Highly Religious People Are Less Motivated by Compassion Than Are Non-Believers

[littlemissmartypants]

Helping someone in need. "Love thy neighbor" is preached from many a pulpit. But new research suggests that the highly religious are less motivated by compassion when helping a stranger than are atheists, agnostics and less religious people. (Credit: © cmlndm / Fotolia)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120430140035.htm

Does Religion Decrease Compassion?
Studies suggest that religious dogma can override our natural tendency toward empathy.

One of the sad and perplexing facts of this world is the millions killed and millions more whose lives are ruined by people justifying their violence by thinking they are acting in a higher cause. The twentieth century was a powerful exhibit of this human failing. The twenty-first is not showing it will be markedly better.

http://www.patheos.com/Pagan/Religion-Decrease-Compassion-Gus-diZerega-05-11-2012.html

[ann---]

1. Highly religious people are

motivated by fear - of going to hell. What a scary way to live. No wonder they have no compassion.

[Ms. Toad]

4. Well - that is a broad brush

and it does not apply to all of us highly religious people - either the motivation, a belief in hell, or the lack of compassion.

[bananas]

7. It's also completely wrong - the studies show the exact opposite of what is being inferred.

See post #5 below.

The findings of the studies:

- Religiosity is correlated with trait compassion; the more religious, the more compassionate.

- The findings in the second study, which involved inducing feelings of compassion, were similar for generosity, except that the more religious were more prosocial even after accounting for compassion.

<snip>

[bananas]

6. That's the exact opposite of what the study shows.

See post #5 below.

5. Science and Spin Are Very Bad Bedfellows

The findings of the studies:

- Religiosity is correlated with trait compassion; the more religious, the more compassionate.

- The findings in the second study, which involved inducing feelings of compassion, were similar for generosity, except that the more religious were more prosocial even after accounting for compassion.

<snip>

[Fumesucker]

8. My ex waited tables for quite some time.

As you may or may not know, wait staff get paid a couple of bucks an hour (literally) and the great majority of their income comes from tips provided by customers.

It was not at all uncommon for Christians to come in, take up a table for hours and then leave a religious pamphlet as a "tip", I heard her rant about it on damn near a weekly basis. Not only did these people not leave a real tip, they took up a table that could have been occupied by atheists who would leave cash rather than a religious tract.

Now in their minds they were being "compassionate" but my ex wasn't interested in their tracts, we had a kid to feed, clothe, house, educate and etc and the damn pamphlets didn't help with any of that.

In America at least, it seems the more religious you are the more hateful you are to others. You might recall the "Let them die" moment in the Republican primary debates, practically everyone in the hall that cheered that statement was a devout Christian.

[Mr.Bill]

2. That's because us Atheists

can't look at a tragic situation and fall back on "It's God's will."

[Faryn Balyncd]

3. If the believer believes that humans DESERVE a fate of eternal conscious infinite torment. . .

. . . well, that does perhaps have a bearing upon other aspects one's overall outlook.

[bananas]

5. Science and Spin Are Very Bad Bedfellows

The findings of the studies:

- Religiosity is correlated with trait compassion; the more religious, the more compassionate.

- The findings in the second study, which involved inducing feelings of compassion, were similar for generosity, except that the more religious were more prosocial even after accounting for compassion.


Much more in these two blog posts:

http://icbseverywhere.com/blog/2012/05/science-and-spin-are-very-bad-bedfellows/

Science and Spin Are Very Bad Bedfellows
May 3rd, 2012
by Barbara Drescher.

It seems that the best motivation for me (to write) is frustration.

A press release by UC Berkeley about a study that was recently published on the relationships among religiosity, compassion, and prosocial behavior has been making the rounds over the last couple of days, waved by proud atheists as evidence of superiority and bashed by the more skeptical as bad science (even though most haven’t appeared to have read the study). The latter has been exacerbated by the fact that the majority of reports include very big mistakes.

I’m going to analyze the study, but I will post that separately since it is likely to be long and I also want to discuss the incredible mess of BS this has become. In that post I will also discuss the reasons some of the errors that seem minor here are actually quite serious.

<snip>

http://icbseverywhere.com/blog/2012/05/are-atheists-more-compassionate-or-prosocial-than-highly-religious-people/

Are Atheists More Compassionate or Prosocial Than Highly Religious People?
May 4th, 2012
by Barbara Drescher.

I hope I grabbed your attention with that title, but do not expect to find the answer to that question here. What I am going to discuss today is a study that many people seem to think answers that question, but it doesn’t.

As I noted in my last post, the study I’ll be discussing was grossly misreported, starting with its press release. Since the study itself appears to be behind a pay wall for most people, I’ll describe as much detail as I can in a blog post as I discuss the study’s validity and findings of the study, published in the Journal of Social Psychological and Personality Science and titled “My Brother’s Keeper? Compassion Predicts Generosity More Among Less Religious Individuals”.

<snip>

They found:

<snip>

- Religiosity is correlated with trait compassion; the more religious, the more compassionate.

<snip>

- The findings in the second study, which involved inducing feelings of compassion, were similar for generosity, except that the more religious were more prosocial even after accounting for compassion.

<snip>