http://www.latimes...0150115-story.html

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% 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% of people born after 1970 said they had been raised in secular homes. This may help explain why 23% of adults in the U.S. claim to have no religion, and more than 30% 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 USC 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.

He 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.

“Many nonreligious parents were more coherent and passionate about their ethical principles than some of the ‘religious' parents in our study,” Bengston told me. “The vast majority appeared to live goal-filled lives characterized by moral direction and sense of life having a purpose.”

My own ongoing research among secular Americans — as well as that of a handful of other social scientists who have only recently turned their gaze on secular culture — confirms that nonreligious family life is replete with its own sustaining moral values and enriching ethical precepts. Chief among those: rational problem solving, personal autonomy, independence of thought, avoidance of corporal punishment, a spirit of “questioning everything” and, far above all, empathy.

For secular people, morality is predicated on one simple principle: empathetic reciprocity, widely known as the Golden Rule. Treating other people as you would like to be treated. It is an ancient, universal ethical imperative. And it requires no supernatural beliefs. As one atheist mom who wanted to be identified only as Debbie told me: “The way we teach them what is right and what is wrong is by trying to instill a sense of empathy ... how other people feel. You know, just trying to give them that sense of what it's like to be on the other end of their actions. And I don't see any need for God in that. ...

“If your morality is all tied in with God,” she continued, “what if you at some point start to question the existence of God? Does that mean your moral sense suddenly crumbles? The way we are teaching our children … no matter what they choose to believe later in life, even if they become religious or whatever, they are still going to have that system.”

The results of such secular child-rearing are encouraging. Studies have found that secular teenagers are far less likely to care what the “cool kids” think, or express a need to fit in with them, than their religious peers. When these teens mature into “godless” adults, they exhibit less racism than their religious counterparts, according to a 2010 Duke University study. Many psychological studies show that secular grownups tend to be less vengeful, less nationalistic, less militaristic, less authoritarian and more tolerant, on average, than religious adults.

Recent research also has shown that children raised without religion tend to remain irreligious as they grow older — and are perhaps more accepting. Secular adults are more likely to understand and accept the science concerning global warming, and to support women's equality and gay rights. 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.

Another meaningful related fact: Democratic countries with the lowest levels of religious faith and participation today — such as Sweden, Denmark, Japan, Belgium and New Zealand — have among the lowest violent crime rates in the world and enjoy remarkably high levels of societal well-being. If secular people couldn't raise well-functioning, moral children, then a preponderance of them in a given society would spell societal disaster. Yet quite the opposite is the case.

Being a secular parent and something of an expert on secular culture, I know well the angst many secular Americans experience when they can't help but wonder: Could I possibly be making a mistake by raising my children without religion? The unequivocal answer is no. Children raised without religion have no shortage of positive traits and virtues, and they ought to be warmly welcomed as a growing American demographic.

Phil Zuckerman is a professor of sociology and secular studies at Pitzer College and author of "Living the Secular Life: New Answers to Old Questions."

this does not surprise me at all.

Posted by splumer “If your morality is all tied in with God,” she continued, “what if you at some point start to question the existence of God? Does that mean your moral sense suddenly crumbles?"

Love this. A friend's dad recently became a preacher closely tied to old-school New England Puritanism after having been a secular defense contractor his entire life, and one time whilst drinking we asked him "do you think people can be moral without believing in god?" We were pretty shocked when he said no, and asked him if he had been an immoral person when he wasn't connected to God... he didn't really answer that.

I've shared in the past my personal relationship to God, and I've never considered my morality to be at all related to that relationship. Frankly, it's scary to think people DON'T do bad things because they're scared of the supernatural consequences, and perhaps only do good things because they want to reap the benefits.

That's pretty fucking ignorant --- not to mention selfish --- in my opinion.

The argument has always been that without God/religion/whatever, you don't have an objective moral standard. I think to an extent that's true, but where I have a problem is those who use the Bible as their objective standard. Without going into details, when you dig into it, it doesn't set a very good standard.

Of course, morality changes with the times. A hundred years ago, a woman wearing pants would have been scandalous. It hasn't even been a hundred years since women were guaranteed the right to vote. Changing attitudes toward capital punishment are another example. (Without getting into the politics of it) Biologists generally agree now, though, that our sense of right and wrong is hard-wired into us by evolution. It explains why there are certain moral standards (against killing people in one's own group, for example) that are universal. It's an interesting topic.

Posted by splumer The argument has always been that without God/religion/whatever, you don't have an objective moral standard. I think to an extent that's true, but where I have a problem is those who use the Bible as their objective standard. Without going into details, when you dig into it, it doesn't set a very good standard. Of course, morality changes with the times. A hundred years ago, a woman wearing pants would have been scandalous. It hasn't even been a hundred years since women were guaranteed the right to vote. Changing attitudes toward capital punishment are another example. (Without getting into the politics of it) Biologists generally agree now, though, that our sense of right and wrong is hard-wired into us by evolution. It explains why there are certain moral standards (against killing people in one's own group, for example) that are universal. It's an interesting topic.

Josh Duggar. Discuss...

That he did what he did is reprehensible. It should have been dealt with in the proper way, according to the law, and then everyone moves on. The issue is where assholes like Mike Huckabee are defending him. As long as you're white, conservative and got forgiven by Jesus, everything's OK, I guess. Yet had this happened to someone he didn't have a boner for, and it would have been the end of civilization as we know it.

The other issue is how it was allowed to happen and then covered up by the dad in the first place. It seems like excuses can be readily found in a religiously-patriarchal family situation. It's not Josh's fault he can't control himself, it's those young vixens enticing him!