The Logic and Lessons of Cohabitation

Cohabitation – sometimes termed “trial marriage” - is the new and undisputed norm. NPR writes:

• Today, more than 65 percent of first marriages start out that way. Fifty years ago, it was closer to 10 percent.

• Cohabitation before marriage, once frowned upon, is now almost a rite of passage, especially for the millennial generation. Young adults born after 1980 are more likely to cohabit than any previous generation was at the same stage of life, according to the Pew Research Center. With more than 8 million couples currently cohabiting, it is obviously a living arrangement with appeal — but it is also one with unique challenges.

The logic for cohabitation goes like this:

• Marriage is difficult. Most end in divorce. It therefore makes sense to first live together to test for compatibility.

On the surface, this makes sense, but the findings indicate otherwise:

• The research on whether cohabitation increases the risk of divorce is still being debated, but Rhoades and her colleagues have found that couples who move in together before getting engaged or committed to marry are a little more likely to have lower-quality marriages. 

In fact, the stats are frankly forbidding:

• [Trial marriage] provides some but not all of the same emotional benefits of marriage, yet only for a short time and at a high price. Breaking up with a live-in lover carries many of the same emotional costs as divorce but happens far more frequently. People who are cohabitating are less happy generally than the married and are less satisfied with their sex lives. In America, long-term cohabiting relationships are far rarer than successful marriages. (The Case for Marriage, Linda Waite & Maggie Gallagher, 74)

• One in ten survives five or more years…The divorce rate among those who cohabit prior to marriage is nearly double (39% vs. 21%) that of couples who marry without prior co-habitation.

• “Men in cohabiting relationships are four times more likely to be unfaithful…Depression is three times more likely…The poverty rate among children of cohabiting couples is five-fold greater…and 90% more likely to have a low GPA…Abuse of children is 20 times higher in cohabiting biological-parent families; and 33 times higher when the mother is cohabiting with a boyfriend.”

• “Cohabitation is bad for men, worse for women, and horrible for children. It is a deadly toxin to marriage, family, and culture.” 

• Spanish statistics, which have been highlighted in recent years by Europe’s Family Policy Institute (FPI), and recently reported by the Spanish Newspaper ABC, indicate that while only 11% of Spanish couples cohabit without marriage, such unions account for 58% of the most violent crimes between couples. For every one protection order issued for a married couple, ten are issued for cohabiting couples. (LifeSiteNews.com)

How do we explain this? Why are “untried” marriages more successful than trial marriages? Perhaps it has to do with the way we regard marriage. Do we regard it pragmatically (whether or not it works for me) or principally (my commitment to my family is more important than pragmatic considerations). The pragmatic approach is me-centered, while the principled approach is other-centered.

Perhaps we need to understand that our lives are about more than ourselves and our pleasures. Perhaps instead, life paradoxically works better when we are other-centered, even God centered, and when we are not primarily focused on what I can get out of it.

This is the logic of Jesus:

• But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:33)

It seems to be superior to the “logic” of cohabitation.

Western Civilization: Its Self-Contempt and Demise

A group neutrally named Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies (IEET) must be relatively reliable, right? Wrong! In an article entitled, “Psychological Harms of Biblical Christianity,” IEET claims:

• Humanity has been going through a massive shift for centuries, transitioning from a supernatural view of a world dominated by forces of good and evil to a natural understanding of the universe. The Bible-based Christian population however, might be considered a subset of the general population that is still within the old framework, that is, supernaturalism… In the biblical view, a child is not a being that is born with amazing capabilities that will emerge with the right conditions like a beautiful flower in a well-attended garden. Rather, a child is born in sin, weak, ignorant, and rebellious, needing discipline to learn obedience. 

IEET is committed to philosophical naturalism – the belief that phenomena originated, are sustained, and work by strictly natural and mindless processes. However, there is not one shred of evidence for this belief. There are no experiments, findings, or observations that have been able to rule intelligence out of the equation.

From the perspective of this belief system/religion, Christianity is therefore antiquated. However, IEET takes their criticism to another level, claiming that Christianity is destructive.

IEET, in their zeal to prove their case, consistently misrepresents Christianity. Contrary to IEET’s claims, we do believe that children are extraordinary. If fact, we have a higher regard for children than they do. We believe that they are created in the image of God, endowing them with unalienable rights – something that naturalism has no rational basis to embrace.

