tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post5294358607116461478..comments2023-10-31T03:18:26.963-07:00Comments on Great Guys Weblog: War of the Sexes: Part 1 - DivorceBrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15063508651955739056noreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-84714452527229949112015-01-08T15:33:51.501-08:002015-01-08T15:33:51.501-08:00Clovis;
I am not trying to explain a particular t...Clovis;<br /><br />I am not trying to explain a particular taken path. I am explaining we can observe that paths are taken without knowing why. So, actually, the opposite of your interpretation.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-55164155180412332612015-01-07T15:03:23.866-08:002015-01-07T15:03:23.866-08:00AOG,
To which, unwittingly, you repeat the same f...AOG,<br /><br />To which, unwittingly, you repeat the same fallacy many times practiced by too eager public defenders of evolution: in that you can explain just about everything a posteriori by that same argument.<br /><br />It is fine enough to generically theorize about paths to arrive at observed results, but when you actually want to explain those observations, you do need to describe and prove a single one path.<br /><br />Otherwise you may end up assigning meaning and causation to some result that may have come as pure chance, and vice versa. Given our limited knowledge and the even more limited "number of observable realities", such problems are only worsened.<br />Clovishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08921327103613284595noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-15420820631276758812015-01-05T15:10:07.270-08:002015-01-05T15:10:07.270-08:00Clovis;
It may be true that some part of the reli...Clovis;<br /><br /><i>It may be true that some part of the religious people follow it mainly due to its procedural norms.</i><br /><br />You're mixing layers. This was Skipper's main point - from the viewpoint of a rational materialist like me, the issues of "why do people do this?" and "what effect does this have?" are only loosely related.<br /><br />Consider a sheaf of realities with the same physical structure as ours , and in each on is a religious belief system constructed at random. Some of these will be successful because they structurally couple to reality, and some won't. We could, by examining the results across those realities, make judgments about the utility of those belief systems <i>without ever knowing what those systems are</i> which in turn means without knowing why people follow those belief systems.<br /><br />All that is required is the axiom that there is an objective reality no subject to human control. I don't see that as condescension.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-21006999561212048242015-01-05T09:55:38.805-08:002015-01-05T09:55:38.805-08:00Skipper,
---
In this world it does.
---
To the ph...Skipper,<br /><br />---<br />In this world it does.<br />---<br />To the pharisees of this world, indeed.<br /><br />---<br /> I should have said "In a contest to decide with whom to have an afternoon barbeque between progressives, whose religiosity is always manifest, and fundamentalist Christians, I would take the latter in a heartbeat.<br />---<br />I would book one after another. I couldn't refuse free barbecues.Clovishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08921327103613284595noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-66972771816274187222015-01-04T22:31:20.108-08:002015-01-04T22:31:20.108-08:00[Clovis:] No, that's not true. If you are talk...<i>[Clovis:] No, that's not true. If you are talking about Christian believers, for many of them the "material actions that follow from believers belief" are certainly not the thing that matters most. </i><br /><br />In this world it does.<br /><br /><i>I would rather try to see both of them as my equals ... </i><br /><br />My statement was unclear. I should have said "In a contest <i>to decide with whom to have an afternoon barbeque</i> between progressives, whose religiosity is always manifest, and fundamentalist Christians, I would take the latter in a heartbeat.Hey Skipperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10798930502187234974noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-39625855875366593512015-01-04T17:42:47.778-08:002015-01-04T17:42:47.778-08:00Skipper,
---
