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Phil Zuckerman on growing up godless

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Sociology professor Phil Zuckerman has written an Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times arguing that children raised in non-religious families are just as moral as their religious counterparts – and perhaps more so. Now, I would certainly agree that many parents without religious beliefs do an excellent job of raising their children. But I have to say that Professor Zuckerman’s attempt to prove that a religious upbringing doesn’t make children any more moral than a secular upbringing is riddled with flawed statistical reasoning.

Zuckerman cites the work of Vern Bengston, a USC sociology professor who for the past 45 years has supervised the Longitudinal Study of Generations, the largest multi-generational study of religion and family life ever conducted in the United States. “Many nonreligious parents were more coherent and passionate about their ethical principles than some of the ‘religious’ parents in our study,” Bengston told Zuckerman. “The vast majority appeared to live goal-filled lives characterized by moral direction and sense of life having a purpose.”

All well and good, but as Professor Zuckerman himself notes, Bengston did not include secular families in his longitudinal study until 2013. And in a longitudinal study of non-religious families, the question that needs to be addressed is not, “Are the majority of children raised in such families moral?” but, “How well are moral values transmitted down the generations in non-religious families, compared to religious families?” At the present time, we don’t have any good data to answer that question.

Zuckerman asserts that secular morality is based on the Golden Rule, which requires no supernatural beliefs and can be applied by anyone with the ability to empathize. However, his assertion that non-religious families instill moral norms by teaching their children the Golden Rule is backed up with purely anecdotal evidence: an interview with an atheist mom named Debbie. Is she typical of non-religious parents? She may be, but once again, we are not provided with reliable data.

Zuckerman continues to propagate the myth that atheists are less likely to commit crimes than religious people:

One telling fact from the criminology field: Atheists were almost absent from our prison population as of the late 1990s, comprising less than half of 1% of those behind bars, according to Federal Bureau of Prisons statistics. This echoes what the criminology field has documented for more than a century – the unaffiliated and the nonreligious engage in far fewer crimes.

This argument has been thoroughly debunked by atheist blogger Heina Dadabhoy, in an essay at Skepchick titled, Fellow Atheists: Quit Bragging About our Prison Under-Representation:

Atheism is a movement comprised mostly of middle-to-upper-class white people. A middle-to-upper-class white person is far less likely to be incarcerated than a poor person and/or a person of color. The only way atheists as a whole might be less likely to be incarcerated than theists would be if we were a female-majority community. Atheism is hardly the cause of white middle-to-upper-class people’s underrepresentation in the prison population, injustice in the criminal justice system is.

For more information on atheist demographics, readers might like to check out this article here. It turns out that atheists have more college education, a higher socio-economic status and a higher income than the general population – which may explain why they have a lower divorce rate than evangelicals.

Commenting on Heina Dadabhoy’s article, atheist blogger Ed Brayton highlights another flaw in the oft-cited claim that there are very few atheists in prison:

There’s also the problem that even if those statistics were relevant, they don’t distinguish between those who were religious when they committed their crime and those who converted after going to prison. Lots of people turn to religion when they hit “rock bottom.” We need more thoughtful arguments across the board and this is one great example.

But Professor Zuckerman’s statistical howlers don’t stop there. Zuckerman also contends that secularism reduces violence:

Another meaningful related fact: Democratic countries with the lowest levels of religious faith and participation today – such as Sweden, Denmark, Japan, Belgium and New Zealand – have among the lowest violent crime rates in the world and enjoy remarkably high levels of societal well-being.

Even a cursory examination of the data reveals that this claim does not withstand scrutiny. If we look at the list of countries by intentional homicide rate and sort it in ascending order, and compare it with the list of countries by religiosity (measured by a 2009 Gallup poll where people were asked, “Is religion important in your daily life?”), several interesting facts emerge.

First, many countries with high levels of religiosity have very low murder rates, including Singapore (70% religious, 0.2 murders per 100,000 people per year), Indonesia (99% religious, murder rate 0.6), Algeria (93% religious, murder rate 0.7), Saudi Arabia (94.5% religious, murder rate 0.8), Italy (71.5% religious, murder rate 0.9) and Poland (74.5% religious, murder rate 1.2). (And while one might query the reliability of homicide figures in an absolute monarchy like Saudi Arabia, the same can hardly be said for the other countries listed above.)

