Where are these studies? I'd like to read them.

And the positive correlation was not merely the children attending worship, but with families that attended worship.

Here's an article about a seminary that started offering courses in Angola State Penitentiary. The warden says that since the program was started there is been a serious reduction inside the prison.

One might point out that correlation is not causation. There are more Christians than any other religious grouping in jail; does that mean that Christianity promotes crime? Obviously (or maybe not), the statement is ludicrous (or maybe not).

The study, of course, only deals with (presumably) Christianity (the reference to "services." ) What you did not point out in the study that argument on religion has a detrimental effect on children. How about the children of Jews? Muslims? Deists? Pagans? Hindus? And what are they comparing them to? The article sayeth not.

Then there is this telling part you did not quote fromt the article: It’s also possible that the correlation between religion and child development is the other way around, he said. In other words, instead of religion having a positive effect on youth, maybe the parents of only the best behaved children feel comfortable in a religious congregation.

Finally, you did not give a link to the study. You gave a link to an article which talks about a 2008 study. The article does not mention the name of the study, mentions Mississippi State but not which department, who did it but not his qualifications [other than a sociologist], how many were involved [16,000, is that an exact number], how long was the study, how did they determine study participants and controls, what religions did they study. In short, it is not a study. It is a piece of journalistic "feel good" fluff.

I would think that if a Christian "really" wanted to support their position (in this case that church service is beneficial in some way), that person would provide an actual study. The studies on prayer being detrimental to health and wellness are well-known and published: why is this journalist afraid to point the reader to at least the name of the study, or who conducted it? Afraid what you might really find if you actually read the real study? Perhaps such a study does not really exist? Perhaps the study does not support the journalist's position at all (in otherwords, he made it up).

A search of Mississippi State University's Website does not show a "John Bartkowski" on any level of its staff, nor does it show such a study. Now it could be that he left (in disgrace?) after the study so he is no longer listed (and MSU disavowed the study), or it could be that such an important researcher and study was "overlooked by MSU," or maybe some journalist picked it up, it got on the Wire services, and they all quoted it without researching themselves. So perhaps it is propaganda and not journalistic fluff.

Virtually every outlet that has this article (mostly Christian Websites and magazines, but Faux News and a few others), have it word-for-word. And none of them cite the actual study.

So I have given you a head start on how to conduct research rather than just bilindly accepting what you read.

James

You can also get your kids to behave by telling them Santa wont bring them presents if they don't.

Religion only does this in the sense of social structure in traditional norms sold by the society of that location. ANY form of dogmatism sold to a kid can produce someone who stays in line. The dogmatism of China's communism makes Bejing a very safe city to live in. But that dogmatism sold is harmful to individuality and oppressive to anyone who wants to criticize the state.

Saying that it is good for kids, is like saying because getting presents is good makes Santa real.

If you want to use a crutch to live your life you can. But for whatever good it does it also causes division with outsiders, people not in your "in group".

Many of us here had to escape our theism. Some however, have grown up never having been raised in religion. Religion doesn't make you do good things, it is society that mistakes natural evolution that leads us to do good things, and twists it to a comic book.

Why is it that a parent in China will have the same reaction to their kid being harmed as a parent in America? Not because of communism or Christianity, but because of evolution.

Religious people CAN do good things, sure, but they are not doing it in reality because of an actual god, they are doing it themselves falsely attributing to a fictional being.

Classic case of ignoring a common cause. Churches market themselves as social organizations, so parents that are interested in socializing their children are more likely to send them to church.

So all you proven is exposing children to social groups(religious or not) improves their social skills. But so would a music club, science club or sports club.

Is there any evidence that the amount of religiousity improves sociability? No. Do children from less religious societies have worse social skills? No.

of godliness in terms of health and longevity can be pinned to the social element of in-group gatherings and support. I don't think we'd argue that god people are wholly bad would we? To wit, my ancient mother, who spends multiple nights a week reading the bible and flirting with jesus as part of a cadre of ancient lamington chefs.

The researcher for this particular study was not pegging it on belief insomuch as the values that are from religion: family, love, sacred meaning of parenting, and significance of parenting. These things are not necessarily imbued by other social settings.

QFT!

Perfect dude!

Start?

Breathe......  Breathe..........  Breathe........... 

you said "values that are from religion". Needless to say, many christians claim the best parts of humanity derive from god - they claim humans are lost in sin and devoid of goodness.

In the absence of any supporting evidence for god or a supernatural source of human morality, and in the context of the doctrine of original sin, these claims are ad hominem. 

Ad hominems in what respect? I fail to see the connection. Or are you digging for a fallacy where there is none?  If you want to talk about evidence for God, lets start a thread for that... I think there is plenty of evidence for God. And who said anything about Original Sin other than you? If you must know, I don't adhere to the doctrine of original sin... I have a more Eastern Orthodox view of sin. Again... another straw man or some sort of other fallacy of irrelevance.

