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Godless Parents Are Doing a Better Job
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| Parent(s) |
Issue
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| Contributor | RP |
| Last Edited | RP Feb 04, 2015 11:32am |
| Logged |
2
[Older]
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| Category | Study |
| Author | Tracy Moore |
| News Date | Tuesday, February 3, 2015 08:30:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Hate to break it to you, Bible thumpers: Parents who raise their kids without religion are doing just fine, studies say, possibly even better. Overall, not believing in God seems to make people and their offspring more tolerant. Less racist. Less sexist. Enviro-friendly. And their kids care less about what's cool, which—say it with me—only makes them cooler.
In an op-ed at the Los Angeles Times by sociologist Phil Zuckerman, you can read about a swath of studies that support what everyone who is "between churches" has known forever: Not believing in God isn't synonymous with being amoral. If anything, it can give you a greater clarity about right and wrong, because you're more likely to base it on empathy and decency than a guaranteed spot upstairs come Judgment Day.
He was surprised by what he found: High levels of family solidarity and emotional closeness between parents and nonreligious youth, and strong ethical standards and moral values that had been clearly articulated as they were imparted to the next generation.
"Many nonreligious parents were more coherent and passionate about their ethical principles than some of the 'religious' parents in our study," Bengston told me. "The vast majority appeared to live goal-filled lives characterized by moral direction and sense of life having a purpose."
The reason of course, is obvious. Morality comes not from a book, or a guy up in the sky, but from the idea that how you treat people matters, because how people feel matters. The Golden Rule. Doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, is, Zuckerman writes, "an ancient, universal ethical imperative. And it requires no supernatural beliefs." |
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