Atheist scientists often expose their children to religion:
Rice University sociologist Elaine Ecklund surveyed over 2,000 scientists and found that half expressed “no religious identity.” She pulled 275 of these atheists, and found that at least 17% had brought their children to a religious service in the past year.
What reasons do they give?
- Scientific identity – Study participants wish to expose their children to all sources of knowledge (including religion) and allow them to make their own choices about a religious identity.
- Spousal influence – Study participants are involved in a religious institution because of influence from their spouse or partner.
- Desire for community – Study participants want a sense of moral community and behavior, even if they don’t agree with the religious reasoning.
Other findings:
- Only 15 percent of those surveyed view religion and science as always in conflict. Another 15 percent say the two are never in conflict, and 70 percent believe religion and science are only sometimes in conflict. Approximately half of the original survey population expressed some form of religious identity, whereas the other half did not.
- Scientists as a whole are substantially different from the American public in how they view teaching “intelligent design” in public schools. Nearly all of the scientists – religious and nonreligious alike – have a negative impression of the theory of intelligent design.
- Sixty-eight percent of scientists surveyed consider themselves spiritual to some degree.
- Scientists who view themselves as spiritual/religious are less likely to see religion and science in conflict.
- Overall, under some circumstances even the most religious of scientists were described in very positive terms by their nonreligious peers; this suggests that the integration of religion and science is not so distasteful to all scientists.
“found that at least 17% had brought their children to a religious service in the past year.”
That’s astonishingly low. I wonder how they are managing to attend any religious service that rarely? (Do they know no one who has died or gotten married? Are they truly that impervious to their wives’ wishes?)
Why wouldn’t they expose their kids to religion? A whole pile of cultural literacy requires knowing the basic myths held by others. With our kids, we started them on Greek myths, bit of Norse (Wagnerian), then on to Christian myths. So there’s Zeus and Aries and Jesus and Woton and they’re all fun stories; it’s just that some folks think that one set of them are true.
I’m with Eric. I find that a good handle on non-Christian myths is something of an innoculation. My kids like Greek myths, and occasionally stories about Thor.
Deities and Demigods from the AD&D game exposes the reader to a whole host of different gods. I think that’s where I learned about Ra and Set when I was a kid and a generation later it is helping with my kids.
It wasn’t my idea, it was something I read — Aretae, was that yours?