Do theists usually lack developed character?

[Pyrrho]

In all my time in real life and online I have noticed something about those that are deeply religious. They lack character and I can only think of few exceptions to this.
In real life I notice a variance in developed character amongst people based on the level of their religiosity. Those that are religious tend to be ill tempered, more easy to agitated, very dishonest and of course very unreasonable.

I don't know how to correlate this to religion but I notice it every time.  I am not judging any of these people by their religion but instead I am reflecting back on their behavior.

I am going on a hunch though that religious comfort rends to obscure moral behavior.

...Meow

Two things.

First, your sample is biassed.  See this for what that means:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_bias

The people who you meet and encounter online may not be representative of people generally, and one often does not know of the level of religiosity of everyone one encounters, which means that you may have met many counterexamples without realizing it.


The second thing is, you seem to be contradicting yourself when you state:

"...those that are deeply religious. They lack character and I can only think of few exceptions to this."

and:

"I don't know how to correlate this to religion but I notice it every time."


Is it every time, or is it just generally the case, that the people who you encounter who you have noticed are very religious are of bad character?


Not that I expect that anyone will be convinced by this, but in my experience, I have not noticed the correlation you mention.  Some devoutly religious people I have met and know very well are of very good character, and some atheists I have known are of bad character.  And, of course, I have known some who fit your characterization as well.


While I am at it, I have not noticed a strong correlation between religion and other mental qualities, such as mathematical ability or other intellectual abilities.  (I would guess, though I admit this is just a guess, that giving a math test to devoutly religious people who are otherwise randomly selected, and giving the same test to atheists who are otherwise randomly selected, will likely show that some religious people are good at math, and some not, and some atheists are good at math, and some not.)  

Granted, religionists have one set of stupid beliefs that atheists lack, but having that one set of stupid beliefs does not always mean that many other stupid beliefs will be accepted, and also lacking one type of stupid beliefs does not prevent one from having many other stupid beliefs.  I won't bother with any examples of atheists who have really stupid beliefs, because I do not want to get into an argument with any stupid atheists at the moment.  But if you think about it logically for a moment, the lack of a belief in a god does not prevent one from believing any and every stupid belief that has nothing to do with a god.