posted
Interestingly enough (quite surprising to me), there's apparently rather a lot of research that shows a strong correlation between pre-marital cohabitation and divorce.
However, I disagree with the conclusions many people are drawing from this correlation. The problem with research like this--in fact, with quite a lot of research in the social sciences--is that it only demonstrates correlation, not causation.
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posted
I unfortunately couldn't get the full text of this study, but apparently there's some evidence that religion isn't necessarily much of a help for overcoming divorce.
quote:What is even more surprising is the discovery that those who are more religious and attend church regularly are more likely to divorce when they are less satisfied with their marriage. It is possible that a belief in a greater being, as well as a supportive church network, provide a security and an added insurance when faced with an unhappy relationship.
quote:Genuinely unhappy people going around pretending and believing that their current misery was really happiness or joy, when all you had to do was talk to them for 5 minutes to realize how little joy or happiness there was in their lives because of their self imposed prisons.
There are some people who feel the same way about San Francisco. . .
quote:Genuinely unhappy people going around pretending and believing that their current misery was really happiness or joy, when all you had to do was talk to them for 5 minutes to realize how little joy or happiness there was in their lives because of their self imposed prisons.
AJ, I know what you mean. I believe that happens, too.
Admitting you're unhappy in some areas is like... admitting a failure. Or, alternately, like saying you've lost your testimony. Obviously, since the gospel makes people happy, if you're unhappy, you're not keeping the gospel.
I believe deeply and completely that keeping commandments will make you happy, but sometimes its an average. It doesn't mean you'll be happy at every moment. I think the myth that you will be happy at every moment stops people from admitting when they are not, because saying they are unhappy and they want something to change would be tantamount to announcing yourself as having lost your testimony and/or not keeping the commandments. In that case, it's like announcing you're a failure. That's a horrible cycle.
Sometimes (often) unhappiness is caused by not keeping commandments, and sometimes it is a matter of will. Not all the time, though, and creating an environment you're not allowed to admit you're unhappy and hence not allowed to ask for help makes a lot of secretly miserable people.
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Having said all that, hands-down the happiest people I know are my dad and stepmom, who say all of the above. It's incredibly annoying.
posted
Going to church regularly makes you a church goer, but not necessarily spiritual.
How do I know, saxon? Well, I haven't, but my husband has experienced both sides of the coin. He owned a dance club in Moscow before he moved here and converted (before he met me.) He says he is happier and better off. He says life is more 'real' now.
Why, at a Christmas party I attended, could the non-drinkers get up and dance and have a great time making fools of themselves way before the drinkers, who needed a couple of drinks (or more)before they could make a fool of themselves?
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posted
So, based on your life experiences and those of the people around you, this is true for you. No disputing that. Are you stating this as an opinion, or as a universal truth?
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posted
My browser blocks your second link on marriage statistics. But most of the Focus on the Family studies are incredibly biased and deliberately skewed by income levels to give the results they quote. Also they quote single sentences of studies so out of context you really don't know what the study was actually saying. I don't put a lot of stock in anything Focus on the Family says because it is so biased and been known to cough up bogus or horribly skewed data in the past.
Some of those "Journals" the are quoting from are far more biased than your ordinary scientific peer review journals, even if they are peer reviewed. If there is any data indicating the opposite direction do you think Focus on the Family is going to mention it or convienently ignore it like they do with so much else? (I was raised in a family that hung onto Dr. Dobson's every word so I've had probably 20 years of experience dealing with this organization.)
I have yet to see a study where they removed the unmarried inner city demographic from the equation and looked at the situation by income level. Also at the age of persons when they get married or begin cohabitating and the breakup rate.
Also dkw gave a statistic recently where the percentages of relationships lasting longer than 5 years were equal in disolution rate for both married and non-married couples.
Often long term cohabiting couples are very happy with their arrangements and see no real reason to get married. They may get married if they decide to have children because of legal issues but that is often the only reason. So a cohabitation that doesn't lead to the "end all be all" of marriage, may not be because of a breakup at all, but because the couple is happy with their current status.
AJ
(Also if you tally up the references only 7 out of the 15 are less than 10 years old, and some of their most definitive statments come from the most outdated research.)
quote: Why, at a Christmas party I attended, could the non-drinkers get up and dance and have a great time making fools of themselves way before the drinkers, who needed a couple of drinks (or more)before they could make a fool of themselves?
