In "Matthew 22:39," The Economist describes and comments on a study to test the belief that being religious makes people behave better than they otherwise would (2015). Although noting that the results need to be tested in repeat experiments, The Economist reports that the study found solid evidence that the opposite is true, that religion in fact made children less caring of others in society despite their parents saying the opposite.
With the example of violent, government approved brutal Buddhist intolerance of the Rohingya fellow citizens in Myanmar, with the extremes of Islam inspired violence in the news regularly, with the historical record of Jewish suppression of thinkers with new ideas such as Jesus, Christian crusaders, inquisitors, witch burners and killers of gay men, and with the current Hindu hatred and prejudice against Muslims in India and other religiously inspired intolerance and violence, it sort of surprised me that the study's findings surprised so many people. But perhaps I should not have been surprised.
My family in Australia were good Catholics and sent me to the best religious schools for my entire education from kindergarten to high school graduation, and we were regularly taught that although the followers of religion often abused it for evil political purposes, the religion itself was good and made people more moral. But this is what the study, by an international group led by an academic in developmental neuroscience at the University of Chicago, says seems to be wrong: religion seems to make individuals less moral in their respect for and treatment of other human beings. The children of atheist families, who believe in no gods and have no religion, behave as the more moral human beings.
What I really liked about this study is that it tests a common belief to see whether it really is true. We human beings have a very long history of believing things that seem "obvious" and so don't get tested as they should be, and they are often false. Good academics check everything.
The job of academics is to find what is really true, and then explain why it's true and how the false belief became so popular. And that is very much relevant to a reading and writing class in an academic English program, where we need to check everything.
And I like The Economist's clever title - Matthew 22:39 points to a verse in the Christian Bible where Jesus commands his followers to "Love your neighbour as yourself."
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