Religion is Linked to Immoral Behavior in New Study

[Tumult]

One thing to keep in mind however is the ability of our thoughts to actually alter our brains. The more we focus on things like empathy and altruism the stronger the neural connections associated with these things become and the easier they become to consciously enact.

That's like saying the more you focus on intelligence the smarter you will be.

I expect it may be possible to increase your intelligence if you really work at it.

Neural plasticity research shows our thoughts alone can increase the area of the brain used for the task we are thinking about. If we use our empathy and altruism and also imagine we are using our empathy and altruism we can increase our brain's ability to do those things.

[steven lloyd]

Same goes with catholics...when their priests quit molesting children, I'll quit.

Hmmm. Ya might wanna think about not waiting that long.

[Glacier]

An interesting study.
National Survey of Children's Health Finds That Children and Parents of the Religious Intact Family Do Best on Child Development

[nolanrh]

An interesting study.
National Survey of Children's Health Finds That Children and Parents of the Religious Intact Family Do Best on Child Development

I quickly read through the study. Two things worth mentioning:

According to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Research_Council

The Family Research Council (FRC) is a Christian right non-profit think tank and lobbying organization. It was formed in the United States by James Dobson in 1981 and incorporated in 1983. The group was designed to be a lobbying force for conservative legislation on Capitol Hill.

Though at first it appears relevant to the topic title that this study shows religious attendance does not correlate with bad behavior in children. It is important to look at how the study defines bad behavior. In this study its defined by things like calls home from school and repeated grades. This study fails to be conclusive in regards to the topic title in that it does not address other possible immoral characteristics such as the child's stance on homosexuality or feelings towards people of other religions. I imagine if you took the same sample of kids and asked them how they felt about homosexual marriage you might get opposite results.

In regards to whether religion is causing "good behavior, I'd like to see an examination of the same problems and a comparison between children who attend religious services regularly and those who regularly attend another family bonding experience that does not involve religion. Ideally, something else that emphasizes morality, community and responsibility... perhaps Scouts?

[averagejoe]

So where is soulra??? Go a lot of questions to answer??? Hey soulra what about studies on NON-Religious linked to Immoral Behavior??? I bet there a lot more of those reports. Not just Catholic priests or other good living religious people, how about school teachers that prey on students, drug pushers addicting young children to drugs then prostitution, Drunks beating on their wives and children......I bet they had "reason" for there "moral behavior". Well waiting for your defense of your non-religious friends.

[nolanrh]

Hey soulra what about studies on NON-Religious linked to Immoral Behavior???
I bet there a lot more of those reports.

Now I can't watch Soulra's video because its been deleted from youtube, but I assume it presented a study linking the religious to immoral behavior. Did you honestly just "bet" there are studies linking the non-religous to immoral behavior? Do the non-religious win this argument if they bet more?

Not just Catholic priests or other good living religious people, how about school teachers that prey on students, drug pushers addicting young children to drugs then prostitution, Drunks beating on their wives and children......I bet they had "reason" for there "moral behavior". Well waiting for your defense of your non-religious friends.

"School teachers that prey on students" - does imply non-religious
"drug pushes addicting young children to drugs then prositition" - does not imply non-religious
"drunks beating on their wives and children" - does not imply non-religious

What relevance do these examples have to the argument that religion has been linked to immoral behavior?

I have also responded directly to your posts regarding atheists and morality. You should scroll back and have a look.

[averagejoe]

Soulra are you posting as Nolanrh too? Do you use 2 different names?? Anyways These have a lot to do with Religious and non-Religious people. Your either, Religious or non-Religious! It's one or the other?

[Tumult]

From: http://www.religioustolerance.org/can_morality.htm

Léger Marketing conducted a public opinion poll during 2002-JAN-8 to 13. A total of 1,519 Canadian adults were surveyed. The margin of error is 2.6 percentage points. The pollsters suggested different activities and asked whether the action was immoral or not.

Some results: The following percentage of adult Canadians consider these activities to be immoral:

Shoplifting 89.3%
Infidelity: 80.8%
Hard-core drug use: 79.2%
Tax evasion: 77%
Prostitution: 68.4%
Alcohol abuse: 66.1%
Suicide: 61.8%
Working "under the table": 52.8%
Taking soft drugs, like marijuana: 47.5%
Abortion: 41.8%
Gambling: 41.4%
Swearing: 40.2%
Homosexuality: 32.1%
Physician assisted suicide: 31.3%
Pre-marital sex: 27.3%
Atheism: 26.2%
Divorce: 22.3%

[Tumult]

From: http://www.physorg.com/news127399170.html

For example, he gave people a test consisting of very easy math questions--but without giving them nearly enough time to finish. On average, people got four right out of 20. Then he had people take the test, score it themselves, shred the answer sheet and tell him how they did. Suddenly the average jumped to seven.

