Does religion improve behavior?

[Zzyzx]

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Being religious does not make you better behaved, researchers have found.

A new study found 'no significant difference' in the number or quality of moral and immoral deeds made by religious and non-religious participants. 

The researchers found only one difference - Religious people responded with more pride and gratitude for their moral deeds, and more guilt, embarrassment and disgust for their immoral deeds.

To learn how people experience morality and immorality in everyday life, the researchers surveyed more than 1,200 adults, aged 18 to 68, via smartphone. 
For three days, the demographically diverse group of U.S. and Canadian citizens received five signals daily, prompting them to deliver short answers to a questionnaire about any moral or immoral act they had committed, received, witnessed or heard about within the last hour. 

In addition to the religion variable, the researchers also looked at moral experience and political orientation, as well as the effect moral and immoral occurrences have on an individual's happiness and sense of purpose. 

The study found that religious and nonreligious people differed in only one way: How moral and immoral deeds made them feel

Religious people responded with stronger emotions – more pride and gratitude for their moral deeds, and more guilt, embarrassment and disgust for their immoral deeds. 

The study also found little evidence for a morality divide between political conservatives and liberals. 

'Our findings are important because they reveal that even though there are some small differences in the degree to which liberals and conservatives emphasize different moral priorities, the moral priorities they have are more similar than different,' Skitka said. Both groups are very concerned about issues such as harm/care, fairness/unfairness, authority/subversion and honesty/dishonesty, she said. 

'By studying how people themselves describe their moral and immoral experiences, instead of examining reactions to artificial examples in a lab, we have gained a much richer and more nuanced understanding of what makes up the moral fabric of everyday experience,' Skitka said.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... uilty.html

Do you agree or disagree with the bold items above? Why?

[dianaiad]

[Replying to post 16 by dianaiad]

http://m.sciencemag.org/content/345/6202/1340

There you go I googled it for you it's the same study. Looks pretty solid to.

It appears that while self reported they had to supply the details of the deed. Researchers found similar quality of the specific deeds performed. In other words we are looking at apples to apples.
your concerns have been addressed as they were assessing the differences between the deeds themselves.

Yes, it's the same study. The abstract does not do what you claim for it. Indeed, the only sentence in the abstract that relates to it actually says that 'liberals and conservatives emphasized somewhat different dimensions." That does not sound like support for your claim that the 'details of the deed' or the deeds themselves, followed any sort of homogenous moral construct.

My question is....and it's beginning to look as if the answer may be 'yes,' is...did this study equate, for instance, the feelings of the guy who thought that littering was immoral and who felt guilty about throwing the straw paper cover out the window with the feelings of the guy who thought that stealing was immoral and felt guilty about walking out of the store with a $150 watch?

I mean, this would be fine, if the study is about how well people deal with their own standards and belief systems. It's not all that helpful, though, in answering the question 'Does religion improve behavior?"

After all, if someone used to feel fine about shoplifting, and then converted to a belief system that forbade that and now does not shoplift, wouldn't you say that the new system 'improved behavior,' even if that person now feels guilty about different....and objectively lesser....offenses?

You know, like missing the garbage can with the paper straw cover and nog going back to pick it up?

Did you purchase the article itself, and have access to the methodology?

Darn, I really miss academic access to stuff like this.

[Peter]

Does religion improve behavior?

Which religion in which time under what circumstances?

If the question is would we be generally better off without religion in the 21st century the answer is yes. However, it won't happen given that lots of people desperately need their hopes/religion?

Maybe the answer is just to let religion run its course like Ebola. If it doesn't kill us all in one way or another the survivors will be immune.

Supporting the irrational belief in a god and hoping that people will believe in the "right" god is absolute lunacy.

[dianaiad]

Does religion improve behavior?

Which religion in which time under what circumstances?

If the question is would we be generally better off without religion in the 21st century the answer is yes.

Really?

Prove it.

......and you are going to have to work rather hard to do that, given the history of attempts to govern and live without religion in the twentieth century.

However, it won't happen given that lots of people desperately need their hopes/religion?

And this is a bad thing?

Maybe the answer is just to let religion run its course like Ebola. If it doesn't kill us all in one way or another the survivors will be immune.

Y'know, mankind has been around for rather a long time, and we've always, and I do mean, ALWAYS, had religion. Every single time we try to do without it, that is, make religion illegal, people die by the job lots. Now whether that is the direct result of anti-theism, or simply because the brand of atheism that replaced religious beliefs didn't stop the mayhem, makes little difference; people were not better off without religion.

We WILL be better off with freedom OF religion, absolutely. That is, when all mankind is free to believe as they wish about God...and recognizes that right for everybody else, we'll be a lot better off.

But that is not, by any means, the same thing as 'better off without religion."

Supporting the irrational belief in a god and hoping that people will believe in the "right" god is absolute lunacy.

