A report this week in the journal Reproductive Health describes what researchers call “a strong association” between the teenage birth rate of a particular state and its “level of religiosity.”
I find that interesting. I thought religion discouraged pre-marital sex? Goes to show how much people actually practice what they preach, I guess.
Although several suggestions are examined in this article, I particularly liked the assessment at the end “that religious communities in the US are more successful in discouraging the use of contraception among their teenagers than they are in discouraging sexual intercourse itself”.
Sad, really.
Friday, September 18, 2009
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Maybe we can go back in time to the '50's where sex is dirty and the body a temple.......and religious men kept their hands to themselves or did they?
Bawdy, I think that's one of the more disturbing (to many people) aspects of this whole issue- the idea that this is nothing new, that it's been going on for decades if not centuries, behind the scenes and never acknowledged.
Oh, I think many of the religious folks would like to go back to the popular image of what the 50's were... but there have been out of wedlock pregnancies since time began. The real problem is the lack of education about contraception IMHO.
Well, I guess the rapist priests and pastors are problematic, too.
Heck, way back in the OLD days, with monasteries all over the place, rumors ran wild about naughty monks, priests and nuns. In fact, in Shakespeare's time 'Nunnery' was slang for a house of prostitution. Not to mention the stories about what monks and nuns did among themselves...
All of which reminds me of a joke- The young novitiate nun is going through her daily routine, and every time she passes another nun in the hall they say, "we got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning..." in that annoying sing-song way. By the time of the evening meal she ran into the Mother Superior. The older woman opened her mouth to speak and the young nun burst out, "If you tell me I got up on the wrong side of the bed, I think I'll SCREAM!!!" The Mother Superior blinked. "No, my child, I was merely going to ask you why you're wearing the Bishop's shoes..."
I'm LMAO at those hypocritical Mo-Fo's
Of course, if you want to take it all waaaay back, you could go to St Paul and his insistence on absolute celibacy, even among married folk.
Paul didn't insist on celibacy. That's a Catholic corruption of what he actually said. And he said the exact opposite for married couples.
1 Cor 7:1-9
Now I admit I am talking from ignorance, but if celibacy originated from a "Catholic corruption", wouldn't this fall under the same power controlling process that most cult leaders use to control their masses?
Reminds me of the old Funkadelic tune,"Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow". That's my credo.
Cult leaders are typically more skilled and brazen in their efforts to control and manipulate others. But the Catholic church has certainly done their fair share to try to control their followers over the centuries.
This blog seems to be rather comatose lately, so I'll add something off-topic. Or maybe it actually IS on-topic since there was a mention of cults.
Say what you will about those who blindly followed Bush's policies. But this Obama stuff keeps getting creepier.
http://blip.tv/file/2658666
Obama just appointed Kevin Jennings as the Assistant Deputy Secretary of Education for the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools. Of course he was the founder of GLSEN.
GLSEN sponsored the Massachusetts public school youth workshop, “What They Didn’t Tell You About Queer Sex & Sexuality in Health Class” — in which a youth 12 to 21” were guided through the mechanics of sex acts, oral sodomy, and lesbian sex. He also encourages high school students to have sex with older men.
Great, another looney tune under the Obama umbrella. Does the guy have any normal acquaintances?
Anyone think he will make a decision of Afghanistan in the next 6 months? Or will he leave our troops hanging even longer?
Oh, we're in Afghanistan for a long time. Just as we're in Iraq permanently. There might be some small pulling out of some troops eventually, but it's obvious that our gummint intends to maintain a permanent presence there. I wouldn't be surprised if Afghanistan works out the same way. Yet one more part of this permanent state of war that's been created.
Granted Obama was not given a very good hand at the beginning of his administration and Iraq and Afghanistan are major reasons for that bad hand, but what is really ominous from what I am reading is the game of chicken we are playing with Iran and all the moving pieces of this situation.
One thing I am reading is that Russia and Iran do not think Obama is up to the task of confronting both through inexperience and a lack of toughness. Russia is going to be key to any 'crippling sancitons" on Iran as Russia has already reassured Iran they will supply all the gasoline Iran will need during the time of the sanctions. The Russians want us out of it's periphery(Ukraine, Georgia, the Balitcs and Poland) and will help the Iranians if we don't give in. Obama very likely thought giving in on BMD based in Poland and the Czech Republic would start the negotiations between the US and Russia, but Russia pulled a fast one and stated the nixing of BMD was the payment for Russia letting us use their territory and the Central Asian states to supply our troops in the Afghanistan fiasco as the supply routes through Pakistan are getting very precarious. This had to set Obama back on his heels as he has to realize the Russians are holding a better hand than us.
Iran has to realize the Russians will sell them out if they get what they want from us(getting out of the former Soviet States and anything else they want, I guess), but for now Iran needs a strong regional power to help them get what they want. The Russians will deal. They are not keen on having a nuclear Iran in their backyard, but to get what they want, they will use Iran.
The wild card in all this is Israel. They are pessimistic the diplomatic path is going to work and they are chomping at the bit to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. Will we be able to keep them at bay if they feel their very existance is at stake? Don't count on it. And if Israel does attack Iran, we will be complicit even if we don't want to because they will likely have to fly over Iraq(whose airspace we control)to get to them.
Once Iran is attacked, their likely strategy will be to mine the Straits of Hormuz where I don't have to tell you, much of the world's oil is transported. What will that do to the price of oil and the fledgling economic recovery? I don't want to think about it.
