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Religion Good for Kids?
By bk | April 25, 2007 9:19
A new study has been released indicating religion is good for kids, as in, children who attend religious services regularly are better behaved, and ostensibly happier than children who do not attend services.
There are, of course, a myriad of reasons this may be true, many of which have nothing to do with the actual religion itself. In fact, the researches did not control for types of religion: “We really don’t know if conservative Protestant kids are behaving better than Catholic kids or behaving better than mainline Protestant kids or Jewish kids,” which begs the question of whether it religion itself or some alternate factor such as membership in a social group, propensity for a parent who takes parenting seriously to also attend religious services or a variety of other factors.
One thing to be expected, such research tends to be taken at “headline value” by certain groups (groups who tend not to think deeply and critically about evidence) and will be chalked up as support for religion. I think this study would be much more interesting if they controlled for parents who claim religion, but do not attend services regularly, parents who do not subscribe to religion, and other social factors that may differentiate the populations to really give us a better idea of what factors might influence children’s behavior.
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Believing in Santa is good for kids too– its usefulness does not make it true though.
Posted by: G on April 25th, 2007 at 10:32