Of course, we believe that children sin and that sin must be addressed, but does this make it wrong? If the child has a fever, shouldn’t that be addressed? Problems need to be addressed. If we didn’t do so, IEET would accuse us of neglect!

• Because the child’s mind is uniquely susceptible to religious ideas, religious indoctrination particularly targets vulnerable young children. Cognitive development before age seven lacks abstract reasoning. Thinking is magical and primitive, black and white. Also, young humans are wired to obey authority because they are dependent on their caregivers just for survival. Much of their brain growth and development has to happen after birth, which means that children are extremely vulnerable to environmental influences in the first few years when neuronal pathways are formed.

There is no alternative but to “indoctrinate” infants. They must be socialized and learn their ABCs. All schools are agents of indoctrination. Admittedly, children should be taught to reason for themselves as they are able. However, any Einstein must first learn the ABCs, addition and subtraction.

However, IEET gives the mis-impression that they are able to bypass the inculcation of the basics, while we abusively force our children into mental strait-jackets.

Naturalists also convey the idea that they support science, while we distort children’s minds with myths:

• If you are good and that 2000 years ago a man died a horrible death because you are naughty. Adam and Eve, Noah’s ark, the Rapture, and hell, all can be quite real. The problem is that many of these teachings are terrifying.

Is it more scientific to believe that the world naturally jumped into existence uncaused out of nothing, even before there were such things as the laws of physics, than to believe that a Transcendent Being created?

Indeed, some teachings are terrifying, but does this make them wrong to teach? Should we not teach our children about sexual predators, Ebola, warfare, and evil? Of course we should! However, the Christian has a resource that the naturalist lacks to mitigate the terror. We also teach that God is totally forgiving and protecting – that even if we are killed, we go to be with Him!

If IEET is so concerned about the abuse of “teachings [that] are terrifying,” they should either teach denial or the Christian God!

• When assaulted with such images and ideas at a young age, a child has no chance of emotional self-defense. Christian teachings that sound true when they are embedded in the child’s mind at this tender age can feel true for a lifetime. Even decades later former believers who intellectually reject these ideas can feel intense fear or shame when their unconscious mind is triggered. 

There is some truth to this. When we live unrepentantly in a way that violates God’s commands, this can produce “intense fear or shame.” However, this is a good thing when it leads to confession. The murderer should experience “intense fear or shame” if his conscience is healthy. Society would then be healthier and safer.

It is noteworthy that one of the authors of this article “describes herself as cosmist, cosmicist, upwinger, socialist-libertarian, hedonist and abolitionist. Khannea is transgendered.” It is therefore understandable that she would feel contempt for the Christian faith, regarding it as the source of her “intense fear or shame.”

• Home schoolers and the Christian equivalent of madrassas cut off children from outside sources of information, often teaching rote learning and unquestioning obedience rather than broad curiosity. 

But what are the facts about homeschooling? Dr. Brian D. Ray of the National Home Education Research Institute conducted a nationwide study of homeschooling in America. He collected data for the cross-sectional, descriptive study in spring 2008. The 11,739 participants came from all 50 states, Guam, and Puerto Rico. The findings read:

• In the study, homeschoolers scored 34–39 percentile points higher than the norm [50%] on standardized achievement tests. The homeschool national average ranged from the 84th percentile for Language, Math, and Social Studies to the 89th percentile for Reading.

These findings prove that statistically children fare far better with their home-schooling parents. Also, instances of abuse are far lower.

• Fear of sin, hell, a looming “end-times” apocalypse, or amoral heathens binds people to the group, which then provides the only safe escape from the horrifying dangers on the outside. 

Are these fears unrealistic? IEEP must first prove that these teachings are destructive myths – something they haven’t even begun to do. However, we insist that it is beneficial to prepare our children for eternity. Of course, if there is no eternity, then we have done our children a disservice. However, if there is an eternity, then the naturalist is guilty of criminal neglect.

• In Bible-believing Christianity, psychological mind-control mechanisms are coupled with beliefs from the Iron Age, including the belief that women and children are possessions of men, that children who are not hit become spoiled, that each of us is born “utterly depraved”, and that a supernatural being demands unquestioning obedience.