Second, quite a few countries with low levels of religiosity have relatively high murder rates, including Estonia (16% religious, murder rate 5.0), Albania (32.5% religious, murder rate 5.0), Belarus (33% religious, murder rate 5.1), Russia (33% religious, murder rate 9.2), Uruguay (40.5% religious, murder rate 7.9), Lithuania (41.5% religious, murder rate 6.7) and Kazakhstan (43% religious, murder rate 7.8).

Third, if we sort the list of countries by intentional homicide data by sub-region, it turns out that within each sub-region, there is little or no correlation between religiosity and levels of homicidal violence. (For the purposes of this analysis, I shall ignore tiny countries with a population of under 2 million.) In Central America, the country with the lowest murder rate is Costa Rica (8.5, 79% religious), while the country with the highest rate is Honduras (90.4, 84% religious). The percentage of religious people in the two countries is virtually identical; yet there is a ten-fold difference in their murder rates. In South America, the country with the lowest murder rate is Chile (3.1, 69.5% religious), while the country with the highest rate is Venezuela (53.7, 79% religious). Once again, it would be absurd to attribute the 17-fold difference in murder rates between the two countries to religion.

In Middle Africa, the murder rate varies from 7.3 in Chad (94% religious) to 28.3 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (98.5% religious). Whatever is behind these differences in intentional homicide rates, it can hardly be religiosity. In Southern Africa, there is no discernible correlation between religiosity and murder rates: South Africa’s murder rate is the highest of any major country in the region, at 31.0, but its level of religiosity (84%) is intermediate between that of Namibia (91.5%) and Botswana (77%), whose murder rates are lower at 17.2 and 18.4, respectively. In Eastern Africa, the murder rate varies enormously, from 1.8 in Malawi (98.5% religious) to 23.1 in Rwanda (95% religious), while in Western Africa, there is a four-fold difference between the murder rates in Mauritania (5.0, 98% religious) and Nigeria (20.0, 95% religious).

In western Asia, the murder rate varies from a mere 0.4 in Kuwait (92.5% religious) and 0.8 in Saudi Arabia (94.5% religious) to 4.8 in Yemen (96% religious). (I’m omitting war-torn Iraq here.) Indeed, the average murder rate in this highly religious sub-region is roughly comparable with that of Southern Europe. In eastern Asia, we find that Japan (23.5% religious) has a very low murder rate (0.3), but on the other hand, the murder rate is more than ten times higher in Taiwan (3.0), North Korea (5.2) and Mongolia (9.7) – countries which are not exactly renowned for their religiosity!

In eastern Europe, the Czech Republic, where only 20.5% of the population describe themselves as religious, the murder rate is a modest 1.0, but it’s virtually the same (1.2) in Poland (74.5% religious), while in Russia, which is only 33% religious, the murder rate is nearly ten times higher, at 9.2. And in northern Europe, the murder rate varies widely, from 0.7 in Sweden (16.5% religious) to 5.0 in Estonia (16% religious) and 6.7 in Lithuania (41.5% religious). Go figure.

Professor Zuckerman touts Belgium as an example of a non-religious country with a low homicide rate, but its murder rate (1.6) is actually the highest in Western Europe. Switzerland and Germany, which are somewhat more religious (41.5% and 40.5% vs. 33% for Belgium), have much lower rates (0.6 and 0.8 respectively). And in Southern Europe, Spain (murder rate 0.8, 49.5% religious) and Italy (0.9, 71.5% religious) have much lower murder rates than highly secular Albania (5.0, 32.5% religious).

After reviewing this data, all I can say is: whatever the causes of homicidal violence around the world turn out to be, we can be fairly sure that religion has very little to do with it.