Then mankind as a whole has been utterly insane since we became self-aware. Oh, and Peter?

I see absolutely no difference in results or actions between someone who has a specific theistic belief he wants to promote, and the guy whose belief regarding deity is 'there ain't one and anybody who does is crazy."

From where I sit, at least, there is no difference in attitude, in actions...or in rhetoric.

[Zzyzx]

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I see absolutely no difference in results or actions between someone who has a specific theistic belief he wants to promote, and the guy whose belief regarding deity is 'there ain't one and anybody who does is crazy."

From where I sit, at least, there is no difference in attitude, in actions...or in rhetoric.

Diana, I would take that a bit further and say that I see no difference in attitudes and actions between believers and non-believers regarding life in general. Good or positive people in either group do good or positive things (however identified) and bad or negative people do bad or negative things. There seem to be as many good people among non-believers as among believers.

Since there is no difference (that I can see or has been documented) if believers and non-believers are about even -- AND if believers have been improved by their religion -- THEN believers must have started from a hole in the ground (a bad or negative position) because they should be WAY ahead if religion has positive effects.

[dianaiad]

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I see absolutely no difference in results or actions between someone who has a specific theistic belief he wants to promote, and the guy whose belief regarding deity is 'there ain't one and anybody who does is crazy."

From where I sit, at least, there is no difference in attitude, in actions...or in rhetoric.

Diana, I would take that a bit further and say that I see no difference in attitudes and actions between believers and non-believers regarding life in general. Good or positive people in either group do good or positive things (however identified) and bad or negative people do bad or negative things. There seem to be as many good people among non-believers as among believers.

Since there is no difference (that I can see or has been documented) if believers and non-believers are about even -- AND if believers have been improved by their religion -- THEN believers must have started from a hole in the ground (a bad or negative position) because they should be WAY ahead if religion has positive effects.

....and where did the non-believers begin from, before they started adhering to the ethical/moral systems that they use?

Because if you are correct (and that has not been established, though I tend to agree with you )in this) that there are about as many 'good' non-believers as there are believers, then the ethical systems non-believers use certainly are no BETTER than those of the believers.

So perhaps a better question here would be "do ethical and moral systems improve the behavior of those who claim them?"

Because non-believers do not exist in a vacuum. They do indeed have standards of behavior, ethical and moral systems; those systems simply do not include the idea of a deity.

They are still standards, which, if this study is as presented in this thread (which I have reservations about), are neither better nor worse than theistic ones.

So what's the problem here?

[Zzyzx]

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....and where did the non-believers begin from, before they started adhering to the ethical/moral systems that they use?

Diana, have you EVER heard a non-believer claim that their non-belief improved their behavior or actions?

On the other hand, it is not uncommon for believers to claim that religion is a positive influence upon followers.

My point is: If religion produces positive effects over non-belief, WHERE are the effects manifested? AND, If religious people cannot be shown to adhere to (not simply mouth) higher moral and ethical standards, what benefit can be shown for religion in the real world?


I am willing to accept that religion is NOT a positive influence and that absence of religion is not a positive influence.

[dianaiad]

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....and where did the non-believers begin from, before they started adhering to the ethical/moral systems that they use?

Diana, have you EVER heard a non-believer claim that their non-belief improved their behavior or actions?

All the time. If I've heard the bit about how leaving religion and becoming atheist, with the specific idea that 'scientific' thought and 'reason' would/has improved one's life once, I've heard it at least three times a week...right here on this forum.

What do you THINK atheists are claiming every time they say that getting rid of religion would improve things, that nations that were atheistic had 'lower crime rates,' etc.? Of course, those folks are confusing secularism for atheism, but it's what they think that counts here.

I have heard more than one ex-(insert belief system here) having become atheist who claims that losing his (or her) belief in deity made life better, and them kinder; that when they were 'religious,' they would think certain actions were fine, and certain opinions were OK, but now that they are atheist, of course, they are far more accepting, compassionate, inclusive....you name it.

Why do you think that, when it is pointed out that theists actually give more to charity, per capita, than atheists do, the rejoinder is that fine, but atheists do it for the 'right reasons?"

On the other hand, it is not uncommon for believers to claim that religion is a positive influence upon followers.

There is no 'other hand' here. Both sides claim that adhering to their personal belief systems makes followers better people, and both sides are correct.

My point is: If religion produces positive effects over non-belief, WHERE are the effects manifested? AND, If religious people cannot be shown to adhere to (not simply mouth) higher moral and ethical standards, what benefit can be shown for religion in the real world?

What benefit can atheistic humanism be shown to have, if those who give it lip service only give it lip service?

I am willing to accept that religion is NOT a positive influence and that absence of religion is not a positive influence.

I'm not. Any belief system that has an acceptable set of behavioral standards is a positive influence, if people will follow it.

