Interesting. Two MEN are going to talk about a woman's decisions.

GarandFan - are you referring to the Planned Parenthood response? I wonder if the irony will be lost on others who see this.

Kim says: "I have to ask, where do they think a guy in the year 2010 would learn the principles and values that would cause him to have 'a deep commitment to and reverence for women and the sanctity of marriage' if not in the evangelical Christian church? Values such as Tim Tebow's don't exist in a vacuum."

Right on, Kim. I would add, that the Catholic Church and the more conservative Anglican and other protestant denominations, and conservative Judaism, and probably other religions, would also teach these principles.

But these religious organizations face considerable undermining by many scientific propositions that cause many people to be unable to subscribe to those religions. Thus the moral teaching is lost.

Probably the central moral question of our time is whether widespread, deep-rooted institutions can, and will, develop that bring about in the hearts of young men a "deep commitment to and reverence for women and the sanctity of marriage" without being dependent on requiring young men also to accept factual propositions that are contradicted by the scientific community.

Oh well, when all else fails, they can always claim they were at peace with the One.

Sure, Sisson - young men can hold those values without believing in global warming!

I wonder if CBS is giving Planned Parenthood a special low price for their ad the same way the New York Times gave Moveon.org a special low price for their Betrayus/Petraeus ad.

Maybe not. CBS, like all good liberal businesses, hates filthy profits, except for their own. Just think how much filthy profit they are making on each ad. All it costs them to broadcast an ad is the electricity to send it up to the satellite. They should donate all their filthy profits to Haitian relief. They should be required by the government to donate all their filthy profits to Haitian relief. And all their employees should be drafted by the government to go to Haiti to help out.

Me? I'm not going. I have stuff to do here in my Mom's basement.

The left doesn't like the message of young people with a moral compass to be heard for the same reason Obama didn't want the Churchill bust in the Oval Office - they look so bad by comparison.

I think the recognition of the value and strength of women is a personal one brought on by one's experiences with women. Catholics have a special reverence for Mary and her strength, but many other Christian religions do not believe women are equals. Many of them believe in the unwavering fealty to their husbands and other men. I don't agree that Tim's respect for his mom came from his faith; it came from her example.

Katie (#8): Excellent point. One way a young man can develop "a deep commitment to and reverence for women and the sanctity of marriage" is if his mother is of such character and principles as to inspire him, as his primary example of what a woman can be, to have "a deep commitment to and reverence for women."

Jim Addison (#5) -- I don't quite see the global warming link -- I was thinking more along the lines of scientific conflicts with some interpretations of the Bible such as "young earth" vs. "old earth," chemical -only origin of life, Darwinian evolution, the problem of evil in a world created by a good God, etc.

How dare this young man claim that people can actually strive for control of their own lives. Since not everyone is capable of getting an A in self control we must abandon the subject entirely. Virgins should be derided and ridiculed because their example could easily cause uncomfortable feelings among those who have chosen not to repress their "natural" desires.
He is also advocating economic disaster for the many businesses engaged in exploiting and fueling those "natural" urges. Most of the benefits and opportunities of virginity are still available to those who successfully use contraceptives or "choose" abortion as a means of lessening the side effects of premarital sex.
There is no need to be prematurely forced into the next lesson of life known as parental responsibility. Self determination, control, and responsibility is a subtle and serious threat to our desire satiating way of life. Let us eat drink, and be merry, (and hope we die before the bill comes due).
It is unwise to listen to these religious extremists who believe that fetuses are people and have a right to life. Yes the parasitic like fetus is technically a human and develops a functioning brain quite early but it clearly doesn't function like yours or mine.
They have absolutely no way to engage in the kind of cognitive reasoning that "real" people do. Come to think of it, we are not certain that these religious nuts are capable of such thought processes either.
We must fight these deranged bigots who are trying to poison the minds of our youth.

But I have to ask, where do they think a guy in the year 2010 would learn the principles and values that would cause him to have "a deep commitment to and reverence for women and the sanctity of marriage" if not in the evangelical Christian church? Values such as Tim Tebow's don't exist in a vacuum.

After debacles such as Mark Sanford and Tiger Woods, I wonder if these values exist at all. Tebow may in fact be the nice, wholesome person he portrays on TV and on the football field. But these days, I'm especially disinclined to trust carefully cultivated public images.

Kim:

But I have to ask, where do they think a guy in the year 2010 would learn the principles and values that would cause him to have "a deep commitment to and reverence for women and the sanctity of marriage" if not in the evangelical Christian church?

Thanks for asking... as to your claim...