Professor Zuckerman writes: “Many psychological studies show that secular grownups tend to be less vengeful, less nationalistic, less militaristic, less authoritarian and more tolerant, on average, than religious adults.” He does not list these studies; but in any case, it could be plausibly argued that some of the “virtues” on his list are actually vices. Substitute “less patriotic” for “less nationalistic” and “more rebellious” for “less authoritarian” and you’ll see my point.

Zuckerman adds that “[s]ecular adults are more likely to understand and accept the science concerning global warming, and to support women’s equality and gay rights.” Even if we were to assume (for argument’s sake) that all of these causes are unequivocally good, one could still ask: is secularism the cause of these adults’ ”enlightened” attitudes, or is it the fact that secular adults tend to come from families with high socioeconomic status and spend more time at college, where these attitudes are reinforced by people in authority?

Finally, what are we to make of Professor Zuckerman’s claim that teens who mature into “godless” adults (his term) “exhibit less racism than their religious counterparts, according to a 2010 Duke University study”? He’d better be careful about making that claim. First of all, it makes no sense to attribute racism to a belief in God, given that mainstream religions are unanimous in preaching racial tolerance. Second, what the Duke University study actually found was that the aspect of religion that was linked strongly to racism was so-called “extrinsic” religiosity – a measure of whether the individual’s religious attitudes are driven by a desire for social conformity and social status.

Finally, Zuckerman would do well to read black skeptic Sikivu Hutchinson’s recent Washington Post article, Atheism has a big race problem that no one’s talking about (June 16, 2014). Hutchinson doesn’t mince words. After noting that “African Americans are the most religious ethnic group in the nation,” he continues:

African Americans still live in disproportionately segregated neighborhoods, with few living-wage jobs, parks, accessible public transportation and healthy grocery stores.

Faith-based institutions provide resources to these poor and working-class families. They also fight racial discrimination, offer a foundation for community organizing and create access to social welfare, professional networks and educational resources. These are essential issues, and atheists of color often find themselves allied in these missions.

White atheists have a markedly different agenda. They are, on average, more affluent than the general population. Their children don’t attend overcrowded “dropout mills” where they are criminalized, subjected to “drill and kill” curricula and shunted off to prison, subminimum-wage jobs or chronic unemployment. White organizations go to battle over church/state separation and creationism in schools.

…With the highest national rates of juvenile incarceration, as well as suspension and expulsion in K-12 schools, African American youth in particular have been deeply impacted by these assaults on civil rights. According to the Education Trust, “If current trends continue, only one in twenty African American students in the state of California will go on to a four-year college or university.”

But when we look to atheist and humanist organizations for solidarity on these issues, there is a staggering lack of interest. And though some mainstream atheist organizations have jumped on the “diversity” bandwagon, they haven’t seriously grappled with the issue. Simply trotting out atheists of color to speak about “diversity” at overwhelmingly white conferences doesn’t cut it. (Emphases mine – VJT.)

I seem to recall a saying about people living in glass houses…

Zuckerman concludes his article:

Being a secular parent and something of an expert on secular culture, I know well the angst many secular Americans experience when they can’t help but wonder: Could I possibly be making a mistake by raising my children without religion? The unequivocal answer is no. Children raised without religion have no shortage of positive traits and virtues, and they ought to be warmly welcomed as a growing American demographic. (Emphasis mine – VJT.)

“The unequivocal answer is no”? Surely you jest, Professor Zuckerman. If this is what sociologists call “evidence,” then I can only say: maybe some of them need to go back to school.

Before I sign off, I’d like to make one last comment. I would suggest that the greatest threat that atheism poses to public morality over the long term is not disbelief in God, per se, but rather, belief in materialistic determinism: in other words, the notion that we are all meat machines. A child who grows up thinking that she is a biological machine may well ask herself, “How can I hold other people morally responsible for their choices, if those choices are ultimately determined by circumstances beyond their control?” And when enough people start believing that we are not morally responsible for what we do, society really does have an “ethics” problem. Empathy alone is not enough. To be an effective moral agent, you have to know what kinds of entities you should care about (for example, computers don’t count, while human embryos do ), and you have to believe that you can make a difference. While there are “noble atheists” whose heart is in the right place on these issues, sadly, the scientific materialism that many students in Western countries imbibe in high school and college tends to weaken their moral focus (rights for rivers and forests, anyone?) and rob them of their belief in free will. Now that’s what I call a moral tragedy.

