For A Good Time, Call ...Your Local Church Lady!

"They have long-term relationships. They have better marriages. They make more money. They're happier. All the data is there..."

In order to give credence to Tennessee's walk down the road to the Middle Ages*, abstinence-only advocates are coming out of the woodwork and making outrageous statements:

"All the data is there, and it is time for everybody to recognize it, both in the church and in the public sector that you know what, the church ladies are having the best sex!" - Leslee Unruh, founder of Abstinence Clearinghouse.

"All the data" meaning that something in Christian literature states that abstinence until marriage will reduce unwanted pregnancies much more than sex education combined with birth control. "All the data." Where? To most everyone on the planet, that data is coming out of Unruh's own private place where the sun doesn't shine. 

Last Monday Sermon, we talked about faulty research used to further the goals of the Righteous Right. This example, however, goes beyond those lies because Unruh is citing research that's too twisted for words. 


And twisted research doesn't count. 

The most pertinent study for AO advocates has been, of course, twisted to tout absolute success: the study showed that AO education for 12-year-olds delayed intercourse for only two years - certainly not until marriage. The study group was also held in question as not quite applicable to the question of AO. Of course, if you google "abstinence only studies" this one pops up a lot because of its popularity. 


Earlier in the interview, Unruh stated an even more unbelievable premise: that sex education is "really based on profound ignorance about human nature and what makes for a healthy family." This WTF? moment indicates that Ms. Unruh has been living on Pluto and is as far away from earth's reality as you can get: since the beginning of time, man has always had sex whenever and wherever he wanted. The Church - not man - has set its own limits on sex, creating guilt complexes and suicides.


Oh, and the part about relationships and money, sorry Leslee: you failed to mention that the church ladies also have a higher divorce rate than non-Christians and atheists**, their relationships don't last, and they make less money than their male counterparts, speaking of whom, don't get enough sex. 


At this point, a pertinent paragraph about Unruh - who is now considered the Queen of Abstinence Only - might be in order:

Unruh's obsessions include pedophiles, rape, molestation, pornography, disease, peer pressure to have sex and the idea that having multiple sexual partners automatically makes sex less intimate. She swears her daughter never even kissed her own husband until her wedding day. She thinks that taking birth control pills that limit menstruation is an effort to turn women into men. She also loves to hand out dolls of baby fetuses.

Life with Leslee Unruh must be so much fun!

So the best teen pregnancy prevention program is really not to talk about sex at all, right?


Right. Comparisons of AO programs to no sex education revealed the same results in teen pregnancy. And remember "virginity pledges"? They worked really well! One study over a five-year period showed that not only were virginity-pledged teens having just as much sex, they were having more unprotected sex than teens who didn't take the pledge. 


Tennessee and Utah:  Be Prepared!


It has never occurred in their righteousness just what the consequences of failed abstinence only programs will be, and while it may seem hyperbolic to say that Tennessee and Utah better be prepared for baby booms and playgrounds teeming with misinformation, the grain of truth in the statement is more like a rock. Very much like the rocks in Leslee Unruh's head, for she'll think that abstinence only is working - while she continues to hand out fetus dolls.


NOW ISN'T THAT SPECIAL!

*[JURIST] The Tennessee House of Representatives [official website] has passed a bill[HB 3621, PDF; bill summary] that augments the state's abstinence-only sex education curriculum to allow parents to sue school teachers or organizations that promote "gateway sexual activity."

** Some interesting stats: Born-again Christians 27% Other Christians 24% Atheists, Agnostics 21%

Japan's Honesty: 10 Gloaters: 0

Anyone who has seen Big Bird in Japan knows the shorthand for Japanese culture: They're so honest and disciplined! They're a collective society! They value the group over the individual! Of course they're not going to steal anything after the most devastating natural disaster of their lifetimes—unlike those undisciplined thieves in post-Katrina New Orleans and post-earthquake Haiti. Even if they're desperate for food, the Japanese will still wait in line for groceries.
                                                                                                                 - Christopher Beam, Salon


I've just posted an article on members of the Christian Right gloating over prophecies ignored by Japan. The arguments range from "God punished Japan because of atheism" to "God shook Japan because it's shaped like a dragon." Thankfully, Japan has not listened to any of these inane comments. Japan is a self-confident and self-disciplined society and despite the tragedies, it has had very few instances of looting. 


