Subscribe to End Hereditary ReligionNews FeedSubscribe to End Hereditary ReligionComments

Home > Blog > Religion > Childhood Indoctrination > What if your child becomes religious.

What if your child becomes religious.

Posted by

The fifth in a series on nonreligious parenting. Hosted by Dale McGowan, editor and co-author of “Parenting Beyond Belief” and “Raising Freethinkers.” Dale McGowan gives us a great argument in favor of letting children decide the important questions in life for themselves. In our laws and mores there is the embedded concept that whoever must deal with the consequences of a decision is entitled to make that decision. No one else, not the state, not parents, not the Pope.

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
Posted on Thursday, August 6th, 2009 at 3:00 pm in Childhood Indoctrination, Children's rights, Parenting, Secularism.

Related Posts

No related posts.

Share/Save


Bookmark and Share

Subscribe via RSS! or Follow EndOfReligion on Twitter!


Comments (14)

 Follow this discussion | Leave a trackback | Login

James Tracy

"..letting children decide the important questions in life for themselves."

Right. Exactly. Which is why I am dumbfounded when Christians come here and suggest that we are trying to make children be atheists. That should be up to them.

» Posted on August 7, 2009 at 1:31 am

john_poson26

James, they got it ass-backwards. Children are born atheists; they only become believers, through indoctrination.

» Posted on August 8, 2009 at 3:00 am

JD Curtis

What to do if your child becomes religious. If it's a mainline Christian denomination REJOICE! Statistics show tat they will be…

Less likely to get drunk,
Use marijuana,
Commit armed robbery,
Be suspended from school,
Sell drugs
Commit vandelism
Be truant
Link to UNC Chapel Hill study from 2002 verifying this info.

Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6)

» Posted on August 10, 2009 at 10:49 pm

Richard_Collins

Thanks for the link to the Chapel Hill Study. I found the study director's web site and looked into more details of the study than are given in the link you sent. Hare you looked at this site?

http://www.youthandreligion.org/research/team.htm…

Apparently only 38 children out of over 200 that were interviewed came from non-religious homes. How could such a skewed sample be valid. I am not a social scientist, but this seems to invalidate any result that might be drawn from this study. The point of the study seems to be that religion is good for children. If you only ask questions from children who self identify as relgious it seems you are only going to get data that confirms your theory.

Are you a social scientist?

» Posted on August 11, 2009 at 1:47 am

JD Curtis

Here's the link to the pdf copy of the study, it's entitled "Religion and American Adolescent Delinquency, Risk Behaviors and Constructive Social Activities" and it's my understanding that about 2,500 kids were involved with the study. (I don't have adobe on this machine and can't open it tonight) My degree is in Criminal Justice. I decided to study Political Science along with it unlike many of my classmates who instead chose Sociology . I just find politics more interesting.

» Posted on August 11, 2009 at 2:38 am

JD Curtis

""Religion, independent of social class, reduces deviance." For example, consider the latest research of David B. Larson, the medical research scientist who pioneered the development of research on public health outcomes (physical health, mental health, addictions) that led to new training programs at Harvard and three dozen other medical schools. With criminologist Byron Johnson, Larson has reviewed some 400 juvenile delinquency studies published between 1980 and 1997. They report that "the better the study design and measurement methodology, the greater the likelihood the research will produce statistically significant and beneficial results associated with ‘the faith factor.’" In other words, the more scientific the study, the more optimistic are its findings about the extent to which "religion reduces deviance." Link

» Posted on August 11, 2009 at 2:40 am

JD Curtis

""Religion, independent of social class, reduces deviance." For example, consider the latest research of David B. Larson, the medical research scientist who pioneered the development of research on public health outcomes (physical health, mental health, addictions) that led to new training programs at Harvard and three dozen other medical schools. With criminologist Byron Johnson, Larson has reviewed some 400 juvenile delinquency studies published between 1980 and 1997. They report that "the better the study design and measurement methodology, the greater the likelihood the research will produce statistically significant and beneficial results associated with ‘the faith factor.’" In other words, the more scientific the study, the more optimistic are its findings about the extent to which "religion reduces deviance." Link