This world could turn into a big shithole in a fucking minute while we dither about homosexuals, Jesus and astroturf. Sometimes I wish we as Americans would get our collective heads out of our asses and realize we are just one country on this planet and we would do the world a favor by stop getting involved in all these fucking entanglements. George Washington had it right back then and it is still the right way to go right now.
Let's trade with everybody and fight nobody unless they throw the first punch. If and when they do, then we fuck em up and only then.
A good summary Bawdyscot. The world is much more complicated than when Washington was Prez. Granted we should limit our skirmishes, but if we allow Afghanistan to become controlled by the Taliban again, we will be on the defensive for deacades to come with 9/11 becoming just one of many attacks we will deal with. Its just not prudent. They have declared war against us.
If Israel does attack Iran, it will be our problem. A war with Nukes becomes everyone's problem. Wahington never delt with a world so small. Obama I fear is not up to the task and the rest of the world knows it. Biden & Hillary knew it and they even warned us.
Lou,
There is no reason for the whole of the US military to be in Afghanistan. It all could be done with the CIA and Special Ops. We have been there for 8 years and we have to have made a bevy of intelligence assets and if we were to straighten things out with Russia, we could fight fire with fire by using the Northern Alliance(no lovers of the Taliban) as an insurgency force against the Taliban, but in the least keep an eye on them. Russia, no lover of Islamic militants could help keep the Taliban in check. Also, if we were somehow to get Iran into the mainstream they are no lovers of the Taliban either and could be very willing to keep a lid on them.
We have ways to keep money out of the Taliban's hands. The Middle East cultures have ways of laundering money very secretly, but when you are dealing with the amounts the Taliban would need it gets harder to hide it. And if we can get the Swiss to open their books we should be able to put pressure on the suppliers of capital to the Taliban(We put the screws to the Saudis for bankrolling Al Qaeda after 9/11).
Once we get over the backward idea of the prohibition of illicit drugs, this could take some of the money out of the Taliban as opium would get cheaper(it would also take some of the profit away from the Mexican cartels too, but that is another story) and less profitable.
There is probably alot more we could do to keep the Taliban down, but my contention is that there is no US national interest in directing the country of Afghanistan in any political direction. It is alot like Iraq that way. Loyalties in these countries aren't based on some national idea, it is based on religion, ethnicity, tribes and families; the stuff we left behind long ago and do not understand now.
I think Obama is realizing Afghanistan would be his downfall and this is why he is taking his time coming up with his objectives for the country. We already know what the military wants. We already know the citizenry is starting to regurgitate on the idea of a prolonged war there. We already know the rest of the coalition is going to back out soon. Obama being the political animal that he is has got to have his reservations about the military's proposal, but a relatively untested President deemed weak by all the players could be dangerous as he tries to disprove the consensus.
Finally, once we get out of this Middle East mess, we should consider the idea of backing out of all security entaglements and concentrate on getting the world to treat each other with respect through free and fair trade with everybody(no matter what type of government they have)and become a paragon of individual liberty instead of giving the idea lip service.
But Bawdy...that would mean going against how we've done things around the world for the last 50 years or more...
I dunno, I think I would like to get that "reset" button to go all the way back to 1900 or so.
And for all who would say,"But there has been so much activity since 1900, inventions and wars and isms and the like". I say humans are still simple creatures, have basic needs which liberty was meant to provide for. If we, as a country(the most powerful country in the world) would put our money where out mouth is and not get deterred by being the "world's policeman" we could set the example our Constitution was pointing towards, things could change. What we have taken on now hasn't worked, so why not go back to the start; to the ideas most agree(the Red of us and the Blue of us)were brilliant and worth following.
Also, I am getting pretty fed up with the left talking about how we should pattern our systems(government, health care, etc) like the Europeans(hell, like the Japanese, hell like everybody else). I say let these other fucking countries defend themselves with their own militaries and the outlays required to build them and then we will talk about it. We spend as much as the rest of the world and wouldn't the rest of you like to see some of that spent here or maybe not spent at all.
Also, one of the reasons(which rarely comes up in conversation)drugs,the legal ones, are so fucking expensive here is the fact the rest of the world has negotiated with the pharma companies for free or discounted prices while we have not. The pharma corps get dumped on for trying to make a profit(there is that dirty word again)when this is the last place they can look to make that profit. I agree that pharma shouldn't be advertising to the general public(and probably not to doctors either, info yes, slick advertising no)but this lack of expense should make up for the lack of sales. Remember, I don't feel corps should have the same Free Speech rights as an individual as outlined in the Constitution. And I still like the idea of giving multi-national corps the choice of remaining an American corp or cutting the tie and becoming an entity free of a national footing. They would pay no taxes, but they would also get no benefit from the rest of us(the citizenry). We could buy their products, of course, but no tax breaks or sweetheart deals or lobbyists(no Free Speech rights)and no donations to politicians. Let the rest of the world regulate them(of course we would have our own regulations to regulate their activities in our country)and see how they would like that. I think you would see some interesting choices and maybe some regrets from the choices they made.
Finally, Michael Moore proves that sage quote from some libertarian(I don't remember the name)a couple years back, "Liberals want to work in the 1950's and live today and conservatives want to live in the 1950's and work today." Moore pines for the days of strong labor, but can't get his mind around the fact labor(and bad management)destroyed his beloved GM. I have said it before, if unions had been buying up the stock of the companies they worked for from the very beginning with the huge war chests they ended up with they would have had a seat at the management table. Would they have had a different outcome, I doubt it but they would have had at least a chance of a hand in the direction of these companies. In the end they couldn't get past their adversarial stance, to their detriment.
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