AS A PLACEBO, not as a whole when dealing with "outsiders".

What is really going on is the socializing, nothing more.

Groups in other species socialize too. The religion is the excuse, the socializing is the nature, and is why people do it.

The study is trying to make the argument, that if you have religion, your kids will grow up more well adjusted. You are trying to down play it as merely "look what I found".

And if we are going to get into private religious schools vs public schools, people who can afford private schools have more resources, and they are more selective about who they let in. So the sample rate is skewed.

The reality is this is more about resources, not religion.

And if you compare America which is much more religious than Europe and Canada, we have much more problems with poverty and crime and a much higher ratio.

So what you and this study are doing is cherry picking and data mining.

People with resources, can, without religion, are going to always have better chances at putting their kid in a structured environment.

So once again, the study is coming to a false conclusion because it is only looking at one group of people because it wants religion to be relative, ignoring all the non religious less religious societies.

The study totally ignores other studies that correlate father involving himself directly with the children do better at socializing their children regardless of religion.  Which is exactly what their study shows for people who profess religious beliefs.

If father involvement with the children regardless of professed faith correlates with better socialized children, how does this study tell us anything new?

Brian - the study references a larger study that they took their data from - I assumed it was public school attendees only, but I may be wrong.

Wowzers - they may be a secular agency, but it was clear from the wording that the authors were biased towards a positive religious outcome.  One's personal viewpoints always skew how we view the world around us - even scientists have this problem which is the why behind having peer review before publishing.  Which was one of the points of the questions as to why it took so long to publish and why it was discussed on religious forums before publishing.  Good scientists who are trying to forward scientific knowledge welcome and encourage comments.  No one wants to spend 20 years with an incorrect conclusion due to sloppy statistical analysis floating around in their vitae.

I am not saying all religious people are against education.  I would be willing to say all religious people have a religious bias towards viewing the world - including education, including scientific findings.

Including you.

And my bias is towards dismissing religious outcomes.

The study "totally ignores"... What there to prevent me from saying the adverse... "the other studies 'totally ignore' studies such as this" or something to the like? And where are these studies?

This study does not preclude that fathers are spending time independently of religion. In correlates homogeneous beliefs, regular attendance by both parents, and discussion with children on matters of religion with better social skills and learning skills. From the study in the OP it would seem that religion does it better than other entities -- that would be new.

So any study in favor of religion, you count as a wash?

The study was published online (December 2007) through publishing sites for scientific papers. It was included in print some time later -- I don't know the details of this particular studies inclusion in the journal.

Did the study compare the against other 'control' groups, otherwise similar but involving other faiths, no religious faith, or groups in different cultural contexts?

Because if not, it is of very limited significance. It says nothing about the unique benefits of Religious belief and practice, per se.

The Paul study was NOT concentrating on the more dysfunctional faiths.

At best, your objection, Wowzers1, amounts to pointing out that some variants of Christian families can be more positive than other groups. D'uh.

Whereas he Paul study shows that overall, higher degrees of religiosity generally correlate negatively with other measures of social well-being, which is not what the followers would like to believe, or expect. Are you going to use the old bit that those 'faiths' that came out not so good were not 'True Christians"?

Completely non-religious families in highly secular societies such as in Western Europe seem to produce at least as well-adjusted kids as the families studied in that research, possibly even better.

It seems to me you have been fishing for a study that casts religion in more positive light than others have.

He must have missed this one...

http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/29391

It had several separate correlations.

Rates of attendance at religious services and rates of prayer, as well as levels of biblical literalism, absolute belief in God and levels of acceptance of evolution,  were looked at, and percentage of atheists and agnostic, were compared to homicide rates, youth suicide rates, under five mortality rates, life expectancy, STD rates, teenage abortions, and teenage pregnancy rates, in a range of countries. So this study also was NOT "just (about) how often one attends religious gatherings.", and not about "aspects of particular beliefs" - it addressed basic measures of religiosity. The only more specific variable was acceptance of evolution, and that was just one of the factors, and they were all separately compared, so it was not in any way restricted to faiths which had strong attitudes to evolution. Or for that matter to faiths with strong literalism, or absolute belief, etc.

It was not comparing families within one country, as was the study you referred to, so it is not strictly comparable, this is true.

It was showing how these correlated, if at all, by looking a range of generally comparable countries.

The strongest correlation of the study you referenced seemed to be that when the parents and the children all attended a regular service together, the children seemed to be better adjusted.

It would be useful to compare the results of shared attendance and participation in various other activities to establish how significant the religious aspect was.

The Paul study is much more directly relevant to the overall benefits of religious attitudes to longer-term social health, IMHO.

There is a collection of cross referenced studies available in any library.  Science Citation Index.  You can look by topic or by author.  Or google it anymore. 