Why do people have to be fools to be happy?
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quote: I believe deeply and completely that keeping commandments will make you unhappy
Haha
The myth is that we will always enjoy our life. That happiness and/or joy means we can smile and mean it. That we will never get burnt out, or crash, or get depressed or angry. That we will never have bad things happen to us.
This is not true. And I think a very, very important thing that people miss is that they may actually feel good about what they did in the past, even though the event at the time was so hard they nearly broke. That is part of happiness, even though it wasn't fun at the time.
And again, I think it is possible and important to _decide_, to _choose_ to be happy even though that person stole your wallet (to use a general example of something we might have no control over). It doesn't affect who we are. Deal with the inconveniences and live. Accept, do what is necessary, and live. Nothing affects who weare, except what we do, and everything we do is our choice including how we emotionally react to what life gives us.
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posted
Heres an example of the lovely logic used by Glenn T. Stanton the writer of the first little peice from Focus on the family on homosexual marriages. I don't care whether you are pro- or anti, any self-respecting Jatraquero should have a problem with the faulty inductive reasoning displayed here.
quote: Q: But isn’t it better for a child to grow up with two loving same-sex parents than to live in an abusive home or be bounced around in foster care?
A: You’re comparing the worst of one situation (abusive heterosexual parenting) with the best of another (loving same-sex parenting). That’s apples and oranges.
Actually, research reveals that child abuse is at its lowest when children live with both biological parents compared with higher rates for children who live with at least one nonbiological parent or caregiver.(1) Same-sex parenting situations make it impossible for a child to live with both biological parents, thus increasing their risk of abuse.
Those who want homosexual marriage are not asking to take the children living in the most difficult situations, so it’s intellectually dishonest to preface the argument with that claim. They are asking for the same thing all parents desire: healthy, happy children they can call their own. So let us dispense with the idea that same-sex couples will serve some high social good by only taking children in the most difficult situations. They have never asked for this.
He takes what he calls uncomparable apples and oranges and then promptly compares them. Not to mention all of the gay couples who DO ask to take in special needs children!
I think I'm objecting terribly to your posts because it isn't actually helpful to anyone who is unhappy. It's part of a larger theory, but it doesn't help. It's like telling someone who is drowning to "Swim, just swim. You're not swimming." What if they don't know how to swim? Or they're caught in a current. Or their arm is broken and they need to learn a different stroke.
The solution may be to swim, but telling someone that is only the first step. It's like a giant HowTo on the beach in Hawaii: "When caught in a current, the Maine people say to swim."
The appeal of a different life may be that the people with that life are showing you how to hang on to a passing dolphin. It's not a long-term solution, but if you're about to drown and only being given a commandment instead of a hand, it's better than drowning. And if swimming was so great, wouldn't someone who knew how to swim give a hand instead of letting you drown?
Let us say that I state this as a hypothesis. I've come across some indications that it is true. In order to prove it, I would have to conduct a well designed and thorough study. To get the best results, it should probably follow people from childhood to death.
Oooh, good story idea brewing....
BTW, while I used to use those studies about cohabitation, I now realize that they were designed poorly and didn't take such factors as income level and emotional stability into account. There may be some correlation, but probably not causality.
Frisco,
What we were doing was throwing off our adult selves and having fun as children would do, without any thought to what others thought of us. That is what I called 'making a fool of themselves'. There is all kinds of fun, and dancing around and doing silly stuff is one of them. Personally, I just found it sad that people needed a few drinks before they could loosen up and have that kind of fun.
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quote: Actually, research reveals that child abuse is at its lowest when children live with both biological parents compared with higher rates for children who live with at least one nonbiological parent or caregiver.(1) Same-sex parenting situations make it impossible for a child to live with both biological parents, thus increasing their risk of abuse.
1. There isn't a big enough for all the flaws in that argument.
2. Just wait 'til we start cloning!
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Just so you know, I wasn't really trying to prove a point with those links. I just thought the information was interesting, for what it was.
Amka:
Fair enough. So your hypothesis is that living a moral life is the only way to live a truly happy life. Or maybe just the best way. Does that mean "living within whatever moral code you happen to truly subscribe to" or does it mean "living within the moral code that I subscribe to?" Or something else?
