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.
Like a lot of Americans, I grew up while being force-fed the belief that morality and religion were flip sides of the same coin, that one would inevitably wither and die without the other. When I learned to think for myself, I began to realize that religion and morality were good things too often employed by those who wished to manipulate and exercise domain over the malleable and easily controlled.
Religion and morality can for some be closely aligned…and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. If that union adds meaning and purpose to your life, then good on you. Understand, though, that there are also those who, like myself, recognize no connection or causality. I believe that if you can’t lead a moral life outside of a religious context, you may be harboring sociopathic tendencies. It may be trite and careworn, but it’s true- Morality is doing the right thing, no matter what you’re told; religion is doing what you’re told no matter if it’s the right thing or not. Of course, neither morality nor religion is wrong or unsustainable without the other; in no sense are they mutually dependent.
As shocking as it may seem, children can grow up without religion and still become fully formed moral human beings. I know; whodathunkit, right??
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.
It’s long been widely held cultural certainty that children must be firmly ground in religion- read, Christianity- in order to have any hope of leading a moral life.
Yeah, about that….
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.”
Turns out that a child’s moral foundation has more to do with values modeled and taught by their parents than with any sort of religious indoctrination. If children learn things like humility, compassion, kindness, and respect from their parents, the odds are very good that they’ll mature into solid, mature, and morally sound members of society. Religious indoctrination isn’t a necessary part of that equation.
This isn’t to say that religion need not be a part of a child’s upbringing- far from it, but it does put the lie to the contention that morality and religion are inseparable and cannot exist independently. A child raised to be “good without God” doesn’t start life behind the moral eight ball, and may actually be slightly better equipped to be a morally upright human being.
Like anything else of a theological nature, one simply cannot assume that one’s own beliefs are the apotheosis of personal morality. I drive past a billboard every day that blares in large agate type: JESUS- YOUR ONLY WAY TO GOD!! Every time I see it, I can’t help but marvel at the sheer arrogance of assuming that your belief- and ONLY your belief- is The One, True, and ONLY Faith ©. I understand the idea of wanting to share the “Good News,” “save” the souls of unbelievers, and/or helping others “find God,” but the idea of “one size (MY size) fits all” theology is astonishingly arrogant.
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.”
Research has shown that children raised without religious indoctrination tend to grow up and remain irreligious into adulthood. There’s also anecdotal evidence to indicate that those who grow into adulthood without religion are kinder, more compassionate, and more accepting of those who may be different.
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.
It’s every bit as possible for a child raised without religion to exhibit positive values and moral behavior as those raised with religion. While religion may for some be considered part and parcel of moral behavior, it turns out that in reality there’s no necessary connection or causality between religion and morality.
Just as they are as many different ways to raise a child, so too are there an infinite number of ways to bring up a child to be a model citizen capable of exhibiting positive moral behavior. In the final analysis, it has everything to do with the values parents teach their children…and precious little to do with religious doctrine.
If you believe it to be impossible to be a moral human being without religion, might I suggest that says more about you and your inability to recognize and honor diversity of thought than anything else? If you truly believe that “one size (MY size) fits all” theology is the only acceptable path to living a moral life, I’d submit that you’re doing it wrong.
Just a thought.