He repeated the experiment, paying people according to how many right answers they got. Same result. "Everybody cheated, but just a little." Even when there was no chance of getting caught--the evidence was shredded and participants paid themselves from a jar of money with over $100--nobody claimed 20 right answers. They just padded their results by a bit.

But then he tried another variation: Before doing the test, he asked one group of subjects to name 10 books they had read in high school. He asked another group to name as many of the Ten Commandments as they could remember. The group that listed the books followed the same pattern as the earlier test--they all cheated a little. But the group that named the commandments was different: Nobody cheated at all!

"Just the act of contemplating morality eliminated cheating," Ariely explains.


Also from http://www.physorg.com/news147359588.html

Cleanliness can compromise moral judgment

New research in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science has found that the physical notion of cleanliness significantly reduces the severity of moral judgments, showing that intuition, rather than deliberate reasoning can influence our perception of what is right and wrong. Lead researcher, Simone Schnall explains the relevance of the findings to everyday life; "When we exercise moral judgment, we believe we are making a conscious, rational decision, but this research shows that we are subconsciously influenced by how clean or 'pure' we feel.

[averagejoe]

Good reading Tumult!

[Tumult]

In regards to whether religion is causing "good behavior"

A new report from Independent Sector
http://www.independentsector.org/progra ... hropy.html

Faith and Philanthropy reveals:
Over 85 percent of religious-giving households support secular organizations;
Fifty-two percent (52%) of all households give to both religious congregations and secular organizations, but those households account for 81 percent of all donations;
Households that give to both types of institutions give more to religion ($1,391) compared to households that only give to religion ($1,154); and
Fifty-five percent (55%) of dual-giving households give to at least two other kinds of organizations.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt07 ... index.html
JONATHAN HAIDT is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia, where he does research on morality and emotion and how they vary across cultures.
(He references himself as a liberal atheist)

...surveys have long shown that religious believers in the United States are happier, healthier, longer-lived, and more generous to charity and to each other than are secular people. Most of these effects have been documented in Europe too. If you believe that morality is about happiness and suffering, then I think you are obligated to take a close look at the way religious people actually live and ask what they are doing right.

[nolanrh]

The previous post takes my quotation out of context. I was referring specifically to the good behavior described in the study, not "good behavior" in general. I have no doubt what-so-ever the many religions of the world contribute much good.

[Tumult]

The previous post takes my quotation out of context. I was referring specifically to the good behavior described in the study, not "good behavior" in general. I have no doubt what-so-ever the many religions of the world contribute much good.

I know (relative to the entirety of your post) it's out of context, I just thought it was a good opportunity to post some correlation between moral or "good behavior" and religion. We should try and see this from as many angles as we can to get the clearest perspective.

[Tumult]

A few things...

I don't recall if they said in the video how they determined "faithfulness" but I don't think there is an objective measure of faith. A non-religious person may see attending church as being faithful but some people may claim attending church does not equate to faithfulness or even that it is unfaithful. An Adventist may say anyone who does not acknowledge Saturday as the sabbath is unfaithful while a Jehovah Witness may say praying in front of a crucifix is unfaithful.
If faith is measured by adherence to core values and we take into account that most every religion equates violence against others and especially killing as immoral than it hardly stands to reason that places with high incidences of these behaviors would be considered faithful.

Perhaps the correlation in this study could be used to say that the more immoral a society or place is, the more people turn to religion for moral guidance, forgiveness, repentance and salvation. If we consider the example of the well behaved Scandinavian countries we could infer that since they are so moral they have less need of religion and that is why they are so non-religious.

[Big ned]

Wow. i guess it depends on what you consider moral. The governments of scandinavia tax the people so high for social programs that they have become a sort of "drone" society with no one really doing much to get ahead. The government definitely takes care of people and if that is your definition of moral, so be it.

Drug use and people living out of wedlock and suicide rates are quite high there (that my be because of the dark winters). I lived in Sweden for two years and believe me, from a standpoint of morality, they are nearing bankruptcy.