Hmmm. Wouldn't an ATHEIST, GODLESS, BUDDHIST, CONFUCIAN country like Japan be in complete chaos with looters everywhere? 


The Gloaters are going to have a tough time explaining this one.

We Told You So! We Told You So! Nah - nah - nah - NAH - nah!

EIGHTH COMMANDMENT: 

Life's A Journey. 

Enjoy The Ride!

Sorry, but I'm so happy, I couldn't possibly come up with another headline! The Pew Forum On Religion And Public Life just confirmed what I've been trying to drum into the heads of everyone reading my scribblings for the last five years: not only does the Christian Right know squat about other religions, but most of "the faithful" don't know much about their own religion! 

(AP)  A new survey of Americans' knowledge of religion found that atheists, agnostics, Jews and Mormons outperformed Protestants and Roman Catholics in answering questions about major religions, while many respondents could not correctly give the most basic tenets of their own faiths. 

The survey's questions, moreover, were almost ridiculously basic: 28% of the people surveyed could not name Moses as the chief character in Exodus, 54% didn't know who Martin Luther was, 61% could not identify Job in the Bible, and a whopping 45% did not fully know the Ten Commandments. This last statistic brings to mind another survey conducted:

In a 1997 survey, the London Sunday Times found that only 34 percent of 220 Anglican priests could recite all of the Ten Commandments without help! All of them remembered the parts about not "killing" and not committing adultery. But things got a little fuzzy after that. In fact, 19 percent of these priests thought that the eighth commandement is "Life is a journey. Enjoy the ride."

Kenneth C. Davis, Don't Know Much About The Bible

In the Pew Survey, Black Protestants and Hispanic Catholics knew the least about world religions while mainline Protestants and Evangelicals fared little better. There is an obvious correlation to this particular piece of ignorance in the current anti-Muslim sentiment the country is experiencing.

Another revealing statistic: knowledge of religion increased with level of education. Since few (if any) seminary graduates were polled, this means that the demonizing tactic against secular public education - secularism has taken all religion out of public schools - doesn't quite hold up. Tell THAT to the Texas Board of Education! 

The lack of knowledge evidenced in the Pew survey is something many writers have been warning against, but few people have acted upon. My own piece, Keeping Them Clueless,  got a lot of attention, but it certainly didn't send people to the polls. Charles Pierce's latest book, IDIOT AMERICA - How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free, had modest sales, but not enough to show that the message was getting through: Right wing Religious forces are slowing making our kids dumber in many areas of education as well as dumber in their own religion. 

Again, for the zillionth time: 

It could then be argued that the more narrow and self-righteous view a people have of their own religion, the better it is to control them. As with the contradictions and complexity of the Bible, a simple but very narrow, very definitive construct is the best way to keep control...

It's control. It has always been about control. Authority and control. Last week's major scandal about "Bishop" Eddie Long was a good example: a few buzz words during a sermon elicited a standing ovation. Eddie Long has authority. Eddie Long has control. Many of his flock have actually read the Bible, but Long's dictates determine which parts are important, which parts can be used as a weapon, and which parts can be used in healing. 

To the man-on-the-street, the questions could seem  basic. However, questions like "What is the first book of the Bible?" stumped 15% of Evangelicals. Not good. Roughly 50% knew the four Gospels. Bad. And a staggering 70% of Evangelicals do not know one of the core beliefs of Protestant Christianity: Salvation is reached by faith alone. 

Horrific.
   

What the PEW survey didn't question people on: history of the Bible,  Doctors of the Church (e.g. Founding Fathers), religious wars, missionary activities, epistles of St. Paul. Imagine what the scores would have looked like. Cry later and continue reading.

So the upshot of the survey: if you test an atheist and a Southern Baptist with this survey, chances are the atheist will score much higher overall. Shortcomings of religious education aside, this tells us that atheists are definitely more open-minded about religion than Southern Baptists. 

And being close-minded about religion can be ... deadly. 


Just a thought.