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Imeokparias
Today Lisa and the boys went to the Cumberland Adventure Science Museum with the Imeokparias and then spent an hour or two at Centennial Park. Jonathan spent part of the day at Vanderbilt and had lunch with his grad school advisor who has moved from U Tenn to Vanderbilt. Tonight we met the Imeokparias for dinner at a Thai restaurant.
Nashville
We left on Friday for our Spring Break trip to Tennessee. We spent Friday night at the Hampton Inn in Bowling Green, OH. We were lucky to get a room because the hotel was packed with folks participating in a special olympics basketball activity on Saturday. On Saturday we drove the rest of the way to Nashville. That's where we met Jeannie, David, and Kathryn (who had driven over from North Carolina) at the Sullivan's apartment. We had dinner at La Hacienda restaurant. The waitress only spoke a tiny bit of english, so we enjoyed practicing our spanish. The restaurant's owner had been murdered in his apartment a few days earlier. On Sunday we went to church at Acklen Avenue and then out to lunch at the Istanbul Restaurant. We had Lisa's birthday cake at the Sullivan's apartment before the Moore's headed back to NC. We visited Tom and Sallie Namey Sunday afternoon.
Christians have abortions just as often
The Center for Reason recently published a study that claims that the percent of viable pregnancies that are terminated is the same in more-"Christian" regions of the U.S. as it is in other regions. From the press release here:
A new study by The Center For Reason (www.CenterForReason.com) finds that Christians have just as many abortions as their non-Christian counterparts. The study concludes that in the year 2000, Christians were responsible for 570,000 abortions. Catholics were found to be the worst offenders, with abortion rates higher than the national average. San Francisco, Calif. (PRWEB) March 12, 2006 -- With over one million abortions being performed in the US each year, this issue has dominated the political landscape. In recent years the rhetoric has escalated, with the pro-life movement becoming a flagship for Christian morality and ethics. The prevailing Christian doctrine--that abortion is murder--has polarized the issue, firmly placing the vast majority of Christians on the pro-life side of the debate. Incendiary comments by some of the more outspoken Christian figureheads have sought to portray abortion as an "evil" perpetrated by the non-Christian left. In response to this, The Center For Reason, a private research group, undertook a study to test the premise: "Christians have fewer abortions than non-Christians". The results disproved the premise. The study, available as a downloadable report, reveals that Christians have just as many abortions as non-Christians. Data analyzed for all fifty states show that the rate of abortion is the same in the most-Christian segments of the population as it is in the least-Christian. The most-Catholic segments, on the other hand, showed significantly higher abortion rates. All data sources used in the study are publicly available, and are referenced in the report. All raw data and calculated values are tabulated in the report, to allow full verification of the results.
This is the result that the Center would hope to find, so there is some danger of bias. However, I would guess that the result is probably not too far from the truth and isn't that big of a surprise. We've heard the same thing in the past about divorce. And we know that the large percentage of Americans that claim to be Christians doesn't exactly translate to Christian behavior being observed as the dominant norm in our society. Unfortunately, it may be that many Christians aren't exactly diligent in applying in applying Biblical principles to our own lives. Our lives really aren't that different from those of others. The report is for sale for $10. About the Center for Reason from their web site:
Our mission is to raise the level of public discourse by bringing reason, knowledge and scientific analysis to topics of public concern. We are a group of private citizens, and are not affiliated with any political party, church, corporation or any other organization. We conduct research into topics that we believe have been misrepresented in public debate. We sell our research reports for a nominal fee to help defray our costs. We also accept donations, and suggestions for future topics of research.
Modern Morals
The Pew Research Center recently published a study "A Barometer of Modern Morals" regarding the American public's view of different behaviors as being morally wrong, morally acceptable, or not a moral issue.
The activity that drew the most widespread moral disapproval, 88%, was "married people having an affair," while the one that drew the least was "overeating" - although a sizable minority (32%) said that activity was morally wrong. Two moral issues that have had the greatest political resonance in recent years - homosexuality and abortion - divide the broad public in almost exactly the same way, but are seen differently by some sub-groups in the population. Men are more morally disapproving than women of homosexuality, but both genders have similar views about abortion. Likewise, the old and the young judge the morality of these two behaviors in different ways. On the question of homosexuality, the old are more disapproving than the young. But on the question of abortion, there is no clear difference between the old and the young. Catholics are more disapproving of abortion than they are of homosexuality. Married people are more disapproving of abortion than are those not currently married, but there is no clear difference between the married and unmarried on homosexuality. Majorities of three groups - weekly church-goers, white evangelical Christians and those ages 65 and older - say that nine of the 10 behaviors are morally wrong. Among these groups, overeating is the only behavior not judged by a majority to be morally wrong.
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