Senator John Ensign (R-Nevada) admitted to having an affair with one of his campaign staffers. This would hardly be noteworthy except that Sen. Ensign is an conservative Christian...

and

HOMO-hating Christian Carrie Prejean, who was stripped of her Miss California title, hurriedly dropped her $1-million law suit against pageant organisers Miss California USA after it was revealed that that she starred in a hard-core solo sex home video....

The self-gratifying Prejean invoked the wrath of American gays when she took a stand against same sex marriage, but her bigotry greatly delighted right wing Christian groups - but their infatuation with Prejean and her fake tits is now fast evaporating.

and

Remember John Gechter, the Christian college student who was suspended for doing gay porn? Well, according to a tipster, Gechter is a burgeoning international superstar thanks to his considerable "power bottom" skills.

As you may recall Gechter, aka "Vincent DeSalvo," was suspended for a year from More..Grove City College in rural Pennsylvania after school officials were tipped off by another student, who just randomly happened to run across footage of dudes boning each other while doing research on the internet you see, that Gechter was having gay sex on film for money to pay his tuition.

I could go on and on and on and on and on and on with example after example after example.... but the Christian extremism that suggests the Christian way leads one to..."a deep commitment to and reverence for women and the sanctity of marriage" was just too funny to pass up.

PS:

Divorce rates among Christian groups:

The slogan: "The family that prays together, stays together" is well known. There has been much anecdotal evidence that has led to "unsubstantiated claims that the divorce rate for Christians who attended church regularly, pray together or who meet other conditions is only 1 or 2 percent". 8 Emphasis ours]. Dr. Tom Ellis, chairman of the Southern Baptist Convention's Council on the Family said that for "...born-again Christian couples who marry...in the church after having received premarital counseling...and attend church regularly and pray daily together..." experience only 1 divorce out of nearly 39,000 marriages -- or 0.00256 percent. 9

A recent study by the Barna Research Group throws extreme doubt on these estimates. Barna released the results of their poll about divorce on 1999-DEC-21. 1 They had interviewed 3,854 adults from the 48 contiguous states. The margin of error is ±2 percentage points. The survey found:
bullet 11% of the adult population is currently divorced.
bullet 25% of adults have had at least one divorce during their lifetime.
bullet Divorce rates among conservative Christians were significantly higher than for other faith groups, and much higher than Atheists and Agnostics experience.

George Barna, president and founder of Barna Research Group, commented:

"While it may be alarming to discover that born again Christians are more likely than others to experience a divorce, that pattern has been in place for quite some time. Even more disturbing, perhaps, is that when those individuals experience a divorce many of them feel their community of faith provides rejection rather than support and healing. But the research also raises questions regarding the effectiveness of how churches minister to families. The ultimate responsibility for a marriage belongs to the husband and wife, but the high incidence of divorce within the Christian community challenges the idea that churches provide truly practical and life-changing support for marriages."

According to the Dallas Morning News, a Dallas TX newspaper, the national study "raised eyebrows, sowed confusion, [and] even brought on a little holy anger." This caused George Barna to write a letter to his supporters, saying that he is standing by his data, even though it is upsetting. He said that "We rarely find substantial differences" between the moral behavior of Christians and non-Christians. Barna Project Director Meg Flammang said: "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." Both statements seem to be projecting the belief that conservative Christians and liberal Christians have the same divorce rate. This disagrees with their own data.

You can wave your hand and proclaim it so, Kim - but it ain't.

Steve Green your "study" has lots of problems.

1) "But sociological studies have one more hurdle to jump before serious researchers quote them. They must be backed by other studies. And this study isn't bolstered by others conducted in the 1980s, said Dr. Popenoe, a sociologist. "In general, studies show people who are religious tend to have lower divorce rates, especially if both husband and wife are religious," he said."

So, this is ONE study and it DOES NOT replicate any previous results, so you can't really know if it is true or not.

2) "Mr. Barna explained that his study shows a 25 percent overall divorce rate rather than the commonly cited 50 percent, because the 50 percent rate is derived by dividing the number of marriages by the number of divorces each year. Dr. Popenoe says an individual's chances of divorce over a lifetime are 40 to 50 percent, but 25 percent would be about the number of people who are now or have ever been divorced."

So, New York or other cities and states that have more unmarried people, often young adults, would automatically have fewer divorces just because they had never married. The way this "statistic" is done shows nothing of any comparative value.

3) "He rejected the idea that large numbers of divorced Christians left their marriages before they converted. He also found no reason in his 3,854-person national survey to believe that large numbers of Christian marriages broke up because the Christian partner was "unequally yoked" with a non-Christian."

Read it closely-this is OPINION not fact based on statistics.

4.) "What does it mean when someone claims to be a Christian, she asks? "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."

