MattofVA

I'm sure this has been touched on before(religiosity relative to birth order of siblings). Can anyone point to any solid online psych/soc. literature on this. Is there really any pattern overall?
The data from my family is quite a mixed bag:
Me: oldest of two and(I'm posting at II) less religious, but when we were just a little younger it was the reverse.
My mom: oldest of 3 and most religious.
My stepdad: youngest of five and most religious(but also most intelligent and educated). my mom must be a key influence.
My dad: oldest of six Catholic kids, very much the blacksheep.
How about you guys?

Debbie T

I am the oldest of four and not religious and my younger siblings are very religious. Both mother (2nd of 6)and father (8th of 9) are younger siblings in their family and very religious.

Straight Hate

I have read theories about personality and birth order (for example, the second child will be a perfectionist), but I don't ever recall much mention being made about religion. If we are to assume the first child is the most independent - and thus, most likely to break free of religious dogma - then my family alone has proven such a claim to be false.

I'm sorry I cannot be much more of a help! To me it would depend more on how the child was raised... As a second child, my interest in science and curiousity for the world around me was encouraged to large degree - even though neither of my parents had a formal background in any science.

Walross

Frank Sulloway wrote a book on the subjest of birth order and it's effect on one's likelihood of accepting radical new "paradigm-shifting" theories (including nontheism). I believe it was called Born to Rebel. The idea being that oldest children have a greater stake in perpetuating authority, while youngest children have nothing to gain by doing so. I haven't read it yet, but I have been planning to. In my personal experience, I have two older sisters (I'm the youngest of three) who, while not particularly religious in the traditional sense, do have a fairly strong belief in the supernatural. Not much there that's conclusive. What I find more interesting is that, amongst my closest 6 friends, 5 are nontheists and one is a christian. The christian is the only one who is an oldest child - the rest are youngest or only children. Of course this is all merely anecdotal, which is why I'm interested in the actual statistics. Regards,

Walross

GunnerJ

FWIW, I'm the oldest of two. My mother is pretty religious, my dad, rather not, and my younger brother... still goes to church. Don't know much more on his feelings on religion.