How, exactly, is that condescending?...Skipper,<br /><br />---<br />How, exactly, is that condescending?<br />---<br />I guess I gave you examples enough of "how", all of them related to reducing behavior to deterministic self-serving anecdotes.<br /><br />---<br />Therefore, regardless of the objective truth of religious belief (ie., concordance with the universe), the thing that matters most, both to them and everyone else, is the material actions that follow from believers belief.<br />---<br />No, that's not true. If you are talking about Christian believers, for many of them the "material actions that follow from believers belief" are certainly not the thing that matters most. <br /><br />---<br />In a contest between progressives, whose religiosity is always manifest, and fundamentalist Christians, I would take the latter in a heartbeat.<br />---<br />I would rather try to see both of them as my equals, and argue with them as such too. We could even end up each of us learning something new, other than to restrict ourselves to those little boxes. Failing that, I am quite sure any group you end up with may well lead to its own hell.Clovishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08921327103613284595noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-28925286099944849312015-01-04T17:39:12.593-08:002015-01-04T17:39:12.593-08:00Skipper, I agree about the pill. It changed every...Skipper, I agree about the pill. It changed everything (remember I was there when it happened), but you are forgetting the children. They still, IMO, need the security of two parents in a stable marriage. That’s far different from legal contracts that gays might want. They are not the same, but in any case, I have no objection to gays marrying, but I also support the right of merchants who don’t want to provide services for gay weddings.<br /><br />I had quite a few gay friends even in the bad old days and have some pretty amusing stories. One guy at college was a very good friend and astoundingly good looking. Whenever I needed a date for some event and I wanted to make all the other girls faint in their tracks (think sororities), I invited him to be my escort. He was a great dancer and poured on the romance. In those being gay never entered anyone’s head. It was lots of fun.erphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09826044412670324694noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-82983628319489649572015-01-04T17:06:31.747-08:002015-01-04T17:06:31.747-08:00[erp:] Marriage was invented to protect pregnant w...<i>[erp:] Marriage was invented to protect pregnant women and helpless children and for men to keep track of which kids were theirs. </i><br /><br />Completely true, every word.<br /><br />However. Invention is contingent upon circumstances. The Pill changed everything. Before, women were pawns of biology, after, women were creatures of agency. This completely severed the connection between sex and conception. <br /><br />One may well argue whether, all told, this has been a good thing for women, but there is no denying that making pregnancy a matter of agency gave all the power over reproduction to women. <br /><br />So the reason for the invention of marriage as an institution is no longer relevant.<br /><br />Moreover, a mere generation ago, people almost universally viewed homosexuality as a choice, and therefore a matter of moral concern. Now almost everyone takes it as given that homosexuality is no more a matter of choice than hair or eye color.<br /><br />In an individualist society, as I think ours should be, that matters.<br /><br /> <i>[clovis:] Where you are condescending is in the rest of your phrase. </i><br /><br />Which is: <i>Rather, it is the belated recognition that regardless of what concordance religious beliefs about the universe have with the universe, the most important aspect about religion is its impact on people</i>.<br /><br />How, exactly, is that condescending?<br /><br />For almost everybody, belief in, or disregard of, Science has absolutely no impact on their daily lives. Therefore, regardless of the objective truth of religious belief (ie., concordance with the universe), the thing that matters most, both to them and everyone else, is the material actions that follow from believers belief.<br /><br />That is an observation, not condescension. In a contest between progressives, whose religiosity is always manifest, and fundamentalist Christians, I would take the latter in a heartbeat.<br /><br />Isisholes, not so much.Hey Skipperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10798930502187234974noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-12035754239619235332015-01-04T16:35:31.705-08:002015-01-04T16:35:31.705-08:00Skipper,
---
This is not condescension. Rather, i...Skipper,<br /><br />---<br />This is not condescension. Rather, it is the belated recognition that regardless of what concordance religious beliefs about the universe have with the universe, the most important aspect about religion is its impact on people.<br />---<br />You are right that "this is not condescension" when you refer to your position that religion bears subjective as opposed to objective truth.<br /><br />Where you are condescending is in the rest of your phrase. Or in erp's comment above following your post, if you need another example. Or in Bret's advice for young men looking for a wife, in this same thread. Or in AOG's ode to religious "memetic technology" (mostly because it is easy and simple, so that even dumb believers can follow it).<br /><br />It may be true that some part of the religious people follow it mainly due to its procedural norms. Yet, when you reduce religion to that, you basically defined every believer as a member of a herd. And as if only you were smart enough to objectively judge all of its aspects (and there it is the condescension).