So really all this does is to identify those who call themselves "Christian" even if they are not active believers. Many/Most people will say that they are "Christian" but don't know what it really means, and do not sincerely follow Jesus. It's simply tradition with them, not faith that is followed by actions.

AND FINALLY THIS IS A NEWPAPER OR MAGAZINE ARTICLE AND DOES NOT CONTAIN BUT THE MOST GENERAL STATISTICS AND SO CANNOT BE CRITICALLY EXAMINED.

How many Christians are there, Steve Green? You post what 3 or 4 examples. It's a broad brush and is simply Christian bashing.

At least real Christians try to live up to Christ's teachings while Atheists don't even do that. Even Christians are human and failing in one area or one person failing SAYS NOTHING ABOUT CHRISTIANITY OR OTHER CHRISTIANS.

Not to mention it is 10 years old (2000).

Where are all the corroborating studies since then?

Feel free to quote and link to any evidence you can find that refutes mine, Carol...

Meanwhile:

The Associated Press analyzed divorce statistics from the US Census Bureau. They found that Massachusetts had the lowest divorce rate in the U.S. at 2.4 per 1,000 population. Texas had the highest rate at 4.1 per 1,000. They found that the highest divorce rates are found in the "Bible Belt."

According to the Boston Globe:

"The AP report stated that 'the divorce rates in these conservative states are roughly 50 percent above the national average of 4.2 per thousand people.' The 10 Southern states with some of the highest divorce rates were Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas. By comparison nine states in the Northeast were among those with the lowest divorce rates: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont."

and

The results of the survey reached the same conclusion as earlier studies that indicate divorce rates are higher among people who are members of conservative Protestant faiths. Being a member of a church doesn't afford couples an immunity from the issues that affect all couples that can lead to divorce.

If you look at divorce statistics by region, people who live in southern states (the "Bible Belt") are at a higher risk of getting divorced than people who live in other parts of the United States.

There are a few reasons why divorce rates are higher in this part of the country:

* People tend to get married at a younger age
* Average income per household is lower than the national average
* Highest level of education completed tends to be lower in states where divorce rate is higher

Top Five States for Divorce

The state with the highest number of divorces in the U.S. is Nevada. It has been known a place to get a "quickie" divorce for years. A person who wishes to get a divorce in Nevada must reside in the state for six weeks before they can file papers to legally end their marriage.

The other states that make up the Top 5 for divorce are:

* Arkansas
* Alabama
* Oklahoma
* Tennessee

HIghest divorce rates occur in the conservative "bible belt" while the lowest divorce rate is found in the liberal Northeast.

SG's fingers are so red from picking cherries his keyboard looks bloody.

Say whatever you want but the fact remains that the divorce rate means nothing if you don't compare it to the marriage rate.

And opinions mean nothing either.

This is just the liberals figuring that they can fool people into believing whatever the liberals want them to think.

It's nothing but Christian bashing.

A research study is only as good as the way it is done and the way that it is reported. This study is bogus.

I've shown that it is a poorly done, bogus study. If you want us to believe what you are saying then it is up to you to find the information from an appropriate, science/statistic survey/study.

(Don't you just hate it when someone knows how to critically read and understand research that is written about in newspapers, magazines and journals?)

So far all you have shown is that you either don't understand correctly done and reported research or that you have such a bias that you'll believe anything as long at it fits what you believe or want to believe.

And if you are too dense to understand that--

If Texas has a marriage rate of 15.1 per 1000 population and a divorce rate of 4.1 per 1000

then

the percentage of marriages resulting in divorces in actually more in New York if...

New York has a marriage rate of 5.2 and a divorce rate of 1.1 per 1000 people.

It's not only the "divorce rate" that matters, it's the marriage rate that puts it in perspective and gives a meaningful number.

You are comparing apples to oranges.

Carol, thanks for posting those excellent clarifications. I was suspecting as much but didn't have the background or resources to bring any proof to the table.

I'll be tuning in to the Superbowl, not because I have an affinity for either team playing, but because CBS decided to run the Tebows' ad.

Can you allow me to advertise my online business in your blog? it will be a great help if say yes. thanks a lot!
You helping a lot of PPL thanks for your golden ideas about home based jobs.

I would like to share the secret of profit online
Learn How I Earn $50 to $250 Every Day!

www.onlineuniversalwork.com

Anyone experience anything about the easy google profit kit? I discovered a lot of advertisements around it. I also found a site that is supposedly a review of the program, but the whole thing seems kind of sketchy to me. However, the cost is low so I'm going to go ahead and try it out, unless any of you have experience with this system first hand?

www.onlineuniversalwork