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Failure of the Family Widens America’s Economic and Cultural Divides

cpwill said:
David French speaks to an unfortunate reality - our deepest problems, and the chief drivers of our increasingly polarized body politic, cannot be fixed by politics.
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I do not disagree, but it is what it is. We can't force families to stay together. Freedom comes with a price. One such freedom is the freedom to move on and leave the family behind, both metaphorically and literally.
 
David_N said:
LOL. Here we go. "Barely religious." Ah, so now you believe anyone who doesn't follow your explicit version of Christianity is wrong. Absolutely laughable.
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If someone makes a deliberate point of disobeying their religion's commandments, willfully shunning its life philosophies, and making no real effort to commune with its faithful, I think it can be safely said that they are a pretty objectively terrible follower of that religion.

Unfortunately, terrible Christians positively abound these days.
 
Gathomas88 said:
If someone makes a deliberate point of disobeying their religion's commandments, willfully shunning its life philosophies, and making no real effort to commune with its faithful, I think it can be safely said that they are a pretty objectively terrible follower of that religion.

Unfortunately, terrible Christians positively abound these days.
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Then I suppose all Christians who have anal sex and divorce are "barely religious." Yes, Christianity is evolving, and it's awesome. Acceptance of homosexuality, abortion in some cases, divorce...
 
calamity said:
I do not disagree, but it is what it is. We can't force families to stay together. Freedom comes with a price. One such freedom is the freedom to move on and leave the family behind, both metaphorically and literally.
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Well there is the income subsidy for low income, single parent families.
The motivation to compromise and work together can be vaporized on that alone.

From SNAP, Medicaid, Section 8, etc, you don't need a husband/father figure who you have to work with.
The government acts as a financial substitute, without the whole co parenting thing.
 
Gathomas88 said:
Lol. Your ignorant appeals to blind anti-religious bigotry are the only things that are "invalid" here.

The statistics say what they say. I apologize if you happen to dislike it. :shrug:
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Who's statistics are we talking about? The Barna Group study from 2008 suggested no real difference from faith to lack of faith.

<--->

Divorce Among Adults Who Have Been Married

All adults... 33%

Evangelical Christians... 26%
"Born again" Christians... 33%
"other" Christians... 33%
non-Christian faith... 38%
Atheist or agnostic... 30%

Protestant... 34%
Catholic... 28%

White ... 32%
Black... 36%
Hispanic... 31%
Asian... 20%

Conservative... 28%
Moderate... 33%
Liberal... 37%

<--->

How I read this is roughly one third of all marriages end in divorce, 64% success rate... not exactly a passing grade overall. However, "Atheists and agnostics" are below the average as is "Evangelical Christians." Inflating the numbers seems to be "other Christians" and "non-Christian Faiths." Confirmed by the spread between Catholics and Protestants, and somewhat helped by the spread between Conservative and Liberal.

This does thou negate your theory that "People who actually take their religion seriously have substantially higher marriage rates." Who are you to question what other faiths are serious?

https://www.barna.org/barna-update/...-and-divorce-statistics-released#.VikT78WrSHs
 
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Harry Guerrilla said:
Well there is the income subsidy for low income, single parent families.
The motivation to compromise and work together can be vaporized on that alone.

From SNAP, Medicaid, Section 8, etc, you don't need a husband/father figure who you have to work with.
The government acts as a financial substitute, without the whole co parenting thing.
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Certainly. And, I support abortion for those reasons most of all.

You can't force people to stay together and say you are a libertarian. You can support abortion rights though.
 
calamity said:
Certainly. And, I support abortion for those reasons most of all.

You can't force people to stay together and say you are a libertarian. You can support abortion rights though.
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I generally lean libertarian but I support things that make sense, more than I support a rigid political ideology, including libertarianism.
 
Luftwaffe said:
Yeah, it could accomplish trampling the **** out of the constitution, which we do enough of anyways, might as well not go any furhter if we can.
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Really? How do you explain the fact the Constitution was generally better respected, if anything, for much of this country's history, when far more Americans were religious than today? Until 1947, any state was free to have an official religion, if it wanted, and we seem to have survived just fine. You seem to be conjuring up a phantom as a pretext for hostility toward religion.
 
