This is bogus. Anyone can prove anything statistically if you define “christian” however you want. Note that he didn’t divide non-christians into a zillion different groups and cherry-pick out the one with the lowest divorce rate, he only did that with christians, which is patently dishonest.

This is referred to as the “no true scotsman” fallacy, google it.

He also doesn’t give his methodology, and neither does the page you link to.

Lies, damn lies and statistics.

This guy might as well just save time and define “real” christians as those who do not get divorced and then publish a “study” saying the divorce rate among christians is zero percent.

@mtngirlsouth - I don’t think it’s quite that bleak. I know I prefer the modern sexual equality with all of it’s problems to the sexism of the past.

@bakersdozen2 - The word “christian” does not exist in the bible, so no, the bible does not define the term. And while there are all kinds of christians, there are also all kinds of non-christians. If he wants to say that the fact that self-identified christians get divorced more often than non-christians isn’t relevant because the titles are so broad, that would be fine. But he is making the same claim in the opposite fashion and saying that christians are better and have more stable families than non-christians, and using a very broad definition for non-christians (that encompasses all sorts of people) and very narrow and exclusive definitions of “christians”, which is patently dishonest.

@mtngirlsouth - It’s not that it’s “perfectly acceptable”, it’s just the reality of it. People in all eras grew up without one or both parents. And in many cases an absentee parent is better than having the parent there. It depends on the parent.

@grim_truth -  “by saying they usually marry is a non-argument.”

I know. I wasn’t making an argument.

“Usually marry” does not hold the same weight as “stay married once they are.” According to that argument, then Christians “usually marry” which would make everything else you said a moot point, since less than 50% end in divorce, Christians usually stay married.”

I honestly have no idea what you’re even saying.

“You DID do something dishonest. You tried to turn the fact that many non-Christians simply live together as if they were married, into “they usually marry” in an attempt to make it sound like they never live together without getting married. Enough of your semantics game.”

You’re attacking things I never said as if I had said them. You said that non-christians don’t marry, that they just live together. I said they generally do get married. You then attacked me as if I had said that no non-christian ever doesn’t get married. Stop putting words in my mouth please.

You are on the edge of making a potentially valid argument, but you’re going about it the wrong way.

@bakersdozen2 - You seriously think that’s how human sexuality works?

@screamingout4you - I agree. If non-christians get divorced less often it’s likely because a) there’s less pressure against it from churches, less taboo etc and b) they tend to wait longer to settle down. Bear in mind also that when you marry young you are most likely going to wake up next to a stranger 20 years down the line, because nobody’s the same person when they are older that they were in high school. Not that it can’t work, but it often doesn’t.

@Randy7777 - I agree that marriage should be taken seriously, and abstinence makes indulgence more special the same way ice cream is more special when you don’t have it every week. This is common sense stuff. As far as secular people not getting married, bear in mind not getting married in a church isn’t the same thing as not getting married.

@Randy7777 - I do too, but married or not selfish people will be selfish.

@Randy7777 - You know marriage used to be buying a woman from her father, right? The definition of marriage has changed a LOT from the biblical tradition, this is nothing new. People think that marriage as it was in the 50′s is how it was originally – that’s ridiculous. You might want to watch this.

@PervyPenguin - True.

@bakersdozen2 - Sometimes.

@striemmy - You are calling me pathetic for saying something you agreed was true. Me thinks you’re just pissed off you have no argument.

@Randy7777 - ”Almost like let’s legalise drugs so crime will decrease.”

We already did that, it’s the 21st ammendment. And it worked : P Prohibiting something can cause more harm than good.

@trulytaken - I could see doctors having high divorce rates with the hours most of them work. Plus they probably get hit on a lot, etc.

@trulytaken - Thanks : ) Is beth bakersdozen? I’m horrible with names online.

@Randy7777 - I’m a master debater : ) And the bible doesn’t actually have a single, coherent message. It is dozens of texts from different eras written in different languages. It contains many philosophies, some passages are even basically agnostic. The sense that it has a coherent message comes from pastors and priests of each generation crafting a coherent narrative out of it, but they do so by selecting some passages and ignoring others. When it was socially acceptable to own slaves, the passages condoning slavery were taught in sunday school. When raping someone’s wife was considered a property offense – meaning you were punished for using the husband’s property without permission – then the passages like the one I just read were heard in sunday school. And so on, and so forth.

@striemmy - You’re pretending to contradict me when you’re not contradicting me. Stop wasting my time please.

@Randy7777 - I believe the bible says what it says, and you believe it says what you’d like it to say. We can’t debate this issue further, not because we’re in “different universes” but because you’re running away and pretending I and my views don’t exist.

I’m used to people being narrow about their religious views, but it annoys me even more when they pretend to be open-minded then run away from the discussion two minutes later.

@striemmy - Not what I meant by black. But I think you know that. And I know it doesn’t make it a fact, it does however not make me an asshole for not providing proof of something that had not been disputed up to that point.

@bakersdozen2 - : P Any comment to anything I said?

@Randy7777 - Here’s a brief rundown on a few rules of debate – when you make an assertion and can’t support it, you are expected to abandon it, or if you’re really pig-headed at least acknowledge you might be wrong. Instead you pretend you just won the argument. And didn’t you just call me a fool somewhere with scripture? Where do you get off?