<br /><br />I may recognize the social advantages that religion sometimes bring to communities, but they are far form being the reason I follow one. Not to mention they are a double-edged sword, e.g. as the reasons for your aversion to Islam easily show. <br /><br />Clovishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08921327103613284595noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-54062180973193509172015-01-04T16:06:24.440-08:002015-01-04T16:06:24.440-08:00... direct facsimile with similar legalities makes...... <i>direct facsimile</i> with similar legalities makes sense. Homosexual (gay) marriage is silly. Marriage was invented to protect pregnant women and helpless children and for men to keep track of which kids were theirs. It evolved into a religious institution for the same purpose.<br /><br />It makes as much sense as paternity leave.erphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09826044412670324694noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-57527936527889628692015-01-04T15:24:56.202-08:002015-01-04T15:24:56.202-08:00Also, in ruffling through the comments of yesterye...Also, in ruffling through the comments of yesteryear, I stumbled upon <a href="http://dailyduck.blogspot.com/2005/09/story-of-moral.html#112966876795221643" rel="nofollow">this one</a>:<br /><br /><i>David [Cohen]:<br /><br />With regard to homosexual marriage, I completely agree with your conclusion that, based upon how those of us opposed to Divine Command theory view the sources of morality, homosexual marriage is immoral.<br /><br />And I'm glad you brought that up. Not only does it clearly demonstrate how morality evolves in response to exigent circumstances, it also starkly highlights how deficient Divine Command theory is. <br /><br />Where you stated [homosexual marriage] is opposed as immoral by all but a small percentage of the nation you are arguably correct globally, but less so in the details. That moral judgment is highly age dependent. No matter where you go in the US, those under roughly 40 are far more favorably disposed to the idea than those over 40. <br /><br />While it is possible opinion is completely age dependent, I think it is far more likely opinion is environmentally dependent. <br /><br />Those under 40 grew up in the presence of acknowledged homosexuals, and failed to find two things: any more inherently evil than the rest of us, and the virtually complete absence of people who had any choice in their orientation.<br /><br />There are two results. First, it is difficult to uphold the immorality of an action in the absence of any perceived harm. In this case, familiarity has eliminated contempt.<br /><br />The second effect takes aim at heart of Divine Command theory. In the case of homosexuality, Divine Command makes a very material assertion. That is, homosexuality is abominable in the eyes of G-d. <br /><br />In order for this to be so, however, homosexuality must represent a choice, an active decision to violate accepted morality.<br /><br />Is homosexuality a choice? If it isn't, and I submit that it takes astonishing contortions to conclude that it is, then the fact of homosexuality has no moral component whatsoever, and the supposed abomination in the eyes of God, as objective a thing as one is likely to get from the Bible, is a complete mistake.<br /><br />I bet you (dinner and a bottle of single-malt Scotch) that within 20 years homosexual marriage (or a direct facsimile with a different name) will be the norm across the US, and the controversy will be a matter only of historical interest. </i>Hey Skipperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10798930502187234974noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-16481387382976703202015-01-04T15:24:35.774-08:002015-01-04T15:24:35.774-08:00[Peter]: Are you savouring the irony of Bret's...<i>[Peter]: Are you savouring the irony of Bret's, AOG's and Skipper's new-found enthusiasm for religion and its fringe benefits? </i><br /><br />Let me fire up the WayBack Machine™:<br /><br />From <a href="http://dailyduck.blogspot.com/2005/09/story-of-moral.html#comments" rel="nofollow">The Story of the Moral</a>, way back in 2005:<br /><br /><a href="http://dailyduck.blogspot.com/2005/09/story-of-moral.html#112787218488172535" rel="nofollow">Which is where religion (properly constrained against homicidal fanaticism) exercises a beneficial flywheel effect. </a><br /><br /><a href="http://dailyduck.blogspot.com/2005/09/story-of-moral.html#112799464706459383" rel="nofollow">Uhh, no. We didn't. Brit's claim is that requiring the will of a Supreme Being as a precondition for morality is contains a fatal contradiction; God is no more essential to the existence of morality than icing is to the existence of cake.