God's truth, believers are nicer

[rug]

I'm getting ready to duck, but don't shoot the messenger. The results are in: religious people are nicer. Or so says Robert Putnam, professor of public policy at Harvard.

Described by London's Sunday Times as the most influential academic in the world today, Putnam is not a religious believer. Best known for Bowling Alone, the book that made ''social capital'' a key indicator of a healthy society, Putnam, with his co-author David Campbell (a Mormon), has waded into the debate about religion in the public square with his latest offering, American Grace: How Religion Unites and Divides Us. The book emerges out of two massive and comprehensive surveys into religion and public life in America.

Their most conspicuously controversial finding is that religious people make better citizens and neighbours. Putnam and Campbell write that ''for the most part, the evidence we review suggests that religiously observant Americans are more civic, and in some respects simply 'nicer' ''.

On every measurable scale, religious Americans are more generous, more altruistic and more involved in civic life than their secular counterparts.

http://m.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/gods-truth-believers-are-nicer-20110908-1jzrl.html

:)

[darkstar3]

1. Based on voluntary responses from 3 thousand people,

none of whom would have any occasion to lie, misrepresent, or misunderstand the questions...

mm-hmmmm...

I buy data from observations, not answers to hypothetical questions. Observation shows something very different: Homophobia, greed, and apathy. The co-writer of this little publication certainly has first-hand experience of that...

[rug]

10. .

:)

[darkstar3]

13. That's quite a change for you.

Thank you for proving my point.

[rug]

14. .

:*

[ingac70]

2. Religious people make up 99.9% of the prison population.

doesn't sound very nice to me.

[notadmblnd]

4. many get religion when they go to prison

It usually wears off when they get out.

[notadmblnd]

3. maybe on Sunday morning. But from what I've observed,

it all ends about 11:30 - 12:00 as they rush from the church parking lot to get to the local Denny's or Cracker Barrel first.

[NMMNG]

5. Where they leave little, if any tip for their waitstaff

Apparently they think because they put a buck in the offering plate they've done their good deed for the day. :eyes:

[madmom]

6. not any of the ones I know

[rug]

11. .

:)

[CBHagman]

7. Here's where I have issues with generalizations of that sort.

If practice of a faith makes that much difference in how altruistic, involved, etc., people are, then why the mixed results in the Bible Belt of the United States?

On the one hand, you get a culture of friendliness and hospitality and on the other you get a higher than average degree of violent crime.

You get very public discussion of God and faith, but you also had people trying to burn the Freedom Riders alive.

If Christianity really transformed people so wholly, why isn't, say, Mississippi (or perhaps Texas) the most nurturing of the disadvantaged? Why was it impossible to pass a more progressive tax system in Alabama?

[Fumesucker]

8. I'm not sure how you reconcile that study with this one..

In my book the more likely you are to torture someone, the _less_ nice you are.

Sounds like the study in the OP had some seriously fucked up values.

http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/30/churchgoers-more-likely-to-back-torture-survey-finds/

The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new analysis.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week - 54 percent - said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified. Only 42 percent of people who "seldom or never" go to services agreed, according the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified - more than 6 in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only 4 in 10 of them did.

[rug]

12. .

:)

[Warpy]

9. They're nicer to each other

but not nice at all to outsiders of any type, generally speaking.

There are exceptions, of course, the ones who read the book the rest are thumping and got the point, but there's a reason we tend to check to see our wallets haven't been lifted and sprint for an exit when we find ourselves surrounded by conspicuous believers.

Christians who got the point are among the nicest people I know. There's a reason the rest of them are even less popular than Congress.

[NMMNG]

15. Not really

"A sobering note for believers is that this study reveals that the content of a person's belief isn't what matters so much as their level of involvement in a religious community. An atheist who comes to church to support her partner will rate as well as any believer on these scores."

So it really has less to do with belief vs. non-belief. It has more to do with participation in groups. Belief isn't prompting them to do the "nice" things, the people in the group are. Prompting and peer pressure within the group do the work, while religion/belief take the credit. Of course that prompting/peer pressure can work in the opposite direction as well, leading to all sorts of not-so-nice acts.

[rug]

16. .

:)

[deacon_sephiroth]

17. I lol'ed IRL (N/T)

[cleanhippie]

18. Well sure, everyone knows that!