While browsing the Internet, I fell upon some interesting information pertaining to infidelity and religion. People who regularly attend a religious service are less likely to cheat on their spouse. This is pretty standard - most scripture condemns cheating. However, people who consider themselves in a close relationship with God but do not attend service are 25% more likely to cheat on their spouse. So, when talking about religion, is it the belief system what stops people from being unfaithful, or the act of going to service? Thomas Rees, a columnist for Free Inquiry believes that people who attend service are less likely to cheat because they have a unified commitment to attend service. He claims that different people with the same commitment to a secular activity would probably have the same statistics. When taking a closer look at my study as well as other research, I found that they too have "attending religious service" as a variable - not "relationship with God" or something similar to that.
Here is the link to Rees Blog:
http://epiphenom.fieldofscience.com/
Your project is a rich, huge topic, but I think you've got a doable plan and can always trim down. The fascinating thing, for me, is the connections and/or tensions between moral-religious explanations and scientific ones. I think you are right that whatever the evolutionary push for men, say, to have more sexual relationships, that's a nudge we can and should control. Biology is not always destiny.
ReplyDeleteAs for the going to church connection, my sense is similar to Tom Rees's (as you describe him and from my quick glance): being involved in any short of social-minded activity (church being one option) might help pull a person outside oneself. I would think that being at any religious service consistently, especially with your whole family, helps reinforce pro-family behavior.
There's a lot of good Catholic literature (most that I know is in books) about sexual ethics that takes commitment seriously while also trying to be realistic about people's real lives. An argument against adultery can't really be "because God will be angry" but instead has to be about true love being at its best in the context of commitment.
An interesting writer on this is Donna Freitas. See http://www.donnafreitas.com/ and
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/august/31.43.html
Thanks for the link! I can definitely use it!
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