</a> <br /><br /><a href="http://dailyduck.blogspot.com/2005/09/story-of-moral.html#112913747980455296" rel="nofollow">[That said, I will happily concede that religion is easily the best conduit for passing the circumstantially dependent morality we do have from one generation to the next. I will also happily concede that religion provides significant inertia to morality that, generally speaking, is to society's benefit.]</a><br /><br />That's just from thread, but I think it is reasonably representative. Back in that day, I spent a lot of pixels wrangling about religions' objective truth. That's all well and good, I suppose, and certainly many pixels died in the effort. But what changed for me was eventually deciding that the most important religious truth wasn't objective, but rather subjective. <br /><br />This is not condescension. Rather, it is the belated recognition that regardless of what concordance religious beliefs <i>about</i> the universe have <i>with</i> the universe, the most important aspect about religion is its impact on people.<br /><br />In that regard, in the present, religions' communitarian aspects are largely beneficial, in that religion accomplishes certain ends that other forms of social organization either cannot do at all, or do very badly. In the West, government is a very bad substitute for private religious belief, and is what makes progressives' attacks on religion so destructive.<br /><br />Further, and this is more towards irony, back in the day I flogged the religious for their irrational objections to naturalistic evolution.<br /><br />Again, all well and good. And, in an objective sense, perhaps true.<br /><br />But I couldn't help but notice that subjectively speaking, the religious were, in the ways that matter, correct. While they may have causation all wrong, creationists assert that human nature exists, and it is fixed, which means it isn't amenable to progressive whims.<br /><br />In contrast, using feminism as an example, progressives insist that evolution stopped at the neckline.<br /><br />Now who's the fool?Hey Skipperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10798930502187234974noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-84841234555799167922014-12-26T14:08:11.314-08:002014-12-26T14:08:11.314-08:00Clovis wrote: "...condescending..."
Con...Clovis wrote: "<i>...condescending...</i>"<br /><br />Condescending? How so?Brethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15063508651955739056noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-59174235818131938202014-12-26T13:05:19.042-08:002014-12-26T13:05:19.042-08:00Peter;
I'll go with old-found as with Bret - ...Peter;<br /><br />I'll go with old-found as with Bret - I've been a church regular since before we met. I will admit the last decade has been difficult for me with regards to envisioning a self-sustaining non-religious society. As a hard core material evolutionist I must go with what works, not what I would like to work.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-79008073092314924572014-12-25T15:41:26.671-08:002014-12-25T15:41:26.671-08:00Peter,
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Are you savouring the irony of Bret...Peter,<br /><br />---<br />Are you savouring the irony of Bret's, AOG's and Skipper's new-found enthusiasm for religion and its fringe benefits? <br />---<br /><br />I don't think there is any irony there to savour. Their position is actually a very condescending one, or so it looks like to me. <br /><br /><br />Maybe part of the divorce rate comes from the fact that, up to very recently (and still true in many places), the idea that everyone should at some point get married is widespread. But if you look for advice by Paul himself, at the Bible (since Bret looks to think that is a good idea for at least one partner of a marriage), he clearly advised people to not marry just for the sake of it. He even advised against it at some levels...<br /><br />Clovishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08921327103613284595noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-58656042482847765252014-12-24T14:45:08.105-08:002014-12-24T14:45:08.105-08:00Peter wrote: "Are you savouring the irony of ...Peter wrote: "<i>Are you savouring the irony of Bret's, AOG's and Skipper's new-found enthusiasm for religion and its fringe benefits? </i>"<br /><br />It's been a very long time since I've been not supportive of Judeo-Christian religion and that was many years before blogging here or commenting at brothersjudd.<br /><br />Religious belief and belief that at least some religions are net-positive are very different things. I've never had the former but have consistently had the latter for decades.<br /><br />So no, it's not new-found enthusiasm for me. I'll let AOG and Hey Skipper speak for themselves.Brethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15063508651955739056noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-76970844351205874162014-12-24T14:23:04.309-08:002014-12-24T14:23:04.309-08:00Bret: If all no-fault divorce achieves is a net in...Bret: If all no-fault divorce achieves is a net increase in childhood unhappiness, then maybe we should revisit it. I agree, however, that there are a lot of moving parts here, but that's a fundamentally conservative point, too.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16902329503560660425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-44083727542321634182014-12-24T14:21:16.518-08:002014-12-24T14:21:16.518-08:00Peter:
