2Cdo 2Cdo:
The numbers couldn't have been skewed with almost double the number of muslims versus Christians. I'd like to see a breakdown by denomination before I I give this any credence.
As has been pointed out, it does.
The breakdown is assisted by a graph. However, I'd like to point out a key distinction to other responses you might have recieved; if you read the paper, it will point out that Christian and Muslim kids are within the margin of error of each other. Further, as the beginning of the study points out, this study is not unique; others have also been done, demonstrating reduced sharing in religious environments.
The rest of this part of my post is not so much aimed at you, but just to describe the study.
The important aspect of this study is that it doesn't just focus on the rich kids of continental USA; it focuses on numerous religions across several countries, including some that are not as well developed, in an attempt to get a cross-section of religion that was not economically homogenous (ie, maybe the kids in prior studies didn't have the same level of altruism because American youth grow up in a society more oriented towards independence and self-sufficiency).
As you can read, the method used did indicate (unsurprisingly) that where you came from, your age, and the status of your family did play some role in how charitable you were, but because they chose a cross-section, they were able to focus more on the impact of each religion. They did find that Islamic children were less giving than Christian children, but those results were within the margin of error of each other. However, both religions were found to be much less likely to give than non-religious children, and those results were statistically significant.
The point of this study was to find what does drive moral development and altruism. Firstly, just to point out, the study did find altruistic trends for the religious, so the argument here isn't that religion lacks altruistic elements. The point made is that the method by which religious children are learning their altruism isn't necessarily the best method. As pointed out by this paper, prior studies show that the religious intend or plan to give more but end up in the same ballpark as the non-religious.
The real problem here is where the numbers diverge most. All children tend to be greedy, and the graphs demonstrate that. However, as we age, we are supposed to get more altruistic. While both groups did become more altruistic, children raised in religious homes were not becoming better givers. By the age of 12 this divide is most extreme. This is a problem; if we view altruism as an indicator of morality, then religious homes appear to be holding back children somewhat. Since these children were put together with children of a similar ethnic, etc, background, we also cannot assume giving was less likely due to external reasons; Christians and Muslims were less likely to give to Christians or Muslims at that age. A lack of what is called multicollinearity (basically, when two measures used are related to each other) means we cannot say it is because the religious were specifically under-advantaged in some way from this study.
Likewise, there was an increased lack of tolerance for rule-breaking and increase in punitive expectations among religious children. This mirrors other sourced studies. They are also more likely to judge others actions. Yet, when asked, parents will say their children are more empathetic and understanding if they are religious.
DrCaleb DrCaleb:
Jehovas' Witnesses, doubly so.
I think it comes from them being taught 'all you have to do is follow these ten things, and every thing will be taken care of'. 'And when you don't you can ask for forgiveness.'
Poppycock! "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." - Ghandi
I think this is exactly correct. Religion teaches a more deontological set of morality; "follow these rules and you will be moral." More secular methods depend on consequentialism; "if you hurt yourself or someone else, is it moral?"
Judgement is a lot easier to draw from rules as well, in my opinion. "This is wrong" is a lot easier to get to the conclusion of than "is this wrong?"
BartSimpson BartSimpson:
$1:
They found that religious belief is a negative influence on children’s altruism.
Uh-huh. Not.
This conclusion only works if you decide not to consider giving or volunteerism done through religious organizations.
The actual fact remains that religious people are still the most altruistic.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2015/ ... ons-waningThey kind of did, Bart, and this isn't the first study that has found this link.
Pointing out that, first of all, less than a third if done through those organizations and much of it is done to further the religion, the only source for much of this comes down to a
Jewish research group researching predominantly Jewish giving habits; not a peer reviewed study, and not a study that provides an umbrella to Christianity and Islam on this front. Even then, I think we can accept that there are some exceptional differences between Jewish history and that of many other religions.
