Scientific questions about role of religion in tolerance education
In November last year, researcher Jean Decety published a worldwide research on the relation between religion and altruism. He concluded that children from religious households are less generous than others. This is only a next result in a series of researches that show how religious people are not only less generous but also less tolerant and more authoritarian. It raises the fundamental question about the role of religion in global peace and understanding.
Image: Arnold, one of the Christian educators, tell his story on the website of the "Gay in the Classroom"
Decety's research
Decety is a a developmental neuroscientist at the University of Chicago. His study was published in Current Biology . He collaborated with researchers in Canada, China, Jordan, South Africa, Turkey and Americans to look at children aged between five and 12 and their families. Dr. Decety and his colleagues recruited 1,170 families and focused on one child per family. They asked some questions to calculate how religious each family was. They then asked the children to play a game to measure altruism.
Each child was presented with 30 attractive stickers and told that he or she could keep ten. After a child had made the selection, the experimenter told him that there was not time to play the game with all the children at the school. But that he could give away some of his ten stickers to a random schoolmate who would not otherwise be able to take part. The child was then given a few minutes to decide whether he wanted to give up some of his stickers—and, if so, how many. The researchers used the number of stickers surrendered as a measure of altruism.
Religious parents belief their children to be more sensitive to injustice
The results showed that the children of non-believers were significantly more generous than those of believers. They gave away an average of 4.1 stickers. Children from a religious background gave away 3.3. And a further analysis of the two largest religious groups (Jews, Buddhists and Hindus were excluded because of their small numbers in the sample), showed no statistical difference between them. Muslim children gave away 3.2 stickers on average, while Christian children gave away 3.3. Moreover, a regression analysis on these groups of children showed that their generosity was inversely correlated with their households’ religiosity. This effect remained regardless of a family’s wealth and status (rich children were more generous than poor ones), a child’s age (older children were more generous than younger ones) or the nationality of the participant.
These findings are, however, in marked contrast to parents’ assessments of their own children’s sensitivity to injustice. When asked, religious parents reported they thought their children would be more sensitive than non-believing parents did.
Deeper fears of orthodox people
This research is but the last in a consistent range of surveys that show how people who are part of religious communities tend to be more authoritarian, intolerant and rigid in thinking about gender, sexuality, altruism, forgiveness and peace. However, it is important to reflect more on the background of this. An important note is that there is a big difference between belonging to a religious community, religiosity and spirituality. Research shows that spiritual religious people do not differ significantly from non-religious people on tolerance. It seems the social framework of self-contained and conservative religious communities play a much more significant role in intolerance and lack of empathy with others than religion itself. This is important to keep in mind when being confronted with orthodox religious arguments based on religious texts. These may be just a cover up for fears and aversions that are deeper rooted in social and cultural contexts. It would be useful if more research was done into such fears, especially because they seriously threaten world peace and the position of vulnerable minorities.
Orthodox tolerance programming
It would also be useful to more publicize and research the impact of the few programs that attempt to mediate some of the orthodox religious aversions. For example, the Dutch educational program "Homo in de klas" (Gay in the Classroom) is an excellent example of education and dialogue within the orthodox Christian context. This program was developed by a community organization of LGBT orthodox Christians in cooperation with the boards of the orthodox Restored Reformed schools.
The program does not preach a specific choice in how to deal with the perceived dilemma of being Christian and having same-sex attraction. It offers a range of examples of Christian young people:
- remaining abstinent
- having a same-sex relationship but not having sex
- having a same-sex relationship and having sex, and negotiating a working relationship with the church and community
- leaving the church and sometimes also the community
The dialogue in lessons focus on the lessons about love in the Bible, but also about how church members deal with diversity and how they would feel if they were cut of their community and church if they would to adhere to all the rules. In the lessons, Christian gay and lesbian people tell their stories and discuss experiences and choices. Some research in orthodox schools has show this program to have be effective to stimulate tolerance.
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