Are You Religious?

[James]

New study: Highly religious people are less motivated by compassion than are non-believers

(wish I had a subscription so I could read the actual paper, but oh well).

"This is rather interesting, and reinforces something we've been saying for a while. Religion gives people bad reasons to be good, and if your motivation for doing good is to score brownie points with God so you'll get into heaven, that's a *very* bad reason. Similarly, when Christians act baffled why atheists would ever perform any moral kindness without a belief in God, it's because they genuinely don't grasp empathy and compassion as motivators, as they haven't been taught such things are relevant. Certainly there are people both religious and compassionate, but once again we are able to confirm no necessary link between religiosity and morality." - Martin Wagner of The Atheist Experience, a pretty awesome show