Monogamy

CUDA · Post by **CUDA** » Sun May 21, 2006 7:05 am

Jeff reading all your posts it looks to me that you seem to stick to the same theme over and over. \"the grass is always greener\" thats just not the case in reality. people get this notion in in their heads that our Cinderella's or Price Charming's are waiting for us around the corner and if we find them we will live happily ever after. well the last I checked there was only 1 perfect person to walk on this planet. now could it be a better relation ship the second time around??? yes. but why stop at the second? why not go for three or four, or even become one of the Gabor sisters or Elizabeth Taylor, they have been married so many times they must be happy right? or hell lets all become polygamists. your bound to get it right then. you cant be bored with 50 wives right? monogamy is about your character. its one of the things that defines WHO YOU ARE. I had a teacher in school that used to tell us \"winners never quit and quitters never win\" if you quit a marrage because of trivial reason you will never experience the true satisfaction it can bring. if your marrage is boring its because YOU made it that way and if you look for the easy way out you will never have a successful one. God never intended for Divorce to be an Option. he allowed it because of the hardness of man's heart. if you want a relationshio to work, then have a soft heart.

Genghis · Post by **Genghis** » Sun May 21, 2006 9:34 am

Just a quick cheap shot at Jeff's ideas on atheism, altruism, and marriage:

http://www.creationtheory.org/Morality/ ... orce.shtml

The Barna Research Group conducted a poll of Americans in 1999 in an attempt to show that religious faith reduces the likelihood of divorce. The results shocked them: Atheists had the lowest average divorce rates (defined as the percentage of people who had been divorced at least once in their lives), at 21%. Christian divorce rates averaged about 24% (higher for \"born-again\" Christians, ie- fundamentalists, at 27%), and even higher for Jews, at 30%. They also collected racial and geographical data, which showed that the white Southern Baptist fundamentalists have no reason to crow about their \"family values\". Not only did the Southern Bible Belt have the highest divorce rate in the country, but whites as a race are the most likely to split: 27%, as compared to 22% for blacks, 20% for Hispanics, and only 8% for Asians like me (and you thought I was just blowing hot air about that \"till death do us part\" stuff). UPDATE: interestingly enough, Barna Research later edited that article to lump all \"non-born-again adults\" into a single category, thus \"accidentally\" obscuring the embarrassing fact that atheists had the lowest divorce rates.

Now I suppose I can expect to hear of some sources discrediting or showing opposite results from this one. Ah well, I did say it was a cheap shot.

Kilarin · Post by **Kilarin** » Sun May 21, 2006 10:12 am

Now I suppose I can expect to hear of some sources discrediting or showing opposite results from this one.

Nope. Not from me anyway, or at least not opposite. I'll discredit it slightly though.

You will note that I have been very careful NOT to say that Christians have better sex lives. I said that people in long-term monogamous relationships report being the most satisfied with their sex lives.

The first Bana results (1999) DO seem to have some problems. From what I can find, this study did NOT limit itself to people who had ever been married. It appears that what they measured was the number of adults who had been divorced in each group, not taking into account the fact that Christians are more likely to get married. People who don't get married in the first place may have lots of failed relationships, but will still have fewer divorces.

But I wouldn't say that this shows the "opposite" of the Bana study, or invalidates it.
Bana's second study (2004) improved on their methodology by limiting itself to people who had been married at least once, and came up with equal divorce rates for Christians vs. non-Christians. EQUAL. And no, thats not quite as bad as "greater", but I still find it a quite shameful result.

Which proves that Christians don't live up to what they preach. But does NOT invalidate the fact that people (Christian or not) who DO stick with a Monogamous relationship tend to have the best sex lives (as well as better lives all around).

For a biased (but generally reasonable) analysis of the Bana results you can check out Adam's Blog

CUDA · Post by **CUDA** » Sun May 21, 2006 10:15 am

dont know about the Barna article that it quotes. but the site is clearly bigoted in its tone and tenure against christianity. but that is an off topic discussion. it doesnt surprise me in the least that \"Christians\" divorce more than athiests. most \"Christians\" think they are Christian and represent themselves as such just because they are born in America, they attend church twice a year (Christmas and Easter) and the most they could tell you about the Bible is that the earth was created in 7 days and some guy named Jesus was nailed to a cross

unfortunatelly the church is only about 5 years behind the secular world in its values, and it is showing that in the degredation of the family.

Jeff250 · Post by **Jeff250** » Sun May 21, 2006 9:45 pm

Cuda, I've already explained that I don't believe that one ought to act recklessly, nor do I believe that hardline monogamy or hardline monogamy plus a list of allowed exceptions is the best way either, but I believe that there is an appropriate mean in between those two choices.

I've also already given my caveats concerning the use of words like \"trivial\" to describe a reason not good enough to end a monogamous relationship. Don't use these descriptors unless you can define them without meaning something like \"not good enough to end a monogamous relationship.\" Otherwise, you're just excercising tautology.

Your character argument isn't compelling either. We typically only attribute merit to people with good character traits. Whether or not practicing monogamy always demonstrates a good character trait is the very question at hand. I think you would agree that if it were the case that somebody was foolishly practicing monogamy when they shouldn't be, that that person is neither demonstrating a good character trait nor is doing something worthy of merit.