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posted
As someone who didn't swallow a drop of alcohol until after I dropped out of college, I've been on both sides of the fence.
I realized that it wasn't as much about needing a drink as wanting a drink. Some people are self-conscious. That's one thing I enjoyed about growing up in the LDS church...you learn not to be. But self-conscious != unhappy.
I was once the guy bragging about not needing booze to have a good time. I've since become less self-righteous.
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posted
Yeah saxy, I know, the organization Focus on the Family is a hot-button topic for me, because so much of their research is lousy.
Back in the mid-early 80s they did some good when they decided that homeschoolers were actually acceptable in "christian" society. Before that point my mother was often persecuted in the church for homeschooling my brothers and I. However many of the people who then jumped on the Christian fundamentalist homeschooling bandwagon, decided that since they were raising their daughters to be wives and mothers, they really didn't need higher education like the boys did. This has led to some terrible travesties. I know of both personal and general examples. My mother has run several independent study programs to aid homeschoolers and in the last 10 years she has become increasingly fed up with the anti-academic culture that many homeschoolers have embraced. I'm not saying that Focus on the Family started this but they were definitely a catalyst towards this trend.
(note: none of this applies to LDS or non-fundamentalist homeschoolers who seem to have sucessfully avoided this pitfall)
posted
Swimming is a bad analogy for me, since I was never afraid of water and swimming (at least to the point where I didn't drown) was more or less instinctual.
But I think I get what you are saying.
How do you simply choose to be happy? Let us take the stolen wallet as the example.
What has the man taken from you? Your credit cards. Cancel them. Your driver's license. Get a new one. Some cash. It might make things tighter this month, but in a year or two it won't make much difference to your financial situation. So, there are physical consequences to his actions on you. Take care of them. A little stressful, but you've done harder things.
Now, what else has he done to you? Nothing, really. He cannot change who you are or take anything of real importance from you. Let it flow over you like water off a duck's back. What other good things do you have in your life that he did not touch? Friends, work, church, etc. Pull on the positive and realize that it outweights this particular bad experience. Think of what you might have learned from this bad experience to prevent it from happening again. Okay, so now you are smarter and your new debit card can actually scan well. And your new driver's license picture looks better.
Now, compare your life to what kind of life the person who stole your wallet is probably leading. Your wallet may have improved his life far more than it took away from your life. Or not. He may be on drugs and homeless. So who is better off? Be grateful for what you have. Count your blessings.
Attitudes that may detract from happiness:
Comparing yourself to the Joneses (I would only be happy if I had what they have).
Being a martyr. (I do so much for everyone at such sacrifice to myself, I'm so good and I get so little recognition for it, but "sigh" I'll keep on.)
Living in the past (It was so wonderful back then, if only it could still be that way OR My life sucked and because of what happened, I will have problems the rest of my life because of it.)
Living in the future (Things will be great when X happens) The future is always uncertain. X may never happen. Take what you have now and make good out of it.
Make a list of the good in your life. Be grateful. Think of what it COULD have been, and thank whoever you need to thank for it. I'm getting more and more convinced as I grow older that gratitude is a very important part of being happy.
posted
I think the unspoken martyr thing was definitely going on in the community where I grew up. However, they thought that was what they were SUPPOSED to do to make themselves happy.
posted
Ami, I'm not sure if we're having a discussion or I'm getting preached at. Is your post a statement? Who are the second-person imperatives addressed to?
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posted
I do think there are circumstances worth grieving over, to stick with behavior and not puffy "moods" like happiness. So when my son died, I think God understood me feeling sad. If such a thing were not to make us sad, why would God mind that so many of his children were lost to Him (the one who went after Lucifer and were never born). Likewise, a lot of people who don't marry or have children have a serious gripe in that they are experiencing the state of those same spirits- stopped in their progress without increase. The up side is, I know this life will be over relatively soon, and we will go on to new and even more interesting challenges. So unless I learn to deal with challenges, I'm going to wind up riding around on a cloud playing a harp instead of learning how to do Outside travel. And if that doesn't scare you straight, I don't know what will.
P.S. As to Romantic Love being the defining characteristic of Western Civilization, I think followers of the LDS church have pretty well established that we are barbarians and not members/admirers of western civ.
