I can keep this up all day. This is a tip of the iceberg. Note the sources.
In a 2013 meta-analysis, led by Professor Miron Zuckerman, of 63 scientific studies about IQ and religiosity, Zuckerman noted: "Ongoing research among secular Americans confirms that non-religious family life is replete with its own sustaining moral values and enriching ethical precepts. Chief among those: rational problem solving, personal autonomy, independence of thought, avoidance of corporal punishment, a spirit of "questioning everything" and, far above all, empathy."
Studies have found that secular teenagers are far less likely to care what the "cool kids" think, or express a need to fit in with them, than their religious peers. When these teens mature into "godless" adults, they exhibit less racism than their religious counterparts, according to a 2010 Duke University study. Many psychological studies show that secular grownups tend to be less vengeful, less nationalistic, less militaristic, less authoritarian and more tolerant, on average, than religious adults.
Recent research also has shown that children raised without religion tend to remain irreligious as they grow older - and are perhaps more accepting. Secular adults are more likely to understand and accept the science concerning global warming, and to support women's equality and gay rights.
One telling fact from the criminology field: Atheists were almost absent from our prison population as of the late 1990s, comprising less than half of 1 percent of those behind bars, according to Federal Bureau of Prisons statistics. This echoes what the criminology field has documented for more than a century - the unaffiliated and the nonreligious engage in far fewer crimes. Since the number of godless is estimated to be 10 percent of the general population, all things being equal you would expect their prison population to be 10 percent. The fact that the actual number is 50 times less than expected can lead to only one of two conclusions: either the godless commit less crime than the religious or they’re too smart to get caught very often.
Another meaningful related fact: Democratic countries with the lowest levels of religious faith and participation today - such as Sweden, Denmark, Japan, Belgium and New Zealand - have among the lowest violent crime rates in the world and enjoy remarkably high levels of societal well-being. If secular people couldn't raise well-functioning, moral children, then a preponderance of them in a given society would spell societal disaster. Yet quite the opposite is the case.
In a 2012 study by the Pew Research Center - 11 percent of people born after 1970 said they had been raised in secular homes. This may help explain why 23 percent of adults in the U.S. claim to have no religion, and more than 30 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 say the same. So how does the raising of upstanding, moral children work without prayers at mealtimes and morality lessons at Sunday school? Quite well, it seems. Far from being dysfunctional, nihilistic and rudderless without the security and rectitude of religion, secular households provide a sound and solid foundation for children.
For nearly 40 years, Vern Bengston, a University of Southern California professor of gerontology and sociology has overseen the Longitudinal Study of Generations, which has become the largest study of religion and family life conducted across several generational cohorts in the United States. When Bengston noticed the growth of nonreligious Americans becoming increasingly pronounced, he decided in 2013 to add secular families to his study in an attempt to understand how family life and intergenerational influences play out among the religionless.
He was surprised by what he found: High levels of family solidarity and emotional closeness between parents and nonreligious youth, and strong ethical standards and moral values that had been clearly articulated as they were imparted to the next generation.
"Many nonreligious parents were more coherent and passionate about their ethical principles than some of the 'religious' parents in our study". "The vast majority appeared to live goal-filled lives characterized by moral direction and sense of life having a purpose."
According to a Barna Research Group report, fundamentalist Christians have the highest divorce rate, followed by Jews and Baptists. The godless are tied with Catholics and Lutherans for the lowest divorce rate. It seems that some groups that claim to follow the Bible most strictly are not putting their money where their mouths are.
