"Growing up godless"--America's secular families raising kids are doing "quite well"

Absolutely NOTHING in this surprises me about non-religious families raising GOOD (dare I say, better kids). However, there is one FBI criminology statistic, that I find fascinating and would have never even thought to ask....

"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 percent of those behind bars, according to Federal Bureau of Prisons statistics."


Bottom line, all those holier than thou 'there's only one way or HELL', Christian simpletons who have told us that GODLESS children will be condemned on earth and dare I say, after are just flat wrong. Now there are statistics that bear out what thinking people have known all along. How about that?? The simple SECULAR 'golden rule' is was what we really need to abide by.

Children in America's secular families turn out just fine
BY PHIL ZUCKERMAN
Los Angeles TimesJanuary 19, 2015


More children are "growing up godless" than at any other time in our nation's history. They are the offspring of an expanding secular population that includes a relatively new and burgeoning category of Americans called the "Nones," so nicknamed because they identified themselves as believing in "nothing in particular" in a 2012 study by the Pew Research Center.

The number of American children raised without religion has grown significantly since the 1950s, when fewer than 4 percent of Americans reported growing up in a nonreligious household, according to several recent national studies. That figure entered the double digits when a 2012 study showed that 11 percent of people born after 1970 said they had been raised in secular homes. This may help explain why 23 percent of adults in the U.S. claim to have no religion, and more than 30 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 say the same.

So how does the raising of upstanding, moral children work without prayers at mealtimes and morality lessons at Sunday school? Quite well, it seems.

Far from being dysfunctional, nihilistic and rudderless without the security and rectitude of religion, secular households provide a sound and solid foundation for children, according to Vern Bengston, a University of Southern California professor of gerontology and sociology.

For nearly 40 years, Bengston has overseen the Longitudinal Study of Generations, which has become the largest study of religion and family life conducted across several generational cohorts in the United States. When Bengston noticed the growth of nonreligious Americans becoming increasingly pronounced, he decided in 2013 to add secular families to his study in an attempt to understand how family life and intergenerational influences play out among the religionless was surprised by what he found: High levels of family solidarity and emotional closeness between parents and nonreligious youth, and strong ethical standards and moral values that had been clearly articulated as they were imparted to the next generation.


Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/01/...-americas-secular-families.html#storylink=cpy

 

Most people who claim no affiliation with a god are educated. Educated people don't usually end up in prison. It's that simple.

 

So religion is BIG in with inner city youngsters?

 

Yep! Smart 'godless' people. (Of course, you have left out the many EDUCATED white collar CRIMINALS and I can think of 10 of the top of my head that
claim GOD as their own. One just got his PRISON sentence on FRIDAY. (Thank GOD, he was a white Republican CHRISTIAN in a conservative state, he got next to no time).

 

Religion is big with all kinds of criminals.

Years ago I worked with a young punk about 20 who bragged about how many DUIs he and his father accumulated together...bragged, laughed....and then was SHOCKED to find out I not only didn't approve of drunk driving but I didn't believe in , as he put it, The Lord. "The Lord" he did believe in......



That's just a personal anecdote so doesn't mean much, just illustrates that religion doesn't make you better, and certainly not smarter, than anyone else.

 

Well no (*)(*)(*)(*) less atheists will be in prison, they only make up a very small fraction of the population.

Hey look, I bet there are not many Asian Indians in prison either, it must be because they are better people :/.

God or no god, raising a good child depends on the parents, religion is just a belief.

 

YES! More will claim a 'religious' affiliation over suburban white kids--bet on it. (Did you really ask that or do you really know nothing about the
'communities'?) However, the pull of the street and the not seeing NOTHING ahead can easily pull these kids away!

 

Really? What church does the Bloods and Crips go to? Please provide link to the source. Also...........

Source for this claim please.

 

It helps with early release. I worked with a lot of Prison guards in the Armored Truck company, the common joke was....."What's the first thing an inmate gets when they go to prison....Religion. What's the first thing inmates lose when they walk out the door on early release......Religion."

 

I like how man invents religion, infuses it with the morality that existed prior to it's creation, and then says you need religion to have morality.
That's like saying you have to have your appendix taken out before you can have your appendix taken out.

 

No one cares.

 

Absolutely. Altho I am a Christian, I never drummed religion into my kids heads. Their upbringing was about right and wrong - being kind, helpful and not judgmental about others b/c of their differences from ours, etc .....