I once watched a scientist's career go up in smoke.  I attended a seminar in another department at my husband's request. The visiting researcher had done a lot of study in a particular field.  And everyone was excited about his research - including how he had compensated in his own research for a phenomena that had first been documented in the 1930s.  When asked about this at the end of his presentation, he got the deer in the headlights look.  You know, sort of stunned.  He had not taken the previous research into account and so his 20 year body of work was worthless.

So, in this study, the authors did not take into account previous research that has been done and has been posted - and actually got headlines on the internet news sites.  When they examined families that were not religious did they separate out families with participating fathers from those without?  No telling, as this paper does not say.  Did they define and compare other types of participation - sports, school plays, fishing, etc?  This paper does not say.  Since those families with fathers who participated in religious activities scored highest of all, I think it is natural for me to wonder if this is religion or the actions of the father that is having an impact on their children. 

I'm only trying to be as truthful as possible.  My bias is there and it is responsible of me to acknowledge this. 

See my anecdote above - the researcher had articles published in peer reviewed scientific journals.  His bias was missed by the reviewers and caught out by other researchers who had not been asked to review his articles.  The more eyes, the better as our biases always surface in our work.  In this article, given the wording used by the researchers, they have - what appears to me - an obvious bias in favor of positive religious outcomes.

It is very likely you don't perceive this bias as you share it with the researchers.  I am not trying to put you down, I am only pointing out what is very obvious to me.

I didn't look at the link but I actually believe it. If they are taking the kids to church and all then they are interacting with the kids and the kids are interacting with other people at least. I really doubt however it has anything to do with "jesus" or the religion in general. Just the fact that they take their kids and apparently have some "care" matters though. You have some religious folk who take their kids to church, you have some self proclaimed religious folk who do not, you have some ..folks.. who don't and don't really give a shit about their kids and don't interact or try to teach them anything. Of course a study will reveal this, it's common sense. But again, it really doesn't have anything to do with the religion. I like to think an atheist parent would be intelligent enough to teach their kids and do things with them as well, got any studies on that?

The study does not say, but the study does not preclude that. What it does say is that when the father and mother are homogenous in their beliefs and attend services regularly together then there is a stronger correlation. It is reasonable to believe then that if religion was not a significant factor, you would have seen no statistical difference between those who were not religious, but that did not happen. The study does mention something about when they parents do see eye to eye on religion that is is actually detrimental.

I don't think the author of  the study is a slouch.. he's well published in numerous journals and has a couple of books out. Google his name and see what you find. The sort of research he is doing is correlating many things, and why I think he said the research was rather novel. It is reasonable to believe that anyone with his background and that had done the research as he did would know about these issues. Until he is shown to be a quack, I have no reason to believe that he. Just because one person's career went up in smoke does not mean another's will.

I do not deny that I am a Christian and that I have a particular bias, but at the same time, I do know this and I attempt to be objective as possible. I don't look only at the evidence that supports my particular worldview -- demonstrably in that I agree in part with the study Bob posted.

Unless the study controlled for families which had similar patterns of participation but outside a religious context, they have no warrant for concluding that religion as such was important. Their failure to preclude that is indeed that - a failure.

The Paul study does address church attendance as a factor in itself, ie not as part of specific faiths, and finds a negative correlation with child "adjustment", at least in terms of sexual behaviour in their teenage years, as indicated by STD rates, abortions and pregnancies in that age group. I think the same pattern is observed within the US when states are compared..

Taking those observations together, your study is very weak, and maybe has picked up on a temporary effect in young children, at best.

As a separate observation, the Pascal quote in your sig confirms my assessment of him as more of a dishonest Christian apologetic that a serious philosopher.

Also, I think Wowzer1 would be interested in the finings of this study

http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~ara/Manuscripts/Shariff_Norenzayan.pdf

Also as you can see in the chart, secular primes promoted prosociality as much as religious primes.

Here's a simple way to solve the this delima - Ask yourself where Muslim terrorists learned to to blow themselves up in the name of God to slay infidels. Do you think they were just sitting around playing with toys like normal kids, and suddenly this idea just popped into their head? Do you think these kids would have grown up to be terrorists had they been raised in a normal, non-fundamentalist Muslim household?

That should tell you all you need to know about the social benefits of religion. It does for me anyway. And whatever good things children happen to learn in a religious environment, they would have learned just as well (or better) in a non-religious one. The religion aspect is just a hindrance, since no aspects of social interaction are exclusive to any religion or religion as a whole.

The do seem to have the market cornered on sexual hangups, by a landslide...

It is flawed because the sample rate DOES NOT take into account less religious societies. Europe and the UK have much less crime and higher education rates and DO NOT take religion as seriously as America.

And again, if religion were a cure all then why do we have 2 million people in prison? Why is America at the bottom of the list in terms of education rates?

This is data mining and nothing more.

GET THIS THROUGH YOUR HEAD, super hero worship has a placebo affect much like belief in Santa has. You give people a structured environment and they are more likely to become adjusted. Japan and China do not believe in your god, and their cultures have their own social superstitions they center around and THEY do not have the same crime and education problems we do.

