I think atheists have the lowest divorce rate because atheist marriages are easier than trying to live a holy marriage blessed by God. Married Christians have to work hard and sacrifice to meet the requirements set by God for marriage. Atheists can have affairs and it doesn't matter because there is nothing requiring them to be faithful. Atheists can demand little or nothing of their spouse so there is less conflict. It's the easy way out and where life is easy one will find Satan. Satan paves the road of ease. God paves the holier way with troubles that have to be overcome.
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Wow. Or maybe it's trying to apply to modern society that whole mysogynistic, antiquated, superstitious, tome of dumb you call the babble that's causing all the problems.
Atheists can have affairs and it doesn't matter because there is nothing requiring them to be faithful.
Oh, yes, there is, toerag. I made a promise to my wife in front of witnesses, and I don't know about you but I keep my promises.
Yeah, all us atheists got is to worship and adore each other. Seriously, Bill, do you think you're reasoning here paints a pretty picture for Christian marriage?
Yeah, the only thing keeping atheist marriages together is all those meaningless little affairs. Too bad we don't have a God sticking conflict into all of our relationships so that we can demand things of our partners.
I don't know about you, William, but I don't particularly need an apathetic deity watching over my shoulder to make sure I don't have affairs.
Um... you think atheists have affairs and their spouses DON'T care? Atheists have emotions too, you know. Some people may have marriages where they can sleep with whomever and their spouse doesn't care, but then that's not really an affair, is it? But, in most cases where sleeping around is not acceptable, affairs aren't going to hold the marriage together. Love, commitment, and trust will.
Just a second. In the past, they accused atheism of promoting divorce. Now, it´s found out that they don´t divorce as much as Christian, and they say that it´s because they go cheating and treating the others like shit?, wasn´t it the cause of divorce, that they didn´t try to understand each other and that´s why the marriage went rocks, unlike Christian one?. Following the atheist, the ones who divorce less are Catholics, Lutherans and agnostic..............will you say the same about them?.
Actually, divorce rates differ wildly by faith group. As such, lumping all of Christianity together will produce inaccurate results.
BTW, Mormons who are married inside the temple tend to have one of the lowest divorce rates in the United States.
I think there are a lot of contributing factors that lead to atheists having a lower divorce rate, but it all begins with the fact that most atheists don't feel the need to get married just to get their freak on. People rush marriage when it's the only avenue to sex. Rushing into marriage with a person you don't really know just to get into their knickers is a great way to set yourself up for divorce.
Now now, let's not be hasty, he did say (despite obviously meaning something else entirely, and probably with some venom in there) two things that do make some sense:
"I think atheists have the lowest divorce rate"
I wouldn't be surprised, even if one only counts those who do get married (several aquaintences of mine did not and if anything have gotten even closer for it)... seeing as its, unlike a "holy marriage", something we base on love, trust and understanding. Tends to make for far better relationships than, say, 'pa's shotgun' after the holy innocent little virgin turns out to be 4 months pregnant...
"Atheists can demand little or nothing of their spouse so there is less conflict"
As negative as he can try to make it sound, shouldn't that pretty much show WHY the divorce rates are lower? what with seeing one's wife/lover/mate as a partner in life, rather than an enslaved breeding-toy?
If satan makes for healthy, happy relationships, those 'god' worshippers must be the masochistic branch of the christian faith!
Maybe it's because some of us believe in basing a relationship on love and mutual respect, rather than the impossible, contradictory "laws" set down in an ancient book. And I don't know about you, but I think if you're demanding anything from your spouse/significant other/what-have-you, you're going about it the wrong way. People should be together, and be faithful to one another because they want to be, not because they have to be. That is why so many "holy" marriages fall to pieces.
Married Christians have to work hard and sacrifice to meet the requirements set by God for marriage
Actually, the main requirement facing Christians is a strong church opposition to divorce, which ought to work in the opposite direction.
If a holy marriage is so much more difficult than an evil satanic atheist marriage, then in what sense has it been blessed, rather than cursed, by God?
By the way, would "The Ambassadors of Sin" make an awesome name for a band, or what?
"God paves the holier way with troubles that have to be overcome."
Maybe that's your problem. You figure that any trouble that comes along in your life was placed there by God for you to endure.
Whereas the rest of us look at it as a solvable difficulty, resolve the situation, and get on with our happy lives.
There's nothing requiring atheist spouses to be faithful???
What about
1) Marriage vows made to one's spouse
2) Genuine love for one's spouse and a desire to be monogamous?
3) The fact that an atheist spouse is at least as likely to go ballistic when cheated on as any other type. Possibly even more, since they haven't been trained to just submit, forgive, and take whatever bullshit gets dished out to them. Try cheating on a non-submissive atheistic woman and see how quickly you and your assets get ripped to shreds.
Oh, and for David D.G. (since Skyfire hasn't been by to answer you yet):
Some information on Mormon Temple Marriages
The thread over on the blog is great. Ol' William calls somebody an "ambassador of sin". Good stuff.
I want to be an ambassador of sin! Diplomatic immunity FTW! image
Yet I GUARANTEE I have a much higher moral code that I happen to stick by, than many Christians out there.
Perhaps it's actually because atheists can give their attention to their spouses instead of worrying about a mythological being looking over their shoulders.
Or perhaps, since Christians live a lie every day, they lie to their spouses as well?
