Wayne Besen - Author, Activist, Columnist, Public Speaker

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

An interesting study on teen cheating reveals:

An overwhelming majority, 83 percent, of public school and private religious school students admitted to lying to their parents about something significant, compared to 78 percent for those attending independent non-religious schools.

So, religious kids are less moral and more prone to cheat. Amazing, considering all the obnoxious, self-righteous preaching and incessant boasting about family values. The anti-gay crowd is also more likely to be divorced. Exactly why are these failures spending millions of dollars to tell other - more successful families - how to live their lives?

After witnessing the disgusting, dishonest, immoral manner in which the Yes on 8 Campaign was run in California - these results are no surprise. The youngsters in this study learned their wayward ways from their "moral" parents.

36 Comments:

Wow, what an amazing study! Perhaps religious people are engaging in the well-known act of "projection," a psychological mechanism that involves accusing others of things that the accuser is secretly guilty of. I call it "The Jimmy Swaggart Syndrome." Of course, Wayne is correct about the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign: these "God fearing traditionalists" totally lied through their teeth.
posted by Chris L., at 12/02/2008 1:18 PM

Technically from the way that quote is worded, you could also look at it this way: maybe everyone cheats, but religious people are more likely to admit to it.

Of course I don't believe that for a single goddamn second. In my experience the more religious someone is, the more duplicitous they are. Of course they have to be, they have to live and function in a real world, yet their minds are swimming in fairy tales.

On the other hand, I know Christians (ex-Christians actually) who said they were raised to believe they were always sinning, no matter what they did, and they needed to ask for God's grace all the time, and it made them feel like absolute worthless shit twenty four hours a day. Anyone see Jesus Camp? Great example. They've got those kids - like five year old kids - bursting into tears and convulsing on the ground because they think they are sinners, they are overwhelmed with guilt and have to be saved.

What the hell does a five year old kid have to feel guilty about?!?!?

So it could even be that religious people cheat LESS but admit to it MORE - even when they aren't even doing it! Religious indoctrination and guilt can make people do pretty strange things.

Point is, studies like this are already suspicious depending on how they were conducted and the wording of the questions they used and the reliability of the respondents, and then you have this added confounding element: the fact that religious people are batshit crazy.
posted by Eshto, at 12/02/2008 1:40 PM

Eshto:

Good point. But, if everyone cheats, why spend billions of dollars per year on religious indoctrination, if it is essentially useless and the morals of the religious are equal to those who are non-religious?
posted by Wayne Besen, at 12/02/2008 1:49 PM

Wayne:

Good question.

Fortunately I don't have to answer it because I'm not the one wasting billions of dollars!

However, I wouldn't say the morals of the religious are "equal" to those of the non-religious. Homophobia, sexism, denial of science, one true religion (as opposed to religious freedom), using faith to influence politics, covering up sex abuse scandals within religious organizations, killing apostates, crashing planes into buildings...

No I'd say that generally, religious people are way behind in terms of morality.
posted by Eshto, at 12/02/2008 2:32 PM

In order to be religious, one must, by definition, begin with a big lie.
posted by Chris L., at 12/02/2008 2:39 PM

The other side of the issue is this: it doesn't matter what the religious crazies do, because all they have to do is pray and ask for forgiveness, and it's done.

So why behave morally or ethically if you can get automatic absolution from the alleged creator of the universe?
posted by Patricia Hansen, at 12/02/2008 4:06 PM

@Chris L.

Or if not a lie, at least a gap in knowledge. When questioned about their religious beliefs, many religious people will snap back with unanswered questions: "Well how did we get here then?", "Well what created the universe then?", and so on.

Faith is often nothing more than a place holder for a scientific riddle that hasn't yet been solved. Or even sometimes it has been solved, as in the case of evolution, but people of faith either don't like the answer or can't wrap their minds around it, so instead of bothering to understand it they say "scientists are lying, God did it" and give up.

Ignorance is underneath it all. It's what enables opportunistic religious leaders to come in fill that lack of knowledge with outlandish stories about mythical beings watching everything we do and talking to us through magical books.
posted by Eshto, at 12/02/2008 4:23 PM

Eshto, I wish you would post on the gay marriage thread over at change.org. Some jerk is saying that we have to accept the back of the bus because the fundies have the majority opinion in this country.