I did a good job b/c my kids are well liked and still have the friends they had in school. "If you want a friend, you have to BE a friend" is one thing they heard from me a lot when they were growing up........

 

And yet they seem to unable to talk to or have sex with one another in college without being absolutely stoned to the gills.

 

Kinda funny--well SAD! The people I know who have gotten MULTIPLE DUI's were white suburban men. At least 2 'feigned' being believers. One was a FRIEND (a REP operative who ran a PRES campaign in FLA in his younger days). The last DUI I know about (this would have made his 3rd), he rolled his Mercedes off I-95, was taken to the hospital by ambulance, treated but just before the nurses came in to draw blood, he LEFT (AMA). He wasn't charged. The guy sitting below me right now has had 2 (that I know of). This virulent Obama despising Chicago millionaire 'talks bible'. He got his last DUI 4 years ago. Totaled his car, hitting the back of a woman's car right in front of our office. Crushed his knee (he couldn't WALK OUT of the hospital--was in for 2 weeks), was charged with a DUI. He lost his license for 2 years, bought a brand new car the day after he got his license back and has driven home intoxicated or drunk EVERY DAY for the past 2 years. A LAWYER and friend of my neighbors we used to party with, got a 3rd (or 4th) DUI with extenuating circumstances as he could not get out of it and actually did 2 years in jail. (I have no idea his belief system but he should be praying! His SON got drunk at school, shot another kid in the head, killed her outright and the kid is now in jail).

Anecdotal stories, true and of people I know--2 very well. (We won't get into the Republican JUDGE in town that got 4 or 5. That was back when it was
okay to get 4 or 5 when you were well connected).

 

Uh-huh. Paris Hilton talked about her faith in God after she left prison too but she couldn't even tell Larry King what her favorite book in the Bible was after she was let out. I'll save time and rather than ask you to search for it (we all know how that will end up) here's the interview:

[video=youtube;fCCySKJosTE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCCySKJosTE[/video]

I'm thinking that most of these so-called religious people in the slammer - really aren't religious at all.

 

NO! Many I know, many many I know this isn't a belief you 'practice on Sunday', this is infused into every thing they do. Raising children
and just 'being' religious doesn't begin to cover it.

And Agnostics and atheists are closely aligned, maybe interchangeable, and between the 2, there are approx. 1/4 of the population. There are
many MORE non-affiliated. Bottom line RELIGIOUS AFFILIATES are now only about HALF the population.
hosts

 

True.... unless they convert to Muslim and hear many do when they're behind bars........

 

I've known enuf ugly mean 'religious' people who used their religion only when it was convenient for them. One of the worst was my x-supervisor at my last job and she was fired b/c of the way she treated people.

She was the daughter of a minister.

 

I sometimes tell my class that one sure way I can tell when a kid is lying in when they say "I swear to God-" I can't even begin to count how many times a kid who said that was proven to have lied.

Last time that happened, the kid responded with some silly nonsense about how dare I mock his faith. I just said "Uh-huh" and moved on. Next week, I asked him who his favorite prophet in the Bible was, and he was "Uh, what?" Couldn't name one. And he was NAMED after a prophet. The kid was lying - as usual.

The guys Cpic mentions in the link - these are the same people who think that because they were born in the US, nominally a Christian nation, that they must be Christian themselves. Nah - it doesn't work that way.

 

actually religious affiliates are still in the 70% range just speaking about Christians alone, in total of all religions its about 80% of the population no matter how much you wanna try and push some BS statistic to try and make your point.

20% claimed no religious affiliation.

And it doesn't matter again what religion anyone is, or lack of religion. It depends on how you raise the child. You can believe in God and still be a bad parent.

 

I'm still waiting for the OP to answer my questions.....

http://www.politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=392396&p=1064659333#post1064659333

 

Certain words and the kid's body language will tell you volumes.

 

I used to wok at a Catholic daycare attached to a Catholic school. I got the kids when school was out and adrenaline was high. Every week I'd get a kid or two who would do something and then lie about it. My response was always, "Well if that's the truth then it's the truth. If not, God will know the truth and you won't be able to hide it." 99% of the time they came clean right then and there.

 

Religion is BIG in prison, from Islam to Odinists, and everything in between, You wont find many prisoners claiming to be atheists, if they are aligned with a certain group, they cant be, or admit it anyway.

 

Maybe that's because once someone is stuck behind bars for a long time, they start looking for God more urgently.