Comments
Also, If memory serves me right, Zuckerman was on the Dennis Prager show in December, which in the end, he admitted certain categories religious people are better than secular people. I admit the only one that I remember he mentions is that religious people are more charitable.HD
February 4, 2015
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Two things: 1) Atheists like to say that believers don't live in a religious world and that much of their values come from the enlightenment period. Well, this is right but the corollary is just as true. Atheists don't live in a secular world either and their values don't come from a vacuum. They are living (including the ones in Europe) in nations that have been bathed by religious morality for centuries upon centuries. 2) This comes from my experience. I have seen that atheists typically define morality - generally - as "don't kill, don't steal." But when you look at a functioning society and then reducing it down to it's sub elements such as families, there is much more involved in creating a society that often times secularists have a way to go. They define what "good" is by their terms and that's it. But who decided that, that's it? Anyways, here are some of my own examples: I have often seen that those children that are horrible disrespectful of parents are secular. The profaning of society, whether in art, music, speech and television overwhelmingly comes from the secular. The sexualization of society at a younger and younger age comes from the secular. (Religious are often accused in this regards as being prudes). Everytime I drive down the streets of LA I have to wonder what other horrible billboards my kids are going to see this time. This is a byproduct of the secular Left. The tabloid and gossip industry comes from the secular; an industry meant as nothing but to air other's dirty laundry and potentially ruin other people's lives. Just last week, someone aired a video he shot on his phone of a women acting like an ass when she missed her ferry boat. Now, her behavior was obviously childish, but why would this individual decide to share this video with the public? He never stopped to ask the question of whether this will humiliate her more to millions of people. The progressive Left in it's idea of more sexually free society, redistribution of wealth is overwhelmingly secular. The transhumanist, those scientists and animal rights activists that cry out humans are no more worthwhile than chickens are overwhelmingly secular. The ideas of Peter Singer come from his secularism. And while Peter Singer may not want to act upon his philosophy, he is paving the road for future secularists to do what he professes. ALL THESE ideas have impacts on society and it is rarely for the better. And why? Because secularism as no "oughts" to compel it with. This actually reminds of atheist Jonathan Haidt's work when he says Conservatives are often more morally balanced than Liberals because they see more things needed for a healthy society. In the end, even though not every atheists will do everything of course, atheism in of itself can allow for ANYTHING under the sun. Oh, it won't happen right NOW, and may not happen next week, but all secularism needs is time and eventually anything they want can eventually be permitted.HD
February 4, 2015
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I found the case by this Zuckerman to be absurd in any claim of making a case. anyways. It never occurs to that religion affects general morality these days. this because the general morality is not from the organic public. in fact its the result of very Protestant civilization. Everybody is brought up in it in the same way as one is in ones family. you can't get away from it or say your morality is independently conceived. I presume the Japanese have the same morality as the Dutch. they all live in a western morality. yet not this way before/during WW11 for sure. What is the standard? God/bible believing does make one more moral but its a curve. Not a yes/no. The whole history of the english was the clash between the Puritan and Anglican moral conclusions. And this to the Catholic. this was more obvious in America in a more controlled experiment due to geography of North/South. Finally the bible says mans morality is from innate laws written on his heart. not from revealed religion or awareness of a creator. This is why all mankind is blameworthy for immorality.Robert Byers
February 3, 2015
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AS @3 said,
We only have this life and I am certainly going to make the most of it because it ain’t a rehearsal so let’s live it to the full.
As a theist then, I take it you think I'm not living life to the fullest somehow. What should I be doing more of that would matter in any way under an atheistic worldview? Even actions I could take to ease the pain of others are pointless if pain is just biochemistry and nerve impulses, soon to be forgotten in the grand scheme of things. Selfish hedonistic activities make even less sense, because my memories of pleasure are useless once I'm gone. Life under an atheistic worldview is even more ephemeral than a rehearsal for a play, not less.EDTA
February 3, 2015