This too represents libelous distortion. Instead, the Bible teaches that we are caretakers and have a great responsibility to our wives and children. The husband is called to greater forms of self-sacrifice for his family – loving his wife as Christ did the church, even to the point of giving his life for his wife.

One of my students had sent me this article. I’m glad that she did! These misrepresentations need to be addressed. We live in a culture experiencing a severe auto-immune response – attacking itself and everything that it values. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, ex-Muslim, ex-Dutch Parliamentarian, and atheist, seems to understand this better than most Western intellectuals. She even promotes Christianity, not naturalism, as an alternative to Islam:

• The Christianity of love and tolerance remains one of the West’s most powerful antidotes to the Islam of hate and intolerance. Ex-Muslims find Jesus Christ to be a more attractive and humane figure than Muhammad, the founder of Islam.

• I have a theory that most Muslims are in search of a redemptive God. They believe that there is a higher power and that this higher power is the provider of morality, giving them a compass to help them distinguish between good and bad.  Many Muslims are seeking a God or a concept of God that in my view meets the description of the Christian God.  Instead they find Allah. They find Allah mainly because many are born in Muslim families where Allah has been the reigning deity for generations… (p. 239)

• The Christian leaders now wasting their time and resources on a futile exercise of interfaith dialogue with the self-appointed leaders of Islam should redirect their efforts to converting as many Muslims as possible to Christianity, introducing them to a God who rejects Holy War and who has sent his son to die for all sinners out of a love for mankind… The Vatican and all the established Protestant churches of northern Europe believed naively that interfaith dialogue would magically bring Islam into the fold of Western civilization. It has not happened, and it will not happen…. To help ground these people in Western society, the West needs the Christian churches to get active again in propagating their faith. It needs Christian schools, Christian volunteers, the Christian message… The churches should do all in their power to win this battle for the souls of humans in search of a compassionate God, who now find that a fierce Allah is closer to hand. (Nomad, pp. 247, 249, 250, 251)

Naturalism and moral-relativism will never win hearts. Meanwhile, it has blindly set itself against the one resource that can!

As Traditional Marriage Falters, so Do the Children

Katie Roiphe, professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, writes approvingly about the death of traditional marriage:

• What would it mean to end the centuries-long American fixation on traditional family structures? Would we be able to look at families living outside of convention without as much judgment, as much toxic condescension?

• If we woke up one morning and discovered that in America marriage was suddenly regarded as a choice, a way, a possibility, but not a definite and essential phase of life, think how many people would suddenly be living above board, think of the stress removed, the pressures lifted, the stigmas dissolving. Think how many people living unhappily would see their way to living less unhappily.

• Whatever one thinks about the institution, the truth is that marriage is increasingly not the way Americans are living. If one goes strictly by the facts—that the majority of babies born to women under 30 are born to single mothers, or that about 51 percent of American adults are married—one has to admit that marriage can’t be taken for granted, assumed as a rite of passage, a towering symbol of our way of life. 

Roiphe might be right about these stats, but are they something to celebrate? Should the children born to unwed mothers be pleased that they represent a radical departure from what had long been considered the norm? Not according to the stats! In The Case for Marriage, Linda Waite & Maggie Gallagher assembled these findings:

• DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: “A large body of research shows that marriage is much less dangerous for women than cohabitors…1987-88 National Survey of Families and Households: married people are much less likely than cohabiting couples to say that arguments between them and their partners had become physical in the past year (4% of married people compared to 13% of the cohabiting).” (155) “Cohabiting women are 8 times as likely as to be unfaithful than married women.” (157)

• CHILD ABUSE: “A preschooler living with one biological parent and one step-parent was forty times more likely to be sexually abused than one living with two natural parents.” (159).

Interestingly, many talk approvingly of the “wisdom” of cohabitation as a means to test future compatibility. The New Oxford Review also reports that,

• “One in ten survives five or more years…The divorce rate among those who cohabit prior to marriage is nearly double (39% vs. 21%) that of couples who marry without prior cohabitation.”

• “Men in cohabiting relationships are four times more likely to be unfaithful…Depression is three times more likely…The poverty rate among children of cohabiting couples is five-fold greater…and 90% more likely to have a low GPA…Abuse of children is 20 times higher in cohabiting biological-parent families; and 33 times higher when the mother is cohabiting with a boyfriend.”