Didn't someone once say something apt ...Peter:<br /><br />Didn't someone once say something apt about a prodigal son?<br /><br />I just wish that some blogger had pointed out years ago that, leaving G-d to one side, religion plays a constructive role in keeping society stable.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16902329503560660425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-39067057303959989382014-12-24T14:10:22.426-08:002014-12-24T14:10:22.426-08:00David:
Are you savouring the irony of Bret's,...David:<br /><br />Are you savouring the irony of Bret's, AOG's and Skipper's new-found enthusiasm for religion and its fringe benefits? Didn't we used to hear a lot from them about the Hairy Thunderer and how a random, purposeless universe is perfectly consistent with the evidence? Peterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15836910211382887430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-48596521521233689852014-12-24T09:54:52.463-08:002014-12-24T09:54:52.463-08:00Peter wrote: "Just don't forget to lock u...Peter wrote: "<i>Just don't forget to lock up your copy of The God Delusion with the porn collection.</i>"<br /><br />Don't worry, it's all encrypted in the "the cloud."Brethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15063508651955739056noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-85158955815118564042014-12-24T09:53:03.581-08:002014-12-24T09:53:03.581-08:00David wrote: "The idea that ... we can lower ...David wrote: "<i>The idea that ... we can lower divorce rates by getting people to go to services regularly, is, on a societal scale, just wrong.</i>"<br /><br />I agree.<br /><br />What I said (or meant to say if I wasn't clear) was something different. That an <i>individual male</i> could <i>potentially</i> increase the odds of avoiding divorce if he chose as a wife a believer who regularly went to services <i>and</i> attended services with her.<br /><br />That's much different than saying that getting everybody to go to church would lower the divorce rate.<br /><br />Also, I'm not claiming that there exist statistics to back me up on this one. This is just my opinion from observation and experience.<br /><br />David wrote: "<i>I have a theory ... that happiness is an internal individual trait and not affected much by what's going on around us.</i>"<br /><br />Oh, I'm absolutely certain that's true to some extent. My personal happiness is nearly completely unaffected by what's happening in my life. It's all internal.<br /><br />I suspect from observation that the degree to which that's true of others is strongly correlated with whether they're introverts or extroverts, with introverts like myself being less affected by external circumstances than extroverts. Though perhaps this claim is tautological since I think that the definition of introvert is someone who's more internally focused and extrovert is someone who's more externally focused (as opposed to the shy versus gregarious definitions of the words).<br /><br />David wrote: "<i>...change the default in "mixed" marriages (a divorcer married to a non-divorcer) from no divorce to divorce but probably didn't much change the [sum] total of human happiness among adults...</i>"<br /><br />I think that's a bit of a stretch and at the same time, I'm not sure how that's applicable to much of anything. We have happy versus unhappy, the degree to which happiness is affected by external circumstance, divorcer versus non-divorcer, the settlement change the external circumstances of the parties (financial and custodial), etc. Too many complex interactions for that statement to be convincing to me. I've also observed too many divorces to find that statement convincing.<br />Brethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15063508651955739056noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-37585327080819878792014-12-24T09:16:33.564-08:002014-12-24T09:16:33.564-08:00Bret: The boring truth is probably somewhere in t...Bret: The boring truth is probably somewhere in the boring middle, but that study doesn't really address this point.<br /><br />The idea that, because people who go to services regularly have lower divorce rates, we can lower divorce rates by getting people to go to services regularly, is, on a societal scale, just wrong. It is a common policy (and, to borrow AOG's phrase, MAL) response to social science findings and social science just doesn't work that way.