough. This is nothing new either and something GK Chesterton observed over 100 years ago when he wrote:

The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone.

Orthodoxy, Ch 3
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/130/pg130.html

Thus you end up with 'studies' like this. Generosity, like all other Christian virtues, needs to be balanced out with stuff like the wisdom to help or not to help. Giving a drunk a dollar doesn't help him out in the least because you have just enabled him to buy yet more booze to support his drinking problem. In this case, the best thing you can do is not to give him money, but things like support through friendships or support though the giving of food to help them end their drinking problem. True Christian Charity is about giving people what they actually need and not about being generous for the sake of being generous. As I said above, this is the hardest argument of your opponents and it is just lazy to ignore this one. The modern skeptic is not evil, if anything, he exist where the balances of the virtues is thrown out of whack and runs wild.

The study doesn't support your claims here, nor what you lifted from Chesterston. If you could please provide some evidence for your claims, and then they might be worth taking seriously. For example, you could provide some evidence for your claim that the virtues of modern skeptics are thrown out of whack and running wilkd.

[lilpixieofterror]

I mean, some of your very own fellow Christians, use Romans 1 to claim that no...

Fundy atheist debate technique #5:

When a Christian presents an argument that you can't refute or understand, don't fret (and by golly, do not try to refute it, since your thin knowledge of Christian theology will make your arguments sink faster than the Titanic), instead bring up the fact that other Christians disagree and try to pit Christian against Christian because anything is easier than try to understand what the Christian is actually saying! You might actually start to agree with them and we can't have any of that now, can we?

You really think I don't know that Christians don't walk in lock step and not all of them agree with me, on this point? Wow, your bloated ego really doesn't make you think your opponents are not aware of something as basic as some of their ideological peers might not agree with them, on everything? Sorry sweety, but I am well aware that not every Christian agrees with me on this and if they want to debate me on this; they are more then capable of putting on their big girl panties and doing so here or starting a thread and inviting me there. They do not need a dishonest hack job, such as yourself, to represent them. I will debate them and them only, not you're hack job work on their beliefs and words.

The study doesn't support your claims here, nor what you lifted from Chesterston. If you could please provide some evidence for your claims, and then they might be worth taking seriously. For example, you could provide some evidence for your claim that the virtues of modern skeptics are thrown out of whack and running wilkd.

That's because you haven't touched my claims and don't even understand what Chesterton was saying. Sorry sweety, but you have shown you can't understand non literal language to save your own life, so quite frankly, I doubt you can even understand this, but I'll try anyway:

The basic argument is that the Christian foundation that the west is built upon, hasn't disappeared at all, but is still there. Most modern day skeptics tend to follow some vague Christian principles, but really don't know why they do nor do they know what they were linked to and you end up with vague platitudes that don't make any sense, if you think about them any. Therefore, since they lack the understanding of why these virtues exist the way they do to begin with, they end up running wild and doing all kinds of damage since the virtues do not exist in isolation, as modern skeptics try to pretend they do. Look at our modern social justice warrior friends for a perfect example of this going on. Their empathy for those they consider 'oppressed' or 'downtrodden' is quite powerful, but their empathy isn't guided by wisdom and thus you end up with people rioting about 'police brutality' before they realize that their hero was a criminal or that those 'racist white police' are actually black police. Their empathy runs wild and they end up making a mess of things because they are missing the wisdom to use empathy properly and thus fail to understand what Christian charity is really about. You empathize with people, but you need to have the wisdom to not let your empathy run wild. The Christian virtues do not exist in a void, they exist in ways to balance out one another so you don't end up forgetting about mercy on your quest for justice nor forgetting about justice when dispensing out mercy.

That is just one example, of many, where we find the virtues of Christianity torn apart from each other and allowed to run loose. As GK Chesterton continued to say (you'd know this if you had bothered to read the book, but I doubt you'd understand it since he speaks in riddles, metaphors, and tons of non literal language that would go above your little head):

The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful. For example, Mr. Blatchford attacks Christianity because he is mad on one Christian virtue: the merely mystical and almost irrational virtue of charity. He has a strange idea that he will make it easier to forgive sins by saying that there are no sins to forgive. Mr. Blatchford is not only an early Christian, he is the only early Christian who ought really to have been eaten by lions. For in his case the pagan accusation is really true: his mercy would mean mere anarchy. He really is the enemy of the human race— because he is so human. As the other extreme, we may take the acrid realist, who has deliberately killed in himself all human pleasure in happy tales or in the healing of the heart. Torquemada tortured people physically for the sake of moral truth. Zola tortured people morally for the sake of physical truth. But in Torquemada's time there was at least a system that could to some extent make righteousness and peace kiss each other. Now they do not even bow. But a much stronger case than these two of truth and pity can be found in the remarkable case of the dislocation of humility.

Orthodoxy, Ch 3

Look at that, he also gave examples to prove his point too and I gave you an example to prove my point (IE the pity of the social justice warriors is untruthful). Also, your 'study' did not address my claim and, in reality, seems to show that you're the one stuck in walking lock step while accusing Christians of being stuck walking in lock step. I don't agree with some Christians (as you so pointed out), I am currently showing a strong streak of individuality in voicing my disagreements (something you seem to believe Christians can't have), and I am showing an education by showing I understand a very difficult work to grasp (most will tell you that GK Chesterton is not an easy writer to grasp at all). Now when you're done attacking those strawman and trying to make yourself feel intelligent, without proving it, my argument awaits an answer.