For the record, if you read later reports,
Giving USA points out that religious organizations are receivers of a significant amount of charity, more than education, heath or the environment (or more than all of those combined); that money went towards one's own church counts as charity, even if that money doesn't actually go towards much else than furthering the interests of the church and the person's own religion. It makes me think the original article was supposed to be about where charitable giving went
to, not where it went
through, but I haven't been able to find that year's report.
It doesn't exactly paint a picture that deviates from the aforementioned studies. Even if the current generation does, the church should be concerned if the generation of the religious coming in is a lot less likely to give up upkeep the church, or the causes the churches support.
BartSimpson BartSimpson:
BeaverFever BeaverFever:
Yeah nobody's ever heard the expression "holier than thou" before
Your response has fuck all to do with not just how a church finances itself but with the fact that in Christian faiths the proposition stands that someone who has little but gives much of it has given more than the person who has much but gives relatively little, even if what they give is the single largest amount given.
Also, and this is rich, if you smug and triumphant assholes would bother actually reading the study you're running around trumpeting you'd see that it soundly condemns Muslim children for being the meanest and it also condemns Muslim parents who don't expect their children to be charitable.
In other words, you jackasses posted a condemnation of your special protected religion of Islam. The study, while making out non-religious children to be 'nicer' (according to weird versions of accepted testing procedures) also states that Christians are demonstrably nicer than Muslims. Another result I doubt that you expected.
It is ironic that you began your post here with one of the greatest argument for progressive taxation, given your past support of flat taxes.
Actually, if you read the study, you'd have noticed it didn't find a statistical difference between Christian and Muslim youth, as they fell within a range of each other. Even though Christians were mostly from Canada and the USA, while Muslims were more likely from Turkey or Jordan.
Paired comparisons (corrected for family-wise error)
showed that Christian children (Msharing = 3.33, SD = 2.46) did
not differ in their altruism from Muslims (Msharing = 3.20, SD =
2.24); however, both were significantly less altruistic than non-religious
children (Msharing= 4.09, SD = 2.52, both p < 0.001; Figure 1).rickc rickc:
I have some problems with this study. Kids are mean, its a fact. I remember being called four eyes for being the only one in my class wearing glasses at a very early age. You did not want to be different in any way. Too tall, short, fat, skinny, wear braces, etc. I remember the most venemous scorn being reserved for the religious. There was this one family that lived on a farm, the Farley family. They were Pentecostal. The girls all had to wear their hair pinned up in a bun. They wore long dresses all the way down to their feet. They never got to play on the slides or monkey bars at recess. Those poor bastards went through hell on a continuous basis. The boy was always getting picked on and beat up. I can't imagine what it would have been like for a Jewish boy wearing a yarmulke, or a Muslim girl wearing a hijab in this classroom. Someone like that showing up for class would have been a wet dream for the Farleys. Some one to take the heat off of them for a while. Kids are mean. Kids who openly display their religeous beliefs are in for a rough ride in North America. At least they were when I was a kid a long time ago. Hopefully things have changed. Judging by the hostillty toward religion on this forum, I would have to say that they have not.
This study included a broad cross section of people in nations where non-religious people are very, very few and put into demographically isolated groups with the aim of handling this very criticism, rick. Essentially, a bunch of white Christians were unwilling to play fair with other white Christians, and likewise was found with Muslims of the same ethnicity as other Muslims. Pressure that exists outside of the experiment shouldn't exist much inside and, in nations like Jordan or Turkey, outside the experiment.
Indeed, if what you posit is true, than the kids in environments where there is greater secularism (USA, Canada) are more likely to give than those who live in environments that are less secular according to the P-values relating to where they are from. I'd also point out that, in my own experience (and that of my parents) most of the friction was not just between the religious kids and the less religious, but between kids of different religious groups as well. A specific lack of religiosity isn't exactly recent, sure, but it wasn't super common back in the day either.
CKA Uber 
CKA Uber 
![[popcorn]](./images/smilies/popcorn.gif "Eating Popcorn")
CKA Moderator 
CKA Moderator 
![[but]](./images/smilies/bootie.gif "Moon")