I could write a book on what some religious people I have known sank to even while being certain that they were right and holy and I was shit because not only am I gay, I refused to accept their homophobia.
posted by Merlyn, at 12/02/2008 4:51 PM

I think some of this behavior, at least on the part of young people, is a type of vengeance for an excessive amount of repression and control in their lives. When I was a (public school) kid in the 60s, the Catholic school kids in the neighborhood had a reputation for being 'bad', especially when there were no adults around. And just my two cents, not all religious people are wild-eyed crazies. I know people who belong to non-homophobic, liberal churches that do a lot of good volunteer work in soup-kitchens, nursing homes, tutoring kids etc. I know the fundies get most of the press, but we have to be careful not to demonize an entire segment of the population. That's what they do to us.
posted by gary, at 12/03/2008 10:04 AM

If some jerk is saying that we "need to accept the back of the bus" because "the fundies hold the majority in this country," he is obviously so bereft of BASIC historical and intellectual knowledge that he perhaps should be ignored; much like you walk quickly past a piece of dog sh*t on the city sidewalk. Let's stop giving these people any credence by allowing them to hurt our feelings.

Eshto, I hear you. When I was religious, the initial lie that I accepted was that reality, as we know it, is false, and that there is some sort of "hidden" reality (the supernatural) with a leader who makes certain demands of us.

Over the years, I knew that even if there were a god, he/she/it would never make such ignorant, foolish demands. It became clear that religion was all about manipulating people in the natural by claiming the rules of the supernatural. Of course, some religions are really "lite" on this brainwashing, but others are very heavy on it. And yes, those who do soup kitchens, charity, etc., are to be praised. There are indeed some vast differences in religions; they different cultures are not all able to be grouped into one.

I agree with Patricia Hansen also: I have known many who sin like there's no tomorrow because they know that, upon request, they will be forgiven of their misdeeds. At least the Jews have a sense of "penance" where you have to go back to the person and make it right. The Christians have no such thing. I say, "Be good for goodness' sake!"
posted by Chris L., at 12/03/2008 1:02 PM

"I know the fundies get most of the press, but we have to be careful not to demonize an entire segment of the population. That's what they do to us"

I agree.

But I would temper that by pointing out that just because some Christians are nicer, it doesn't make their objective claims about the universe any more factual.
posted by Eshto, at 12/03/2008 7:23 PM

Oh and P.S. Merlyn, I agree it is becoming a real problem that people think we live in a simple democracy by majority rule. We all need to correct people who say the "majority opinion" is the only thing that matters.

Maybe just carry around copies of the Constitution, and whenever anybody says that, hold it up and say "Constitution".
posted by Eshto, at 12/03/2008 7:26 PM

I have to disagree with you here, Wayne. All that study means is that religious students are more honest about admitting that they cheat. Also, what many religious students consider "cheating" often times really isn't. They're so loaded up with guilt by the religious right that they turn themselves in for cheating, even when they haven't actually cheated. Believe me, I did it to myself when I was a fundie, and I've seen other fundies do it.

Best wishes,
John Weaver
posted by John Weaver, at 12/04/2008 10:39 AM

John said "All that study means is that religious students are more honest about admitting that they cheat.".

LOL, that's utter nonsense. Cheating is a fundamentally dishonest activity. Religious students are being dishonest by doing so, you can't then claim they are being honest by admitting it - they're not. If they were honest they would have admitted cheating to the people administering the test who could then have taken appropriate action. They didn't because they are dishonest at heart and wanted to get away with it.
posted by Priya Lynn, at 12/04/2008 2:57 PM

Good point, Priya. I knew Christians who thought that I was supposed to admit that Jimmy Swaggert deserved brownie points for honesty in admitting that he'd been with that hooker. Sorry, he only pulled the "I have sinned" routine AFTER he was caught out at it. If he'd been hones, he would either not have done it or he would have admitted it before someone found out.
posted by Merlyn, at 12/04/2008 3:53 PM

I was one of those Christians at the time who said that "Brother Swaggart" deserved points for being honest about it. But if you know the whole story, what REALLY happened, he was anything but, sadly.
posted by Chris L., at 12/05/2008 1:03 PM

At my age Eshto (54), I've learned to be very open minded about what is true/factual and what isn't. I recently saw a program on the National Geographic Channel in a series called The Universe, where cutting edge physicists now believe there are parallel universes (called a multiverse). Copies of our world and ourselves exist there where different/various courses of life and events may express themselves. Some scientists claim that the question isnt IF they exist, but how many. This sounds like 'stuff' right out of the mysticism of the Far East. If a scientist had claimed this just a few decades ago, they would have been laughed and ridiculed right out of academia.
If they re-run it, try to catch it, it was really cool.
I think what Hamlet said to Horatio about 'all his philosophy' was true.
posted by gary, at 12/06/2008 10:09 AM

In my experience, fundamentalist Christians tend to be the most dishonest, untrustworthy, and immoral people. I'm not the least surprised by this.
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