I think atheists have the lowest divorce rate because atheist marriages are easier than trying to live a holy marriage
Probably. You're trying to bash atheists because our marriages are easier? We got the good end of that one. By the way, I think you mean "so-called "holy marriage."
blessed by God.
So your God wants you to have a difficult marriage? I think I can do without his "blessing."
Married Christians have to work hard and sacrifice to meet the requirements set by God for marriage.
Again, I feel sorry for you, but the fact that you subject yourself to asinine rules isn't my problem. Wouldn't it be easier to quit living in fairytales and stop worrying about what your angry, spiteful, petty, loose cannon of a God wants you to do?
Atheists can have affairs and it doesn't matter because there is nothing requiring them to be faithful.
Except for the fact that respect for our partners compels us not to. Honestly, William, when will you fundies wake up and realize you do not have a monopoly on being good people? From what I've seen of fundies, I'm not even sure you are good people, let alone own the rights to it.
Atheists can demand little or nothing of their spouse so there is less conflict.
I don't know what you mean here. Does this mean that I have the right to not boss my wife around and belittle her? Cuz wow, I'd totally give up that right. I hope she gets as mad at me as your fundie wife gets at you.
It's the easy way out and where life is easy one will find Satan.
Yes, except that Satan doesn't exist, and I've just taken the "easy way out" and had an "easy life" and that's pretty much it. I fail to see the problem.
Satan paves the road of ease.
Yes, or, far more likely, Satan doesn't exist and you idiot fundies are just making life unnecessarily hard for yourselves.
God paves the holier way with troubles that have to be overcome.
And if you're wrong about that, then you've just gone and made your entire life a pain in the ass struggle for absolutely no reason at all. Good job, William!
Adrian: I want to be an ambassador of sin! Diplomatic immunity FTW!
You're one hell of a poet. I wonder if you know it?
Sanity: Thanks. As near as I can tell, there really is no reason to believe that a temple itself, physically, has the slightest effect on a marriage. The custom of marital permanence among Mormons seems to be a cultural standard, just a little stronger there than it is in conventional Christianity overall. There were almost no statistics given; if there is any difference of statistical significance, it is surely attributable to the fact that those Mormons who go to the trouble to get married in a temple are more devoted to the faith than those who don't, indicating a foundation for a particularly strong bond in their marriage (or at least a strong bond with the church, which emphatically discourages divorce). The building itself has no mystical powers to make marriages better.
~David D.G.
David, the actual belief (straight from a Mormon woman with whom I used to work, who was married in the temple) is that temple marriages "seal" you to your spouse for all eternity, including in the afterlife, whereas marriages not performed in the temple do not - those marriages supposedly only last for the duration of this earthly life.
At the time she and I discussed it, she was having some serious issues in her marriage and was quite concerned about being eternally stuck with her husband, whom she had married rather hastily and who was definitely NOT living up to the standards for a Mormon (or even just plain decent) husband.
Yeah. You keep telling yourself that. I, however, will subscribe to honesty and faithfulness towards my partner, and it won't be because of some contract called marriage. We don't need that. It will be because we love and respect one another. We don't need your dumbass god.
Sanity: Exactly. The whole issue isn't that performing the wedding ceremony in the temple assures a better marriage; it just puts a greater onus on the couple to stay together for the sake of the religion's tenets, WHATEVER the marriage is like. The upbringing and social pressures to conform to the group's ideals, especially within a group like the Mormons that has a heightened sense of group identity, must be enormous.
As for the marriage being "sealed for eternity," even past death, well, one should start by proving that ANYTHING of us outlasts death in the first place.
~David D.G.
God paves the holier way with troubles that have to be overcome.
This is such unbelievable bullcrap I'm literally amazed that even a fundy would post it for the world to see. Why in the name of all things impossible would your Gawd afflict his favorite people in this way? How do you think you're going to convince anyone to become a christian if Gawd makes christian marriages so damn miserable?
I agree with mkb, this is the best advertisement for atheism I've seen yet.
Brilliant! If atheists had a higher divorce rate than Christians, that would certainly prove their moral inferiority to Christians. But in fact atheists have a LOWER divorce rate than Christians, and that ALSO proves their moral inferiority to Christians! Nothing more rigorous than fundie logic.
In fact, sociologists give a more realistic picture of why atheists, agnostics, Catholics and Lutherans have fewer divorces. One, because they don´t marry as young as possible, pressured by their peers and family. Second, because they have more realistic goals in marriage. They know that marriage won´t solve once in a sudden all the problems intrinsical to sex and couple. For that reason, they either go into pre-marriage courses(Catholics and Lutherans)or to counselling if the marriage has difficulties. To say that they can have affairs and means nothing to them is ridiculous. The other part of the set will feel offended too and ask for divorce. Second, this guy is tacitly admitting that the goals of marriage in the Christian protestant WASP conception are a little unrealistic and that Christians break more often than not these rules and that they are demanding to their couples. I think that that´s the key to the whole discussion. In which sense, then, are those Christians superior to the rest of the world?
William seemed harmless enough when he was just ranting on the "Atheist In a Minivan" blog, but apparently William somehow got the blogger's real address and showed up at her house. The blog owner has decided to keep most of the details private, but it looks like William confronted her daughter (who wrote the original essay that attracted William (and us) to the blog). The man's not funny anymore -- he's just dangerous
Actually, if an atheist finds a cheating spouse, they have no problem divorcing because they don´t think it´s a sin and they think they have their right to act so if wronged. Could it be that they CHEAT far less?
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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