You left the part off concerning belief... values can shared across a spectrum of beliefs... I included that explicitly to avoid saying that I believe they came from religion. Rather I said "values that are from religion" because religion teaches these things -- borrowed or otherwise. 

if you suggest human values are sacred or "from religion" I will disagree with you, ok? If you didn't actually mean what it sounded like you meant, then fine. 

In my subjective opinion, suggesting human values are in fact divine, is an ad hominem. It puts humans down - it devalues the things humans intrinsically are.

But seeing you say you didn't mean this, then what the fuck. Let's forget about it. 

Your version of 'from religion' is rather oblique but whatever. It seems obvious that we largely agree, after all. As for "digging for fallacy", well I never. 

I see.

I have shared experience, but experiences of which I'm not a part, I have no point of comparison, other than by analogs only. But I think that how I relate to God though.

EXACTLY!

Thank you dude! I was effectively saying the same thing above, but didn't have any links to studies that looked at these kind of things like you posted.

Bull, this is nothing more than an advertisement. You are confirming this right her in even this post. You are basically claiming that only religion can provide family, love, and WTF is "Sacred meaning of parenting"?

I love my mom and I don't believe. I love my co workers and I dont believe AND I don't go to church.

And why, at least in America, if church was such a cure all, why do we have so much gang violence and why do we have more people in our prison system than any other westernized country?

ONCE AGAIN, this fake study is doing what you are doing. It is mistaking the the REAL evolutionary trait of being social and replacing it with a fictional arbitrary cosmic dictator fan club.

Neither a god or a church is needed to be social. My x-wife was never raised in religion, she has a TWO masters in biology and is going for her PHD. She never went to church. So please, once again, explain to my WHY religion is needed?

I myself have not even had a speeding ticket in 8 years and being 44 have long gotten over my teen and twenties hormones and angst. So I am also proof that you don't need church or religion to do the right thing.

Religion takes reality and bastardizes it with comic book super heros and super villains. A Dungeons and Dragons after school club can keep kids out of trouble too.

I saw your link to the actual study and I have read it.

The following paragraphs show that the authors did not independently confirm the parent's religious participation nor their reported interactions with their children.

The mother's mean age is 34.68 +- 6.57.  So we are looking at an older population - very few teen mothers in the sample.  Some number closer to menopause.

I am never sure about the fascination with biological vs step families.  Supposedly step parents are less involved with the other spouse's children.  But my ex-husband hardly ever interacted with his children - even when we are married.  He never interacted with them after the divorce.  And my current husband was/is a wonderful father with my sons.  Who knows.  Maybe my family was one of those outliers.

And the authors then list a number of problems with this particular study and other factors that may be interesting but they don't have the data to analyze.

Not a bad study, but it doesn't come to the conclusion that "these things are not necessarily imbued by other social settings."  There is one - to me - glaring missing piece.  There have been numerous studies that demonstrate a father's involvement with his children reduces teen pregnancy, delinquent behavior, low academic achievement and so on.  This study could be another demonstration that a father's involvement is more important than any other factor for a child's social success.  And they didn't take this into account in their analysis.

I'm still not convinced it is all due to religion.

No one is saying that religion is the ONLY way that one can receive values. That's not the point. When I say, "These things are not necessarily imbued by other social settings" I'm not saying those that don't go to cannot be educated etc. What I mean is that I'm not going to go to Tae Kwon Do classes to learn about family values or altruistic love or soccer practice to learn about parenting. These things can teach social and other skills though.

I think the mean age would reflect the average age of a parent with a first grader... If someone was 15 or 16 when they had their child, they'd be 22 or 23 when their kid was in the first grade. My dad was 30 when I was in the first grade...

The research, as he notes, is among the first of its kind as there's not much research on the effects of religion on child rearing... I think there is more to be done here, as I don't think this is the definitive study of the subject matter.

There are other studies worth looking it in this context, in particular

"Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies,” carried out by Gregory S. Paul and published in the Journal of Religion and Society.

which shows somewhat the reverse, when looking at the correlations between religiosity and social health more broadly.

It is available in PDF form here

http://www.rationalist.com.au/archive/73/p20-27_paul_ar73_web.pdf

You might be surprised that I agree with the study... It seems to be correlating fundamental religion with development, crime, and such things.

I doesn't address the issues in the study that was mentioned in the OP though.

If no one is saying religion is the only way one can receive values, then why is it needed?

Your Tae Kwan Do classes most certainly teach you family values. Responsibility, discipline, bonding. You do those things with family too. That kind of class is a better environment than a church, because it is not religious based and anyone can join. And I am quite sure the teacher doesn't threaten you with mythological characters. The worst you are going to get is kicked out if you fail, he wont follow you and stalk you like god threatens to do if you leave him.

You do have a parent in all sports, a coach. A great coach is  going to give every shit about you on and off the field. If all they care about is winning, you might win, but but that would only  make them a bad parent who only cares about glory, not you. A great coach is going to care about what you do AFTER you leave the team, win or lose.

I feel the same love for my mom who believes. I felt the same love for my wife as any believing married couple. I feel the same love for my pets.

Altruistic love? Thats just your hormones talking. Love is nothing magical. It is not a Hollywood movie script.

