Monday, January 19, 2015

Research on Secular Family Values

Phil Zuckerman has written an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times which summarizes recent research on the moral values of secular families. The article presents evidence that children from secular families are actually better off in terms of their moral development than children from religious families. Here is an excerpt:
The results of such secular child-rearing are encouraging. Studies have found that secular teenagers are far less likely to care what the “cool kids” think, or express a need to fit in with them, than their religious peers. When these teens mature into “godless” adults, they exhibit less racism than their religious counterparts, according to a 2010 Duke University study. 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.

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