» Posted on August 11, 2009 at 2:40 am

JD Curtis

""Religion, independent of social class, reduces deviance." For example, consider the latest research of David B. Larson, the medical research scientist who pioneered the development of research on public health outcomes (physical health, mental health, addictions) that led to new training programs at Harvard and three dozen other medical schools. With criminologist Byron Johnson, Larson has reviewed some 400 juvenile delinquency studies published between 1980 and 1997. They report that "the better the study design and measurement methodology, the greater the likelihood the research will produce statistically significant and beneficial results associated with ‘the faith factor.’" In other words, the more scientific the study, the more optimistic are its findings about the extent to which "religion reduces deviance." Link

» Posted on August 11, 2009 at 2:40 am

JD Curtis

From the above cited article "In 1985, Harvard economist Richard Freeman reported that church going, independent of other factors, made young black males from high-poverty neighborhoods substantially more likely to escape poverty, crime, and other social ills. In a forthcoming reanalysis and extension of Freeman’s work, Larson and Johnson mine national longitudinal data on urban black youth and find that religion is indeed a powerful predictor of escaping poverty, crime, and other social ills."

Are there any studies you can cite concerning any sort of positive effect that atheism might have on "urban black youth"?

» Posted on August 11, 2009 at 2:42 am

Richard_Collins

I think that is a trick question JD. Of all the social groups in the US blacks are least likely to be secular. Much of their social life and culture is wrapped firmly in the church.

Data from the UN and Eutopean Union shows that on most quality of life surveys the highly secular advanced democracies of the world lead on almost all the indicators. Are you familiar with the research carried out in Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand?

But let us focus on one thing at a time. I'll have a look at Richard Freeman's research if you point it out to me.

» Posted on August 11, 2009 at 2:58 am

Richard_Collins

The actual phone interviews that produced the study results were a subset of the 2,500 kids you mention. Of the 200 or so that were interviewed, only 38 came from secular families. Even though the interviewer assured the kids no one would know how they answered doesn't it seem likely that kids from religious families would want their families to look good?

I didn 't see anything about double blind controls. Did you?<div style="margin: 6px 0pt 0pt; display: block;"><a bitly="BITLY_PROCESSED" class="a2a_dd" href="http://www.addtoany.com/share_save"><img src="http://static.addtoany.com/buttons/share_save_171_16.png&quot; alt="Share/Save/Bookmark" border="0" height="16" width="171">

» Posted on August 11, 2009 at 2:59 am

JD Curtis

Do you have any data concerning the uban black youths ability to "escape poverty, crime, and other social ills" when reared in an irreligious household as compared to a religious one?

Insofar as research carried out in Europe, Japan, Canada and New Zealand, have you ever examined GDP when compared to religious belief and how it relates to IQ in different countries? Link The references are at the bottom of the page.

» Posted on August 11, 2009 at 11:43 am

john_poson26

"What to do if your child becomes religious. If it's a mainline Christian denomination REJOICE! Statistics show tat they will be…"

Personally JD, after spending a great deal time with our kids, teaching and encouraging them to learn math, and science. If one of them would have come home saying they now believe in talking snakes and asses, virgin births, and a six thousand year-old earth; we would have started looking for a child-psychologist!

I’ve heard many times before the claims made by Christians that Christian-children, are far less likely to engage in self-destructive behavior than others who are non-believers. However; I’ve never seen one single credibly, scientific study, which backs up that claim. And I’m not exactly sure which way Christians are “training up their children in;” statistically, adult Christian’s makeup over 90% of the prison population; the numbers of atheists in the overall prison population is far less than one percent:

http://atheistempire.com/reference/stats/main.htm…

» Posted on August 11, 2009 at 10:39 pm

JD Curtis

Personally JD, after spending a great deal time with our kids, teaching and encouraging them to learn math, and science

Good for you! There’s nothing unscientific about the 10 Commandments, The Beatitudes, The Sermon on the Mount or the Book of Proverbs. I hope you instruct values and morality in your children as well. If you do, then you have to decide if you are going with a set of values that are fixed or can change depending on which way the wind blows. I think a fixed set of values is best but that’s just my opinion.

statistically, adult Christian’s makeup over 90% of the prison population; the numbers of atheists in the overall prison population is far less than one percent

On prison surveys, when the irreligious are counted, that is to say those who put down “None” for their religion, then an entirely different picture emerges. In this case atheistic/irreligious individuals are 4 times more likely to be imprisoned than a Christian.

» Posted on August 12, 2009 at 4:15 pm

Post a new comment

« »