Numbers don't lie: Godless families raise better children

...at least according to an ongoing discussion in the LATimes.

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% of those behind bars, according to Federal Bureau of Prisons statistics. This echoes what the criminology field has documented for more than a century — the unaffiliated and the nonreligious engage in far fewer crimes.

How secular family values stack up - LA Times

Are you making a mistake raising your kids without religion? - LA Times

 

You might think people find religion as they wind up behind bars. Lots of reasons to pray, especially if you don't have soap on a rope.

 

I believe religion is a good thing, killing in the name of god is not.

 

I'm going to start calling you Mr. Non Sequitur.

 

Anything but Bill is fine.

 

How about Bildo?

 

We've gone out of our way to avoid imposing a religion, or a "God," on our son.

Funny thing is, we're basically following the advice of my pastor father-in-law. He, as someone who found "God" later in life, believes it doesn't mean much if it's not the individual's choice.

The only ones who have a problem with that are my dumb parents, who haven't been to church in probably 15 years but complain all the time about our child not being baptized.

 

While I teach Sunday School and serve as a youth group leader at my church, I do see a solid rationale for your approach.

I was raised by an extremely devout Roman Catholic single mother who pinched pennies to send me to Catholic school from 1st through 10th grade. That's when the priests at my "elite" private school finally had enough of my underachieving and misbehavior and informed her that I was no longer welcome there.

My wife, by contrast, was raised by people who had no relationship to organized religion -- and fairly sketchy morals, to be perfectly honest.

And yet, there is nobody who knows both of us who doesn't think she's turned out to be a much kinder, more compassionate and moral person.

It's not an indictment of God. Just one example to support the notion that beating kids over the head with the Bible isn't the most effective way to produce good adults.

 

Not sure whether you're trolling or not, but that "telling fact" isn't all that telling.

 

I've taught my son that Bible stories are "mythology," at least the Old Testament. I interceded early enough that he wasn't devastated by this - he found it interesting, and wanted to know about more myths.

He knows that Jesus was a real person. He knows that we hope the other stuff is true, but we have no way of knowing for sure.

He certainly doesn't think that angels throw the snow down from the clouds, like one of my wife's second-grade students announced earnestly the other day, or anything like that.

I've found that kids - at least my kid - are more able than we give them credit for to differentiate between fact and faith.

 

Have any parents of his classmates/friends called to complain about your some telling this to their children?

 

It's 2015. You really think we have a phone?