Godless Parents Are Doing a Better Job [LINK]
By Tracy Moore
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.[SNIP]
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. [SNIP]
I just grew up in the over-saturated South, and for every truly genuine, kind, accepting person who drew on strength from God to do good in this world (I almost exclusively grew up with Baptists and Church of Christ nutjobs) that I ever met, there were easily a hundred who used it as a shield to judge and shun everything that didn't look like them, which was usually a white guy in a button-down oxford, Dockers, and a piece of UT football insignia somewhere. Who got s###faced on the weekends. And was a racist. But who was somehow, inexplicably, considered a "good person" from a "good family." [SNIP]
You don't need God to be good. He and his colleagues have found, time and time again, "sustaining moral values," and "enriching ethical precepts" among those who dare not to pledge allegiance to the Big Kahuna: Chief among those: rational problem solving, personal autonomy, independence of thought, avoidance of corporal punishment, a spirit of "questioning everything" and, far above all, empathy.
By Tracy Moore
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.[SNIP]
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. [SNIP]
I just grew up in the over-saturated South, and for every truly genuine, kind, accepting person who drew on strength from God to do good in this world (I almost exclusively grew up with Baptists and Church of Christ nutjobs) that I ever met, there were easily a hundred who used it as a shield to judge and shun everything that didn't look like them, which was usually a white guy in a button-down oxford, Dockers, and a piece of UT football insignia somewhere. Who got s###faced on the weekends. And was a racist. But who was somehow, inexplicably, considered a "good person" from a "good family." [SNIP]
You don't need God to be good. He and his colleagues have found, time and time again, "sustaining moral values," and "enriching ethical precepts" among those who dare not to pledge allegiance to the Big Kahuna: Chief among those: rational problem solving, personal autonomy, independence of thought, avoidance of corporal punishment, a spirit of "questioning everything" and, far above all, empathy.
