On Nov 10, 2004, at 3:35 PM, Russell Chapman wrote:
Warren Ockrassa wrote:
"Barna's results verified findings of earlier polls: that conservative Protestant Christians, on average, have the highest divorce rate, while mainline Christians have a much lower rate. They found some new information as well: that atheists and agnostics have the lowest divorce rate of all."
It's not even vaguely surprising that these "conservative Protestant Christians" (and they really do defy labelling...) have a higher divorce rate, but it is IMHO a reach to suggest that their affiliation is more likely to make their marriage go bad, just (again, IMHO) that they are far more likely to go into an inappropriate marriage in the first place.
No argument there. However there's some possibility that extreme religious institutions offer ineffective advice -- rather than marriage counseling, for instance, trying to "pray away" the problem (whatever it is).
Nonetheless I certainly agree that marriages are not doomed *because of* one's being (e.g.) Southern Baptist.
If there was some way to correlate "breakdowns of co-habiting relationships" there might be a bit more consistency across the nation - what the statistics are showing here is that people of the southern states are more likely to leave an official record of their separation...
I don't see that; rather, I see that those who marry are all over the nation. That is the failure isn't all that regional. (Perhaps you're looking a data I overlooked.)
Are you suggesting that less religious people cohabit with multiple (serial, perhaps) partners before marrying one, thereby getting "practice" that a more religious -- and presumably "chaste" -- group might not have? If so, that's an intriguing suggestion and it would be interesting to see some numbers on that. If not, well, it's still intriguing. ;)
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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