Wow, way to quote mine. That was one of many quotes in the article belonging to both believers and non believers and was provided as commentary from members of the groups represented in the study, not as the opinions of the article writers themselves OR the people who actually did the research.
If it does not represent anything being posited here, defend that point. I think it's obvious you didn't because it can't be done.
I think it's obvious I didn't because it's irrelevant. What point am I supposed to be defending, exactly? Because
my point was that you picked one small paragraph from an interview that didn't actually relate to the quality of the research or any of the people who conducted it, and then used that to dismiss said research.
Nice strawman, btw. You made up an opinion to attribute to me and then declared victory over it. I hope all that straw you're stuffing makes you itchy.
No, not in the least. If you must think of Christianity as a religion,
Please don't make me make a poll to see how many people on this board think of christianity as a religion. Meaning all of them except you, for some reason.
then
you should at least have the decency to point out that those closest to the leader concluded that it is better not to marry.
Which leader? There are a lot of leaders in christianity. Did Jesus say that somewhere?
Which would mean that said social pressures come not from the religion, but ... (wait for it) from society.
So their churches, their spiritual leaders, their holy holidays, and their ritualistic practices are not part of both religion and society? A religion isn't separate from the society it is found in. It's part of it.
A specific portion of society that atheists make a point of separating themselves from. And that specific portion of society doesn't generally do such a good job in this area, although there are exceptional congregations and leaders.
What exactly you mean by 'good job' or 'this area'? Vague wording just makes it look like you're flapping in the wind. Be specific.
Among 384 individuals, yes. Please don't feign ignorance of "sample size" as a term; this study is a JOKE. Now you want to consider what they refer to as "fundamentalist?"
You're missing a digit there, it was 3,854 individuals. Also, please don't feign ignorance of what 'margin of error' means, which was 2% for the study. (Although if you're getting numbers off by a factor of ten, maybe it isn't feigned?)
And if you'll read the rest of the article you might note that that study was confirming results found in previous studies, and also that looking at divorce statistics by area using U.S. census data (which has a much larger sample size, in case you were wondering) marks the bible belt states as those with the highest rates of divorce, eclipsed only by Nevada, where people go specifically to get divorced. The states with the lowest divorce rates are traditional 'blue' ones... Connecticut, Vermont, Maine.. basically the whole North East of the country.
And if you'd like to take a stab at the ulterior motives of the researchers, you might note that the man who organized the survey is an evangelical christian who, with great integrity, stood beside the data even when it proved something he didn't like.
You can twist and gnaw on this for as long as you like, but you're butting your head up against factual findings. There's no way to make them agree with you or discredit them.