Harry Guerrilla said:
I generally lean libertarian but I support things that make sense, more than I support a rigid political ideology, including libertarianism.
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What makes sense is letting grown people do what the hell they want, including move around the country, divorce and have abortions on demand.
 
calamity said:
What makes sense is letting grown people do what the hell they want, including move around the country, divorce and have abortions on demand.
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Sure, I generally don't have a problem with it.
I just have a problem with accidentally/unintentionally paying them to do that.
 
David_N said:
LOL. Is not your version of Christianity. Christianity isn't set in stone, it's all interpretation. So many different religious groups, so many cherry picked interpretations..
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It's not Christ's version of Christianity. That's really all that needs to be said on the matter.

Frankly, I'm not even sure what you're arguing about here. You're just proving my point.

"Christians" (big air quotes around this one) who place modern secular values and culture ahead of God or his teachings, divorce more often than Christians who actually follow their religion as it was traditionally intended to be followed. That is not a coincidence.

OrphanSlug said:
Who's statistics are we talking about? The Barna Group study from 2008 suggested no real difference from faith to lack of faith.



Divorce Among Adults Who Have Been Married

All adults... 33%

Evangelical Christians... 26%
"Born again" Christians... 33%
"other" Christians... 33%
non-Christian faith... 38%
Atheist or agnostic... 30%

Protestant... 34%
Catholic... 28%

White... 32%
Black... 36%
Hispanic... 31%
Asian... 20%

Conservative... 28%
Moderate... 33%
Liberal... 37%



How I read this is roughly one third of all marriages end in divorce, 64% success rate... not exactly a passing grade overall. However, "Atheists and agnostics" are below the average as is "Evangelical Christians." Inflating the numbers seems to be "other Christians" and "non-Christian Faiths." Confirmed by the spread between Catholics and Protestants, and somewhat helped by the spread between Conservative and Liberal.

This does thou negate your theory that "People who actually take their religion seriously have substantially higher marriage rates." Who are you to question what other faiths are serious?

https://www.barna.org/barna-update/...-and-divorce-statistics-released#.VikT78WrSHs
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The source was cited at the bottom of the graphs I posted.

Again, do the figures you're citing account for the percentage of people who have ever been married and subsequently divorced, or just the overall percentage for the entire group, regardless of their marital inclinations? It makes a substantial difference.
 
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Gathomas88 said:
It's not Christ's version of Christianity. That's really all that needs to be said on the matter.

Frankly, I'm not even sure what you're arguing about here. You're just proving my point.

"Christians" (big air quotes around this one) who place modern secular values and culture ahead of God or his teachings, divorce more often than Christians who actually follow their religion as it was traditionally intended to be followed. That is not a coincidence.


The source was cited at the bottom of the graphs I posted.

Again, do the figures you're citing about account for the percentage of people who have ever been married who subsequently divorced, or just the overall percentage for the entire group, regardless of their marital inclinations?
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Modern secular values? Like what? Equality? Acceptance of differences?
 
calamity said:
Certainly. And, I support abortion for those reasons most of all.

You can't force people to stay together and say you are a libertarian. You can support abortion rights though.
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What do you imagine is the constitutional source of a right to abortion? As far as I can see, the Constitution is silent about it, and that means the subject was left to the people of each state to regulate as they saw fit. I would let all states have abortion on demand, if a majority in each one wanted that, let them all ban it completely, if a majority in all of them wanted that instead, or anything in between. Abortion is no more a federal concern than control of beverage alcohol or public nudity is.
 
David_N said:
Modern secular values? Like what? Equality? Acceptance of differences?
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Modern secular values like sex is "just for fun," and "I reserve the right to leave your ass with half of everything you own the minute it starts being anything less than that." :roll:
 
matchlight said:
What do you imagine is the constitutional source of a right to abortion? As far as I can see, the Constitution is silent about it, and that means the subject was left to the people of each state to regulate as they saw fit. I would let all states have abortion on demand, if a majority in each one wanted that, let them all ban it completely, if a majority in all of them wanted that instead, or anything in between. Abortion is no more a federal concern than control of beverage alcohol or public nudity is.
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Where is the constitutional authority to force families to remain together or deny women the right to kill whatever the hell is inside of them?
 
