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Religion makes you meaner

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From the Guardian...

 

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.”

 

Christians and Muslims have allegedly reacted with anger at the findings and called for those behind the study to be investigated for religious hatred and punished. Uh-huh.

 

Who'd have thought it... teaching kids about a judgemental, intolerant, vindictive and vengeful god turns them into mini-me versions of their god. Can we possible learn from this knowledge?

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'Investigated and punished'?

 

Ironically, that kind of proves the findings of the report.

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What a load of cobblers.

 

What's cobblers?

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I'm appalled that the Guardian has thrown Christianity and Islam together.

 

We all know that Christianity is utterly evil and should be shamed at every opportunity, but Islam is one of the tent poles of liberalism, beloved by all correct thinking (and not even slightly hypocritical) lefties.

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This is hardly surprising. If ones role model is a judgemental, paranoid, nasty, vindictive, mass murdering piece of filth, then they are surely more likely to follow suit. Role models influence behaviour.

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I'm appalled that the Guardian has thrown Christianity and Islam together.

 

We all know that Christianity is utterly evil and should be shamed at every opportunity, but Islam is one of the tent poles of liberalism, beloved by all correct thinking (and not even slightly hypocritical) lefties.

 

Christianity is no different to Islam in as much as it is man-made drivel designed to influence and control people. The mainstream may have toned down (something mainstream Islam has yet to do), which helps to keep the extremism in check, but the madness still bubbles just below the surface.

from a documentary called Jesus Camp. It is frightening and sad to see the minds of children poisoned as free-thought is drilled out and replace by doctrine.

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What a load of cobblers.

 

Agreed. Just about every Christian I have ever met has been a really nice and helpful person. This study neglects to understand then Christianity teaches "Love thy Neighbour".

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Jesus Camp would be funny if it wasn't so tragic. What a waste of lives.

 

That "either one or the other" mentality is in all religions because they were all designed to unite and control people and to smite their enemies.

 

All religions are inherently evil, twisting people. It doesn't matter if a religion is toned down because at its core its been designed to kill non-followers. No matter much toning down you do that evil core will remain. You see it flash to the surface from time to time on here when religious types get upset.

 

---------- Post added 07-11-2015 at 11:47 ----------

 

Agreed. Just about every Christian I have ever met has been a really nice and helpful person. This study neglects to understand then Christianity teaches "Love thy Neighbour".
Yeah really nice and friendly. Except that they secretly think that you face eternal hell and damnation because you don't believe in Jesus.

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Agreed. Just about every Christian I have ever met has been a really nice and helpful person. This study neglects to understand then Christianity teaches "Love thy Neighbour".

 

I'll through the same argument at you as I do Muslims... Christianity has had 2,000 years of practice and it seems reasonable to judge it based on actual outcomes rather than debating the theoretical merits of selective religious verse.

 

The study shows that children raised with religion are less kind and more punitive than children raised in a secular family environment. Shouldn't those propagating religion, on the basis that it teaches morality, love and tolerance, now be thinking twice? As Einstein once said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

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Whilst it is hard to find the raw data, it would appear that the conclusions (which may well be statistically valid) are drawn from variations between groups as close as whether they were willing to share either 3 or 4 stickers with others (out of 10)

 

Muslim kids averaged willingness to share 3.02 stickers, Christians - 3.33 stickers and 'non-religious' - 4.09 stickers, with Standard Deviations around 2.

 

So statistic says that if you will share 3 stickers out of your 10 then you are 'mean', but if you share 4 stickers out of your 10, you are not. Childrens' ages ranged from 5 to 12.

 

Make of that what you will.

 

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822%2815%2901167-7

Edited by cgksheff

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Agreed. Just about every Christian I have ever met has been a really nice and helpful person. This study neglects to understand then Christianity teaches "Love thy Neighbour".

 

It also teaches that rape victims should be forced to marry their rapists, seemingly you neglect to understand that. The book is racist, mysoginistic and nasty. The bad far outweighs the good. Whilst Jesus does indeed say love thy neighbour, his father (whose laws Jesus came to enforce, not change) killed everyone in the world once, killed children for the actions of their parents (exodus) and killed the whole family of a man for a bet (book of job).

 

Would you say that words speak louder than actions?

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