I've been toying with a story idea about a gay couple who do have a biological child. They are able to do this because the (future) fertility clinic they go to is able to extract the DNA from one partner's sperm and insert it into an artificial egg, then fertilize it with the sperm of the other partner. (This could work for lesbians by putting the DNA from one partner's egg into an artificial spermatazoa, though lesbians could only have female children).
I was running the premise for this story idea by a doctor friend of mine just to see if the concept was ludicrous and he said that as far as he can see the theory here is sound, though the technology isn't available yet. Once it is, though, many of these issues will be moot because they will have biological children and those arguing the "gay marriages are inferior because they can't have kids" will have to find some other excuse.
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quote:They are able to do this because the (future) fertility clinic they go to is able to extract the DNA from one partner's sperm and insert it into an artificial egg, then fertilize it with the sperm of the other partner. (This could work for lesbians by putting the DNA from one partner's egg into an artificial spermatazoa, though lesbians could only have female children).
You'd have to guard against the possibility of a YY pairing, but presumably such a futuristic clinic would be able to discriminate chromosomes pretty well. Interesting idea.
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posted
The simple answer, is that I thought we were having a discussion. You, Katharina, questioned me, and I clarified. You, Katharina, asked a question about that, I answered. Do you think I should have witheld information I knew simply because I was worried that you, Katharina, might think I was preaching at you, Katharina?
When I wrote that, I knew you, Katharina, would read it, but I was writing it to everyone.
Just so you know (and now I think you realize that the the "you" is directed at specifically at Katharina) I was very concious about changing all my second-person imperitives to "we" in the rest of my posts because I was worried about that you would take it personally and be offended. I figured with the wallet story, you would realize I was using an example, since I assume that you haven't had your wallet stolen (an admittedly non-logical assumption) so you would take it as the story I meant it to be. Another clue that I was making up something that I knew didn't apply specifically to you, is that I preceded my story with "Let us take the stolen wallet as the example." Then I forgot to switch back. But you notice I made an entire list, and I did not think that any of those necessarily applied to you. I simply listed the things I was taught that lead to our inablity to choose happiness. I had forgotten those specific things, and I should have thanked you, Katharina, for reminding me to go back to the basics.
When I write, I am hoping everyone is reading. You are the only person that I've come across that takes personal offense of my use of the second person imperitive when there is a discussion.
And so, I will address you, personally, in the second person imperitive and say that another key to choosing to be happy is to choose to believe that people have good intentions in whatever they've done (since you know my penchant for using second person imperitive and we've had this discussion before) and to not take things as a personal affront when they slip into old habits that are writing technicalities.
quote: You'd have to guard against the possibility of a YY pairing, but presumably such a futuristic clinic would be able to discriminate chromosomes pretty well. Interesting idea.
Yes, I've thought of that. I believe I've also read somewhere about some advances in producing an artificial egg for use in cloning, so I don't really think the possibility of two men having a biological son together is all that remote. I kinda hope someone somewhere is secretly researching techniques to bring this about. The need to keep such research secret, though, should be obvious.
I bet the financial rewards for perfecting this technology would be enormous as all those gay couples with above-average disposable incomes take advantage of the opportunity to become biological parents. I'd jump at the chance (though I'd probably be just as happy raising a child that was a genetic clone).
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quote:And so, I will address you, personally, in the second person imperitive and say that another key to choosing to be happy is to choose to believe that people have good intentions in whatever they've done (since you know my penchant for using second person imperitive and we've had this discussion before) and to not take things as a personal affront when they slip into old habits that are writing technicalities.
This is an old discussion. It goes back to the other thread (I think - they are all mushing together.)
I figured you weren't talking to me because we HAVE had the discussion where I mentioned the second person imperatives do not sound like a discussion. I never did find out what you thought about me mentioning that, though.
It's like when Olivet called me on giving up for the night on the debate and just calling it a sin - I was shutting down my part in the discussion because I stopped using the language my intended recipient could relate to. We don't require investigators to learn the language of their missionaries, but the other way around. I'm not talking about watering down gospel concepts to make them palatable, but instead not, oh I don't know, not using acronyms for everything and the familar tu when vous is more appropriate.