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A. Smith: We only have this life.... This life meaning one incarnation and inevitable personal obliteration? If so, a statement purely philosophical with no empirical basis. Based a belief held by a tiny minority on planet Earth. Also, among the non-materialist majority, strict belief in a diety that has ruled and restricts incarnation to one life, is even a minority belief. Sorry to fundies of all faiths for any offence.groovamos
February 3, 2015
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Aurelio, the problem is this "make the most if the only life we have " mantra that some atheists keep mindlessly repeating makes no sense at all . For one , if this is the only life you have then it has no ultimate meaning, no ultimate purpose , no ultimate value and no ultimate hope. What is there to make the most ? Lol this is what boggles my mind about most atheists . They live in a delusion of trying to bring meaning and purpose to a life that ultimately has no meaning and purpose . I have a nihilist friend and everytime I bring these statements by atheists up to him he just shakes his head in amazement because he is at least honest enough with himself to admit that atheism logically leads to nihilism. Also this "make the most of this life " can mean different things to different people. One person can take it to mean that he should lie , cheat , steal and murder to gain all of the materialistic pleasures that this short life brings while another would think that helping old ladies across the street is making the most of his or her life . There is no objective foundation in atheism to determine what "making the most if this life means "". It's essentially a meaningless statement . Also in this worldview love is basically a series of chemical interactions combined with electrical impulses firing off and on. I contend that atheist parents probably bring up the ur kids in the illusion (in the atheistic worldview that is) that their life has true meaning, that they OUGHT to treat others kindly , which means they smuggle in theistic objective moral foundations in the back door but forgetting to include the objective moral lawgiver. I once had a debate with an atheist, and I ended it by asking him if he felt rape was objectively evil or good. His response is " do I even need to respond ?, it's obvious that rape is evil" Once he realized what he had said he changed the subject and never approached it again lol. Need I say more ?wallstreeter43
February 3, 2015
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Your #4, KF: A very compelling post... For those that have ears to hear, I should add.Axel
February 3, 2015
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Let us eat, drink and be merry for on the morrow we die . . .kairosfocus
February 3, 2015
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VJT: Another important balancing perspective. I would suggest that historically a key driving force of violence in a community is socio-cultural breakdown of sound family life and linked neighbourliness, multiplied by the growing perception that the road to success is to become a predator on others or at a more upper-crust level, a manipulative exploiter. In short, sustained misleadership in the community counts. And the result is, alienated, ill-nurtured boys who have not learned to channel energy productively or control their sexual urges and channel them into becoming sound providers. Multiply by economic chaos and destructive ideologies and demagogues. The result of such a toxic brew is a street gang culture and mentality. Including all the way up to board rooms and cabinets. And, the history of the past century shows where that can go in states taken over by such radicals . . . many of them atheists and nihilists based on the atheistical ideologies they adopted. Adapting Lord Acton, power tends to corrupt, unaccountable and unlimited power corrupts without limit, and those who domineer become the grandest criminals of all. Consequently when I see the repeated essays and talking points of the ilk you critique, I look for the missing facts of that recent history moaned out by 100 million ghosts of victims. That repeated failure (or refusal) to seriously face the amoralism and invitation to nihilism that for 2350 years since Plato in The Laws Bk X have been known and exposed as direct implications of evolutionary materialist atheism, is telling us something. KFkairosfocus
February 3, 2015
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Mark Frank I don't know what you are crying about, Eric Harris was the only atheist I know that lived his live honestly as an atheist should, Thank God most atheist contradict themselves everyday because I am certain that if the lot actually started living what it means we would all be dead in one week.Andre
February 3, 2015
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VJ You make several very reasonable points about the lack of evidence that bringing up people with a religion causes them to be less moral. Then you leap, with a similar lack of evidence, to the conclusion that bringing people up as atheists "tends to weaken their moral focus (rights for rivers and forests, anyone?) and rob them of their belief in free will".Mark Frank
February 3, 2015
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