• “Cohabitation is bad for men, worse for women, and horrible for children. It is a deadly toxin to marriage, family, and culture.”

We have been led to believe that cohabitation provides a greater measure of protection for the spouse and for abused children. It is argued that the mother can more easily remove herself from an abusive situation if there isn’t a legally binding marriage. However, the statistics demonstrate the very opposite thing:

• Spanish statistics, which have been highlighted in recent years by Europe’s Family Policy Institute (FPI), and recently reported by the Spanish Newspaper ABC, indicate that while only 11% of Spanish couples cohabit without marriage, such unions account for 58% of the most violent crimes between couples. For every one protection order issued for a married couple, ten are issued for cohabiting couples. (LifeSiteNews.com)

Clearly, marriage is not an institution to be manipulated according to our tastes and desires. According to Jesus, it is a sacred union ordained by God:

• "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." (Matthew 19:4-6)

 

Creationism, Child Abuse, and the Hubris of Modernity

The present age always thinks that it is the most enlightened. If you lived in the 17^th century, you would think that the people of the 16^th century were merely uneducated heathens. It is no different for us in the 21th century, who regard the ideas of former centuries as asinine, whether we have solid evidence for this judgment or not. Our 21^st century pundits conveniently overlook our current ills – the proliferation of crime, abortion, pornography, sex trafficking, drug and alcohol addiction, STDs, economic exploitation and collapse and environmental problems. Nevertheless, we are the greatest generation, and therefore, we know best and can tell, even coerce, others to live according to our philosophy!

Theoretical physicist, Lawrence Krauss, is convinced that he knows better than the best. On a talk show, he declared that the teaching of creationism is a form of child abuse (and, of course, child abuse must be addressed as a criminal matter).

Needless to say, in order for such a judgment to stand, Krauss has to redefine “child abuse” as “putting children at a disadvantage compared to others.” He explains that by teaching children creationism, they will “go through life believing a myth and not learning those things that are really crucial.”

Interestingly, this definition of child abuse can be applied to anyone who teaches anything incorrect to children. Consequently, every teacher is guilty of child abuse! And any textbook author should be found guilty of child abuse, whenever it is found that the textbook requires correction.

However, is creationism – the idea that the universe was created by a superior intelligence – really a myth? On the contrary, many reputable scientists have gone on record that creationism is the most logical understanding.

Creationism has only one competitor – naturalism. According to naturalism, the universe sprang “naturally” into existence, uncaused out of nothing. However, research has yet to show how the world of matter and energy can originate uncaused and how it can come out of nothing. Perhaps equally damning is the resort to “natural causation.” This raises many unanswered and perhaps unanswerable questions. How can natural laws provide any explanation, when they too didn’t exist prior to the universe? Is such a concept even coherent?

Our laws operate uniformly and immutably throughout the universe. How can this be possible if they are bound up with a universe which is always moving and always changing – molecules in motion? And how could they have originated in an explosion – the big Bang? From a scientific perspective, explosions don’t create order; they destroy it! And why are the formulas that describe the operation of these laws so darn elegant?

These observations should lead us to at least consider the possibility that instead of being natural (embedded in mature), they are transcendent and the product of intelligence. However, any rational consideration of these questions has been banned from the university, where, even raising these questions, can ruin careers.

In light of this, perhaps Krauss and the vast majority of the university community are guilty of child abuse through teaching the myth of naturalism? I wouldn’t suggest such a thing. Instead, science will do best when it isn’t encumbered by a politically correct straight-jacket. If we are convinced of the superiority of our theory, them we should open the windows to serious scrutiny and the free exchange of ideas. However, this is precisely the thing that is now forbidden. Instead of the free and honest exchange of ideas, Western society increasingly criminalizes unpopular theories and views with such charges as “child abuse.”

