Zumby cited a bunch of studies in his post that seemed to indicate a correlation between faith and divorce, and such like that.
Quote:
We also know that the religious are more likely to support torture and the death penalty, and the religious have higher rates of divorce, teenage pregnancy, and abortions.
I don't buy them for a second.
My initial impression is based on personal experience. I have long believed that the numbers of people who '[x]-Christian' on surveys, though they have not practiced, said prayers, talked about Christ, or attended church
in years is substantial. I cannot explain this phenomena, but I think of the people I know around me, and see evidence of this all of the time.
As an evangelizing christian who is open with his faith and actively proselytizes, I think I am in a good position to note certain trends. In fact, you might even say that I've done my own large-sample survey over my lifetime, and what I've found is that the designation "I am a x-Christian" means very little. Most people who say this have not attended church
in years. Many are backslidden. The women have gone and had abortions without even praying about it or consulting a church authority. The men openly boast of adultery outside of the marriage to coworkers and friends and then, when I start a conversation with them about Christ or Christianity, they say: "Yeah, I'm a Christian," and I am
often startled by this identification. Imo, the latter state of a backslider is often
worse than the initial state, as Christ pointed out.
Quote:
"In this country, the vast majority of people define themselves as Christians," said Dr. Ammerman, professor of the sociology of religion at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut. "People have a particular denomination with which they identify. That does not mean that they go to church or that they even know anything about that denomination." Southern Baptists are the largest Protestant denomination in the country, and nondenominational churches cover a wide spectrum of beliefs.
Quote:
Mr. Johnson is also a therapist and federal probation officer. His work experience has caused him to note that it's awfully popular to be Baptist. "When I interview criminals going into prison or coming out of prison, most of them are Baptists," he said, laughing. "Everybody seems to be a Baptist, even if they're not religious or Christian."
It should also be noted that the divorce study is a controversial one-off that is not backed by other studies on the same question. All previous studies related to religious identification and divorce showed that religious people had
lower rates of divorce.
And, in fact, the latest data (
source) shows that born-again christians divorce at lower rates than those of a non-christian faith (38%). It also shows that those people people
who consider themselves to be liberal on social and political matters divorce at an extremely high rate of 37% -- Therein is the heart of the matter. It just confirms my own personal study, you might say, as someone has been on the street witnessing Christ and his message.
The latest data also showed that 30% of atheist/agnostics have been divorced, but that they marry much less often then the general population. They often cohabitate outside of marriage-- which is extremely relevant. They may in fact have more failed relationships overall, which the data would not demonstrate.
Quote:
In fact, when evangelicals and non-evangelical born again Christians are combined into an aggregate class of born again adults, their divorce figure is statistically identical to that of non-born again adults: 32% versus 33%, respectively.
Thirty percent of atheists and agnostics had been married and subsequently divorced. However, the three-point difference from the national average was within the range of sampling error, suggesting that their likelihood of experiencing a dissolved marriage is the same as that of the population at-large.
I'm not sure why zumby chose the study he did, instead of more recent data, but -- imo-- it doesn't matter anyway.
There are serious questions about some of his other sources here also, but I don't have the time right now, but will get to it later.