I decided it wise to collect some evidence that showed me Christians were measurably different from others…. [But] it was discouragingly easy—though incredibly surprising—to find out that Christians, as a group, acted no differently than anyone else, including atheists. Sometimes they performed a little better; other times a little worse. But the Body of Christ didn’t stand out as morally superior.
—William Lobdell, Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America—and Found Unexpected Peace (2009), p. 204
Christianity is like a wheel of cheddar cheese. It’s all nice and pretty and round and orange. Perfect. Until a little mold starts to grow. They slice off the moldy piece, push it out of view, hold up what’s left of the wheel, and insist, “See? That wasn’t a real Christian, anyway. Christians are more moral than others.” Then some more mold grows and they repeat the procedure. They do this over and over, each time exclaiming about how the remaining, mold-free cheese proves Christians are better than unbelievers. The only reason the wheel doesn’t disappear entirely is that they keep glomming more new cheese onto it.
You’ve earned one internet hug
Ah, yes! *sigh* Thank you!
and another [[[[[[hug]]]]]]
This is gonna be a group hug, I think!
Atheism & Divorce: Divorce Rates for Atheists are Among the Lowest in America
Why Do Conservative Christian Defenders of Marriage Get Divorced More Often?
http://atheism.about.com/od/atheistfamiliesmarriage/a/AtheistsDivorce.htm
Conservative Christians of all types, evangelical as well as Catholic, tend to link their conservative brand of their religion with proper moral behavior. By far the most popular context is marriage: they claim that a good, solid marriage is only possible when people acknowledge conservative Christianity’s claims about the nature of marriage and gender roles. So why is it that Christian marriages, and especially conservative Christian marriages, end in divorce more often than atheist marriages?
The Barna Research Group, an evangelical Christian organization that does surveys and research to better understand what Christians believe and how they behave, studied divorce rates in America in 1999 and found surprising evidence that divorce is far lower among atheists than among conservative Christians — exactly the opposite of what they were probably expecting.
11% of all American adults are divorced
25% of all American adults have had at least one divorce
27% of born-again Christians have had at least one divorce
24% of all non-born-again Christians have been divorced
21% of atheists have been divorced
21% of Catholics and Lutherans have been divorced
24% of Mormons have been divorced
25% of mainstream Protestants have been divorced
29% of Baptists have been divorced
24% of nondenominational, independent Protestants have been divorced
27% of people in the South and Midwest have been divorced
26% of people in the West have been divorced
19% of people in the Northwest and Northeast have been divorced
The highest divorce rates are in the Bible Belt: “Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama and Oklahoma round out the Top Five in frequency of divorce…the divorce rates in these conservative states are roughly 50 percent above the national average” of 4.2/1000 people. Nine states in the Northeast (Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Maryland) have the lowest divorce rates, averaging just 3.5/1000 people.
Barna isn’t the only group to arrive at these numbers. Other researchers have also found that conservative Protestants get divorced more often than other groups, even more often than “mainline” Protestants. The fact that atheists and agnostics divorce less often than other religious groups was, however, surprising to many. Some have simply refused to believe it.
Credit should be given to George Barna, himself a conservative evangelical Christian, for at least trying to face up to these results and what they might mean: “We would love to be able to report that Christians are living very distinct lives and impacting the community, but…in the area of divorce rates they continue to be the same.” According to Barna, his data raises “questions regarding the effectiveness of how churches minister to families” and challenge “the idea that churches provide truly practical and life-changing support for marriage.”
Born again adults who have been married are just as likely as non-born-again adults who have been married to eventually become divorced. Because the vast majority of born again marriages occurred after the partners had accepted Christ as their savior, it appears that their connection to Christ makes less difference in the durability of people’s marriages than many people might expect. Faith has had a limited affect on people’s behavior, whether related to moral convictions and practices, relational activities, lifestyle choices or economic practices.
Barna should, however, acknowledge that the divorce rates for conservative Christians are higher than for liberal Christians. He also doesn’t take the further step of acknowledging that perhaps conservative Christianity and conservative religion in general are unable to provide a sound basis for marriage — that perhaps there are other, more secular foundations for marriage that conservative Christians are missing. What might they be? Well, an obvious possibility is treating women like fully autonomous equals in the relationship, something which conservative Christianity frequently denies.
The difference in divorce rates is particularly interesting given the fact that the Christians getting divorced in the highest numbers are among the same Christians who are most likely to raise an alarm about the state of marriage in society. They also tend to be the same Christians who want to deny gays the right to marry on the assumption that gay marriage is a “threat” to the institution of marriage. If marriage is in any danger in America, perhaps the threat comes from the unstable marriages of conservative Christians, not the relationships of gays or the marriages of godless atheists.
Maybe atheists tend to be more highly educated & wait longer to get married. A shotgun wedding at 18 just isn’t likely to last.
Probably by a lot of measures, there is no discernable difference between Christians and non-Christians, including atheists. Certain categories will stand out though. Almost never do atheist clergy use their status as God’s representative on earth to facilitate their sexual predation of their congregations.
“Almost never do atheist clergy use their status as God’s representative on earth to facilitate their sexual predation of their congregations.”
Yeah. Don’t think I’ll hold my breath for that one.
Assuming for a minute that there can possibly be atheist clergy, this doesn’t exactly happen very often among the Christian clergy, either. That it happens at all and doesn’t get stamped out by the higher-ups is disgusting, but I don’t think the many can be saddled with the guilt of the few. Christians are people with faults. They shouldn’t make claims to perfection, and shouldn’t fall prey to the problems endemic to the culture. The divorce rate is more a function of the current culture and people’s socioeconomic status than their religion. Most of the real Christians that I know willingly admit that they and other Christians screw up and don’t claim moral superiority. However, they do strive for a higher goal, ethically and spiritually, and that is something to admire.
We’re dealing with a segment of the population who have truly been Left Behind. How else would you describe students studying and teachers reading from a two-thousand-year-old textbook?
My desire to ridicule is slowly shifting to a sense of pity.
Pity causes fewer ulcers than wrath.
…but it can be viewed as somewhat more condescending.
True. But if you’re at the point that you’re going to ridicule them mercilessly anyway, are you really caring about that?
Touché.
Two quick notes: I suspect that the differences are not so much linked with atheism or theism as with what social, cultural contexts support someone being an atheist (education, etc). Secondly I thinke to read from books older than 2000 years old (Aristotle comes to mind)