Are children who are taught creationism missing out, as Krauss maintains? Was there a flowering of science and scholarship under communism, the quintessential anti-creationist states? Hardly! Instead we find that science experienced its modern renaissance through creationists. British scientist Robert Clark sums it up this way:

• “However we may interpret the fact, scientific development has only occurred in Christian culture. The ancients had brains as good as ours. In all civilizations—Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, India, Rome, Persia, China and so on—science developed to a certain point and then stopped. It is easy to argue speculatively that, perhaps, science might have been able to develop in the absence of Christianity, but in fact, it never did. And no wonder. For the non-Christian world believed that there was something ethically wrong about science. In Greece, this conviction was enshrined in the legend of Prometheus, the fire-bearer and prototype scientist who stole fire from heaven, thus incurring the wrath of the gods.” (Christian Belief and Science, Henry F. Schaefer, 14)

I can hardly imagine Isaac Newton charging his parents with “child abuse” for teaching him creationism! However, Krauss likens parents who teach creationism to the Taliban who teach violence and repression. Perhaps instead, the censorious, repressive Krauss bears a greater kinship to the Taliban than the creationist.

The interviewer subsequently asked Krauss, “Who gets to determine what is good for children?” Krauss seemed to be discomforted by this question. It uncovered another dilemma for him. If he answered, “The parents must ultimately determine,” this undermines everything he had been saying. However, if he answered, “The State,” his whole enterprise begins to look quite sinister. He therefore answered:

• We need to educate people…Society has an obligation…

In other words, “The State must reign supreme in these matters.” Indeed, there have been addictive or sexually abusive parents, and society has had to intervene. However, ordinarily, the West has recognized that children were the provenance of their parents, and they thrived maximally when in the hands of those who loved them and would die to protect them.

In contrast, the State doesn’t have a good track record as the ultimate care-giver. When the State took ultimate authority – think Hitler Youth or Stalin Youth - it never benefited the children.

Krauss charges that allowing children to be removed from the public school system in favor of home-schooling is not being fair to the child. In other words, he wants to see home-schooling banned in favor of a uniform system of compulsory, centralized, monopolistic education.

Krauss’ views would be laughable if it wasn’t for the fact that many others agree with him. For example, Germany has banned home-schooling:

• The Supreme Court of Germany declared that the purpose of the German ban on homeschooling was to "counteract the development of religious and philosophically motivated parallel societies." (LifeSiteNews, 2/14/13)

After all, the State knows best – better than the parents. However, has the State been able to demonstrate that they can do better than the parents? Not at all! It has been repeatedly shown that home-schooled children do far better than the average on standardized testing. Instead, as Germany admits, the real issue is philosophical conformity – control!

In lieu of prison, one German home-schooling family has fled to the USA, where they are seeking asylum. However, it seems that they have sought asylum in the wrong place:

• The Attorney General of the United States thinks that a law that bans homeschooling entirely violates no fundamental liberties.

Sadly, this seems to be a harbinger of what we can expect here – an increasingly totalitarian State that has little interest in maintaining diversity of opinion and religion.

Christianity and Child Abuse

Living by myths and irrational beliefs usually gets us in trouble. We need an accurate road-map (or GPS) to get us where we want to go. If it’s inaccurate, we’ll end up in Timbuktu, costing us valuable resources.

The same principle applies to our beliefs. If they don’t accord with reality, they will lead us to make costly decisions. Decision-making requires accurate data. When we see clearly, we can drive our car through traffic without a fender-bender.

We should therefore expect that those who are most deluded will experience the most problems – physically, mentally, emotionally and relationally. Generally speaking, people who think that they literally are Julius Caesar don’t get far on the job or with their friends.

If Christians are following a set of myths, we should also expect that our lives will also show more wear-and-tear for it. However, this is not what we find. Instead, a multitude of surveys have shown that practicing Christians experience many and varied benefits. This also includes children of “religious parents”:

• Andrew Whitehouse, of the University of Western Australia, recently summarized a 2008 study that looked into “whether growing up in a religious household conveys advantages or disadvantages in the behavioral and emotional development of children.” Whitehouse wrote that it “turned out to be a bit of a landslide in favor of more religious parents. Children of religious parents were rated by both parents and teachers as having a greater self-control, better interpersonal skills, and less likely to have depression or impulsivity problems. (Salvo, Issue 22, 18)

Instead of discounting the ways of Christianity, investigators should be examining them more closely to determine what it is that accounts for these favorable outcomes.

These findings are contrary to the expectations of atheists, who call the Christian upbringing “child abuse” and even worse. Weep your eyes out Dawkins, Harris and Dennett!