More people seem willing to follow a religious system than a non-religious one, actually, so....

Hmnnnn.

Even the non-believers who don't like the deity part tend to like the behavioral standards part, as a rule.

(very late edit)....

addendum: I have noticed that the problem non-believers have with believers tends not so much to criticize the actual standards of behavior, but rather the hypocrisy of those who claim a belief system, but fail to actually follow it.

You know, like....the doctrine tells you not to gossip, lie, steal...but people who claim to be superior because of their belief systems may be huge gossips, lie when it serves them, and fudge their tax returns, and claim that it's OK because they are 'forgiven,' or 'born again,' or something.

I would like to point out that religion only does one good if one actually follows the precepts of it. That is, if it has the Golden Rule somewhere in there, one should actually follow the Golden Rule.

For those who actually 'walk the walk,' then I would say that religion really does make them better people.

The same, of course, may be said for the secular humanist folks.

[Wordleymaster1]

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....and where did the non-believers begin from, before they started adhering to the ethical/moral systems that they use?

Diana, have you EVER heard a non-believer claim that their non-belief improved their behavior or actions?

All the time. If I've heard the bit about how leaving religion and becoming atheist, with the specific idea that 'scientific' thought and 'reason' would/has improved one's life once, I've heard it at least three times a week...right here on this forum.

What do you THINK atheists are claiming every time they say that getting rid of religion would improve things, that nations that were atheistic had 'lower crime rates,' etc.? Of course, those folks are confusing secularism for atheism, but it's what they think that counts here.

I have heard more than one ex-(insert belief system here) having become atheist who claims that losing his (or her) belief in deity made life better, and them kinder; that when they were 'religious,' they would think certain actions were fine, and certain opinions were OK, but now that they are atheist, of course, they are far more accepting, compassionate, inclusive....you name it.

Why do you think that, when it is pointed out that theists actually give more to charity, per capita, than atheists do, the rejoinder is that fine, but atheists do it for the 'right reasons?"

On the other hand, it is not uncommon for believers to claim that religion is a positive influence upon followers.

There is no 'other hand' here. Both sides claim that adhering to their personal belief systems makes followers better people, and both sides are correct.

My point is: If religion produces positive effects over non-belief, WHERE are the effects manifested? AND, If religious people cannot be shown to adhere to (not simply mouth) higher moral and ethical standards, what benefit can be shown for religion in the real world?

What benefit can atheistic humanism be shown to have, if those who give it lip service only give it lip service?

I am willing to accept that religion is NOT a positive influence and that absence of religion is not a positive influence.

I'm not. Any belief system that has an acceptable set of behavioral standards is a positive influence, if people will follow it.

More people seem willing to follow a religious system than a non-religious one, actually, so....

Hmnnnn.

Even the non-believers who don't like the deity part tend to like the behavioral standards part, as a rule.

(very late edit)....

addendum: I have noticed that the problem non-believers have with believers tends not so much to criticize the actual standards of behavior, but rather the hypocrisy of those who claim a belief system, but fail to actually follow it.

You know, like....the doctrine tells you not to gossip, lie, steal...but people who claim to be superior because of their belief systems may be huge gossips, lie when it serves them, and fudge their tax returns, and claim that it's OK because they are 'forgiven,' or 'born again,' or something.

I would like to point out that religion only does one good if one actually follows the precepts of it. That is, if it has the Golden Rule somewhere in there, one should actually follow the Golden Rule.

For those who actually 'walk the walk,' then I would say that religion really does make them better people.

The same, of course, may be said for the secular humanist folks.

I wouldn't say my actions or behaviors are better since kickin' off Christianity, but my life is overall better. Fact is my actions and behavior isn't better or worse than before. But I'm not my action or behavior - I am Me and my actions and behavior represents that aspect.
But for sure my life is better over all!

[Bust Nak]

I think that religious folk may have higher STANDARDS, as in believing in moral absolutes as opposed to situational and relative ethics.

I gave you examples of what I meant by that....still you distort with examples of Muslim extremism, and outdated "Christian" practices.

Does the bolded parts not appear problematic to you? First you say morality is not relative, then you say it is relative to time.

[Deidre32]

I have seen religious people (we all have) whether it's on the news, or in our own communities, do ''immoral'' (for lack of a better word) things...and I have seen religious people do astoundingly beautiful and positive things to better the world around them. Helping their fellow men and women.

I have seen atheists on both sides of that fence as well.

Your code of conduct boils down to choices. If you are a religious person, that doesn't automatically mean you will make good choices. (ie: priest sex scandal, Jim Baker, etc...)

Something to note, most incarcerated people identified themselves as Christians when they were convicted, and then incarcerated (as opposed to ''finding God during their prison sentences) over atheists. Atheists make up the smallest populations in American prisons.

Hmmm......

lol