Love is being there for someone even when they shit in their pants because of physical illness or disability. Love is also knowing when to let someone go their own way if things don't work out.

You are confusing passion with love. You can also find "altruism" in deciding someday that you want to teach Tae Kwan Do. That would really simply mean an extreme passion for doing such.

"Love" and "altruism" are abstract words that mean different things to different people in different contexts and none of those words are magical or a movie script.

Religion takes reality and hijacks it and turns it into a needlessly conflated comic book. People think they need it and that is why they do it. Just like kids really want Santa to be real.

You need a study to know what teaching religion does to a child? Someone had to present Bin Ladin a Koran. Someone had to present Scot Roder a bible.

The only way to teach religion that wont cause bullshit indoctrination is to teach it as cultural literature, not fact and do it in comparison with other religions throughout history, then let the kid decide.

You tell a kid that they will burn in hell if they don't believe, and that your way is the only way and that is all they learn as an absolute, you are teaching them that behavior through fear is the only way to lead. In turn after abusing them with fear, they grow up with no credible conflict resolution skills when they run into others who don't believe what they do.

You don't need a study to know what religion does to a kid. All you have to do is watch the adults who were raised religious kill each other in religious wars and sectarian squabbles.

The harm it does is to a child is that it sets up an "in group" "out group" setting and they grow up thinking they are special, at the expense of all others.

A healthy way to raise a kid is to teach them critical thinking skills, conflict resolution skills, and that while they are special to you, and should have self esteem, they are not special to the world.

Genetic fallacies such as this are fallacies of irrelevance...

Huh? Where did this come from? I think kids should choose his or her own beliefs, but the parents also have to stay true to their conscience too... I don't believe that everything that person do should go unquestioned, but a parent believes a child is best raised up in religion, then that parent should have the right to do so. There are plenty of people who have religious backgrounds that turned out fine.

This is a rather baseless assertion.

But that ignores the other 100 people who were raised in religion that do not act this way. And it also ignores the people create sectarian squabbles and anti-religious wars. A generalized observation as this is as baseless as the last assertion you made.

And religion doesn't teach these things? If you think this way, I think you've got some mixed up ideas about what goes on inside the doors of religious institutions.

Do you believe the bible - the gospel - taught in church really tries to teach children concrete values, conscientiousness, etc as per the OP? Threat and reward, sure, but teach useful values? 

Further, I've been wracking my brain trying to ascertain the moral fundamentals of the bible and for the life of me I cannot find a good deal. The six commandments are as basic as basic could be and extracting morality from the rest of the bible requires the sort of high level moral development only an adult can bring to bear in order to fabricate the necessary context. We would agree there are many things in the bible that are immoral just as we'd agree there are many things in church that are immoral. 

And I struggle with church/gospel contributing anything meaningful to something complex and demanding like parenting. Where in the bible is there a detailed and coherent section on parenting? My parents seemed to only read the spare the rod and spoil the child - there was no leadership or useful instruction tho' obviously this is quite subjective.

I would argue from the basis of a childhood as a preacher's son that kids are brought to church and thrown at the doctrine as if it will do the work that human parents are required to do - as if it will provide consistent and meaningful moral instruction through some sort of osmosis. But it does not and it cannot. 

Children are raised by other human beings including their parents and they crave and seek interaction with them. No young kid can hope to glean the basics of morality from reading the bible. They need example, guidance, direction, discipline, forgiveness, encouragement and hands-on support in real time. This is something the passive, opaque teachings of the bible and the entirely absent god demonstrably do not do.

There's the law -- and the law contains many things more than just commandments. But there is also the Proverbs too, which I think are in effect a commentary on the law. The Proverbs contain a great deal about warnings against immorality, how to handle money, good work ethics, when to speak, when not to speak, familial relationships, etc.

The church I attend has classes, seminars, etc. for family issues: marriage, parenting, child rearing, moral development for teenagers, money management, among other topics. These are not necessarily being taught by the church staff, as they bring in people who have performed research and have practical knowledge in these areas and they believe what they teach to not be contradictory to the Bible. They also offer counseling services from licensed counselors too. There are a great number of older people I admire there too. I hope that when I'm their age I can look back and have a legacy like theirs. The church has programs for children and teenagers to interact in fun social ways -- sports, music, camps, time to just have fun -- but they also teach values that are pertinent to kids too. I say all this because many perceive the church as a Sunday-morning-only ritual -- I think as a whole, religion as this has a lot to offer. While many Christians believe the Bible is authoritative (I do too), this does not preclude that one can use other resources too: experts, experience, etc.

I somewhat sympathize with Brennan Manning's quote "The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable."  While I do not know if this is what causes atheism or share your opinion about the Bible, I have met number of people who do not like church because it is full of "hypocrites" -- those who preach one thing and do another. For this reason and IMHO, preaching morality is not enough to instill morality -- it has to be modeled. Morality should be modeled by parents such that they do "practice what they preach" and wisdom should come from people who have more experience than the children do. I don't think the normal course of teaching children is not done by reading a book, but by modeling good examples.