Added: I'm not unhappy because you used small sentences and second person imperatives. I am less receptive, however.
posted
Oddly enough, I really try to avoid "you" in these types of discussions but when I use the less confrontational "one" I start feeling like I'm coming across as a pedant.
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While I don't think scientific curiousity is sufficient justification for having a child, I do think it would be a fringe benefit to see how a biological clone might grow up differently than I did. (And what if he grew up straight? Boy wouldn't that be an embarrassment to some of the "gay-gene" crowd?)
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posted
I never held the "cannot reproduce" card because there are many heterosexual couples that are infertile, and many of those are only infertile in combination with each other, not necessarily individually. Or put more accurately, in combination with someone else. I have a friend who will probably never have kids, and I think it's sad that she is much less likely to get married for this reason. But I think it's right for her to keep informing serious boyfriends of her condition, and I can understand why they have all split.
It's funny that "U" mention that gay couples tend to have more disposable income, since that would only last until they do have children. Unless U meant to imply that the gay lifestyle is more prevalent among the well to do. Do ya'll think gay parents would be more or less likely to do the stay at home parent thing? I am sure the technology will be pursued. Though by the time we get to that level of technology, if there is a gay gene, it would be possible to select for it. However, if homosexuality is caused by standing too near the microwave or watching Brad Pitt movies while pregnant...
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quote: As to Romantic Love being the defining characteristic of Western Civilization, I think followers of the LDS church have pretty well established that we are barbarians and not members/admirers of western civ.
Given the number of Mormon women on this site, and others that I've heard them speak about, who are remaining chaste until they meet their 'true love', rather than settling for mr. right now; and given the Mormon belief that people remain married forever, I do not see how the above could be at all true and, in fact, I think Mormons are probably the biggest proponents of romantic, courtly love on the planet. Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:It's funny that "U" mention that gay couples tend to have more disposable income, since that would only last until they do have children.
I don't think anyone said that gay couples tend to have more disposable income in general. I think what Karl said was that any gay couples who did have more income would be all over such technology, which is different.
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posted
Stormy, that's sweet. I think, though, if you're judging by Hatrack women, your sample pool is undoubtedly skewed.
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posted
Oh, I never meant to imply that they were mutually exclusive. I merely prefer it to "romantic, courtly love". Posts: 5264 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
You know in re-reading this thread, I wish I could delete all of my posts except the my first post on the first page. That was the one that I had actually thought out the most and was saying what I really feel.
AJ
(I mean I know I can actually physically delete the rest of the posts but I think it would cause too many gaps in the thread and I'm not a post deletion advocate anyway)
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quote: I bet the financial rewards for perfecting this technology would be enormous as all those gay couples with above-average disposable incomes take advantage of the opportunity to become biological parents.
I guess where you have two men together, assuming there is still a gender gap for income in America, they would tend to be better off.
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posted
Well, factor in a more expensive wardrobe and more hygiene products than most men, and it probably evens itself out. Posts: 5264 | Registered: Jul 2002
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quote: Stormy, that's sweet. I think, though, if you're judging by Hatrack women, your sample pool is undoubtedly skewed.
Unless your church elders tell you who to marry, the woman still gets to have final say in who she marries. Now, I'm not saying the woman doesn't marry the first guy she meets, but it's still her choice.
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posted
Not sure about the definition of romantic, courtly love. To me, romantic = emotional = changeable. Courtly love is the idea that you carry on a relationship with some kind of ideal person who is not your mate. So I don't see either applying to the ideal of eternal marriage.
There is a bit of "destined for each other" but soulmates have been declared heresy by at least one Prophet of the LDS church. when I don't know who it is, my memory always makes it Kimball. Though I'm going to go out on a limb here and say McKay. But then, Mormons have an easily misunderstood view on destiny. In one sense, the only people who will fulfill their destiny are those who do not go with the flow. Maybe sometimes. I don't understand it fully myself.
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The flow I'm referring to includes The Natural Man, Society, Culture, the road paved with Good Intentions.
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posted
Since I don't have a clue what true love feels like, Mr. Squicky, I honestly don't know. I have yet to have a lasting romantic relationship with anyone, and have no prospects at the moment.
Perhaps it's sour grapes, but I'm not even sure how much true love matters anyway.
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