Gathomas88 said:
Modern secular values like sex is "just for fun," and "I reserve the right to leave your ass with half of everything you own the minute it starts being anything less than that." :roll:
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Sex is a great way for people to bond, and thanks to birth control, less of a risk. And it's amazing. ;)
 
David_N said:
Sex is a great way for people to bond, and thanks to birth control, less of a risk. And it's amazing. ;)
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zjhagtalhh6qcjymr4ps.png
 
Gathomas88 said:
By all metrics available, people who actually take their religion seriously have substantially higher marriage rates, and substantially lower divorce rates, than those who endorse more "modern" views of love and commitment, or eschew religion entirely.

Frankly, why on Earth wouldn't they? Modern culture only barely tolerates the notion of marriage and life-long commitment anyway.

There's not much incentive to even really try and keep such a union together.
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Except that's not what the statistics said at all. Even your own statistics (which I have no idea if they are more accurate than the other ones posted) only put 'non-religious denomination' couples as a few percentage points higher.

Gathomas88 said:
If someone makes a deliberate point of disobeying their religion's commandments, willfully shunning its life philosophies, and making no real effort to commune with its faithful, I think it can be safely said that they are a pretty objectively terrible follower of that religion.

Unfortunately, terrible Christians positively abound these days.
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If you only define Christians as 'people who don't divorce', then of course you're going to reach the conclusion they divorce less. You've put it in the definition.
 
Nilly said:
Except that's not what the statistics said at all. Even your own statistics (which I have no idea if they are more accurate than the other ones posted) only put 'non-religious denomination' couples as a few percentage points higher.

If you only define Christians as 'people who don't divorce', then of course you're going to reach the conclusion they divorce less. You've put it in the definition.
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Findings on Red and Blue Divorce Are Not Exactly Black and White

divorce-rates-by-religious-group.jpg


Research has pretty consistently indicated that certain groups (like Catholics, for example) have lower divorce rates across the board. Where Protestants are concerned, it seems that greater religious activity equates to lower overall divorce rates.

What's primarily screwing Protestants over in this regard are all the "nominal" members of their congregations, or the "Christians in name only." They might enter "Protestant" on a government form simply because that was how they were raised, but generally do not have much legitimate religious influence in their lives apart from that.
 
Gathomas88 said:
Findings on Red and Blue Divorce Are Not Exactly Black and White

divorce-rates-by-religious-group.jpg


Research has pretty consistently indicated that certain groups (like Catholics, for example) have lower divorce rates across the board. Where Protestants are concerned, it seems that greater religious activity equates to lower overall divorce rates.

What's primarily screwing Protestants over in this regard are all the "nominal" members of their congregations, or the "Christians in name only." They might enter "Protestant" on a government form simply because that was how they were raised, but generally do not have much legitimate religious influence in their lives apart from that.
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Even this shows "non-religious" are not in some special pool of higher divorce rates.
 
OrphanSlug said:
Even this shows "non-religious" are not in some special pool of higher divorce rates.
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Ah, but that is where things get wonky again. Lol

Look at the population they're discussing. It's people who get married younger than the age of 25.

I don't know about you... But, in my experience, that's basically nobody these days in the non-religious crowd. If they get married at all, it tends to be in their late twenties, or more likely their thirties. That latter group isn't being accounted for at all here.

The ones serious enough to do this early might very well be more willing to make things work than most of their peers. Frankly, even that's not saying much, as they're still only a percentage point or two below the very worst the entire religious group has to offer (who are basically non-religious in everything but name themselves). More devoutly religious persons have less than half the below 25 non-religious rate.

Like I said, statistics can be kind of a bitch in this regard.
 
Gathomas88 said:
Ah, but that is where things get wonky again. Lol

Look at the population they're discussing. It's people who get married younger than the age of 25.

I don't know about you... But, in my experience, that's basically nobody these days in the non-religious crowd. If they get married at all, it tends to be in their late twenties, or more likely their thirties. That latter group isn't being accounted for at all here.

The ones serious enough to do this early might very well be more willing to make things work than most of their peers. Frankly, even that's not saying much, as they're still only a percentage point or two below the very worst the entire religious group has to offer (who are basically non-religious in everything but name themselves). More devoutly religious persons have less than half the below 25 non-religious rate.

Like I said, statistics can be kind of a bitch in this regard.
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60pctofthetime.jpg
 
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