The socializing and structure are what provide the stable environment, not the religion or superstition. This is a result of evolution, not Vishnu, Buddha or Jesus.

It still wouldn't suprise me one bit if going to social events regularly had a positive impact on kids, but I don't think it's any evidence that "religion" actually has anything to do with it. Religion would more than likely stunt a kids actual learning capability since they would think a god did everything. Common sense.

If we had some kind of regular atheist meeting and everyone brought the kids it would garner the same results.

I've read the study and he acknowledges that correlation=/=causation in the intro.

I also notice that the purpose of the study [and the only way it can be scientifically used IMO] is that a lack of belief in god won't cause a moral cesspool of a society. That's what he was testing for and that's what he showed. In order to draw conclusions other than that would require more research.

People can't just hide behind "more research is required"

Wowzer1 can use this study as a starting point to studying religion and child development and he can use it to call into question the supposed negative effects of church attendence, but he can't use it as a slam dunk case that religion is good.

As for bias etc... What I like to ask myself "What if it showed the opposite conclusion?"

That is if the study by Wowzer showed the opposite effect, would I, Bob or cj bring up the same objections?

If it showed the opposite would Wowzer still come to the conclusion that the study is valid and religion teaches negative values about parenting?

To be honest I doubt it.

Hey Fido, got tired of sniffing your tyrant's ass I see.

I missed this post for some reason.

The research says yes. Few suicide bombers are raised in a religious environment.

http://www.amazon.com/Talking-Enemy-Brotherhood-Making-Terrorists/dp/0061344907/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1303671855&sr=8-1

As I posted before, coalition was a better predictor of action than religion good or bad.  Suicide bombers are not the exception and studies back this up.

Teaching kids how to interact with others in a positive way, in a religious context, is clearly more likely to have benefits in the context of a strongly religious society, but unfortunately perpetuates an ultimately less functional moral code.

This is what is the Paul study seems to point to, and can only be revealed by comparing different societies.

If it applies to Americans only, then that would constitute 300,000,000+ people. That's not trivial if the scope is America... The data was taken from a cross section of regions, not just places were religion is particularly strong. The Pacific Northwest and urban centers in America reflect attributes more akin to those found in Europe.

That's a nice attempt at obfuscating and obscuring the unconscionable insanity and psychopathy of the Old Testament god.

It would seem that if religion absorbed values from society then religions would more mirror the values of the societies, but that does not seem to be the case.

So you're saying that religions stop absorbing values from society as some point?

I don't believe I'm cherry picking at all... rather trying to understand the picture as a whole. I fear that atheists do this more so than theists do in that more often than not, they toss out theism in light of what I believe to be a misunderstanding of the Old Testament and with no regard for the New Testament. Correct me if I'm wrong though.

What you 'believe', is redundant. 

What's been objectively demonstrated over and over, is that you are in fact not being objective at all, and that the single case study that you linked to, is about the weakest form of anecdotal evidence.

Studies like that could lead one to believe that those who drive Ford instead of Chevy have better odds of (X).

Not only are you wrong, you're intentionally being obtuse, obnoxious, and just plain stupid, if you can't comprehend and accept what is so logically laid out for you.

Not that it's suprising.

You come across much like a carbon copy of Mr_Metaphysics.

I wouldn't be suprised that you're a sock puppet...

Slavery in the context of OT times was rather different from what the common perception is today -- more along the lines of debtor/debt-holder responsibilities, and the provisions made for slaves and their freedom are documented. But even so, God is the great emancipator. I would contend that general attitude toward slavery is negative, as with divorce, polygamy among other things. While these things are not explicitly prohibited they are allowed.

Rape is another issue. There's no word in Hebrew for "rape", so to label it "sin" where words as such do not exist is not possible, but given that, and that there is a general negative attitude toward fornication or sex of any kind outside of marriage, it is reasonable to think that rape is sin too. Somethings were unspeakable... and this may very well be one of those things.

That is arguably the secular norm of the day, rather than the religious norm of the day. Womanizing was not a result of anything God instituted, but man violating God's design in marriage between a man and a woman. The New Testament teaches something radically different that anything of this sort. In fact, polygamy rose up out of Cain's descendants in Genesis, and if one follows the two lines, the was one line that was sinful and the other that was godly, and the abuse of woman came from the sinful line.

I'm not proponent of homosexuality either, but I also think that homosexuals are marginalized in some societies because they are easy prey... the bigger problem IMHO is not homosexuality be sexual misconduct all around.

This is the ethic I think Jesus taught, and the reason that it exists in "secular" society

Do you care to provide the thread so I can read it?

If anything, Christianity removed religious observance. And to what sexual hangups are you referring?

I'd agree with you on this.

I have no problem accepting the fact that religion has abused morality, but I don't know that it is "negative" for religion. Indicting the whole of religion because of this is a genetic fallacy.

"And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money." Exodus 21:20-21

I like to beat up my "debtors" with a rod too.