<br /><br />The 50% divorce rate is also misleading. To use a social science term, the population appears to be bimodal. There's a relatively large population of people who get married and basically only divorce under extreme circumstances. There's another population that gets divorced at the drop of a hat (explaining why second or third marriages are so much more likely to end in divorce than first marriages). So while half of all marriages end in divorce (actually, the number of divorces annually is half the number of marriages annually) most people never get divorced.<br /><br />What's the actual divorce rate? It's almost impossible to say. The best number to use is probably what's called the refined rate of divorce, or the number of divorces in a given year for every 1000 married women. In the US, that's about 20, or about 2% per year. <br /><br />But even that number can't be used as the chance of any given marriage ending in divorce in any given year. I think that this is just a situation in which the particular overwhelms the general. All marriages are a mystery to those looking in from outside. I'm sure that we all know couples we would never have put together who never separate and couples who seem perfect together who don't make it work.<br /><br />I have a theory -- which actually has some empirical support -- that happiness is an internal individual trait and not affected much by what's going on around us. Happy people are happy and unhappy people are unhappy. I think that propensity to divorce is like that; although there are extremes that would force almost anyone to divorce, for the most part there are just people who divorce and people who don't. If that's the case, than the difference that "no fault" made was to change the default in "mixed" marriages (a divorcer married to a non-divorcer) from no divorce to divorce but probably didn't much change the some total of human happiness among adults (although factoring kids into the equation, the total change was probably negative).Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16902329503560660425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-81269448299061228942014-12-24T07:20:59.147-08:002014-12-24T07:20:59.147-08:00Peter;
I think it quite reasonable to view regula...Peter;<br /><br />I think it quite reasonable to view regular religious attendance and marital success as both manifestations of a underlying psychological trait(s), creating a causation rather than a causation. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-32824830428821571412014-12-24T04:30:29.018-08:002014-12-24T04:30:29.018-08:00Clovis, we lost a close blogging friend a few year...Clovis, we lost a close blogging friend a few years back.<br /><br />Bret:<br /><br />I think you have chosen a very difficult subject to reduce to general principles and propositions. Tolstoy famously wrote <i>Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way</i>, but as Paul Johnson noted, like a lot of progressive intellectuals, he got it backwards. If you look at failed marriages, you will see the same fairly short and dreary list of time-honoured underlying causes supplemented by a few modern new ones from the therapeutic culture, but what makes a marriage happy has confounded sages through the ages.<br /><br />I think we all sense some kind of nexus between seriously religious people and the moral gravitas of a self-denying, disciplined, outward-looking life that is conducive to navigating the inevitable challenges and occasional rocky shoals of a long-term marriage. But that's not the same thing as saying regular religious observance acts as a sort of marital health tonic. Religion is religion, and what it offers is spiritual serenity and a connection to the Infinite, not material success or family harmony. There are lots of stereotypes of couples who derive marital strength and love from their faith, but lots of others pointing the other way. Every family is a novel.<br /><br />Also, nobody makes personal financial decisions to help the national balance of payments and I don't think anybody is going to order their marriage and family life with a few to lowering the divorce rate or improving demographic rates. I'm sure you are aware that there are many modern progressive types who, when confronted with a 50% divorce rate since no-fault divorce, will just blithely say that proves how many miserable married people there used to be. I don't believe that at all, but don't ask me to prove it or even debate it without being heavily influenced by my own family history.<br /><br />All that being said, your personal course of action has much to commend itself, and I wish you all the best. Just don't forget to lock up your copy of <i>The God Delusion</i> with the porn collection. It's ok for we hardy, stalwart men who can put it in context, but it gives the womenfolk strange ideas. :-)Peterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15836910211382887430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5806884.post-75983935889190725612014-12-23T20:35:25.932-08:002014-12-23T20:35:25.932-08:00David,
Why is suicide a touchy topic here?David,<br /><br />Why is suicide a touchy topic here?Clovishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08921327103613284595noreply@blogger.com