Comment by apparent
2 months ago
> Well, hope and faith are not effective strategies. Good luck to those who operate from this perspective, they will face disappointment, which is theirs to own.
Hm, worked great for many people I know. I can imagine it would depend on a number of factors.
But looking at your links, they don't seem especially relevant to the question of whether more people are having sex before marriage than before. They don't even mention the word "sex" in fact. And of course, the relevant question isn't whether people in general are having sex before marriage less, it's whether people raised in families where abstention is valued are upholding that value in their lives.
But congrats on sharing lots of links, which makes it look like evidence is on your side!
As to whether "hope and faith are not effective strategies", it probably makes sense to listen to the experience of people who rely on such hope and faith in their lives, and who have many friends/family who do. People who express outward disdain for such things are probably not the best source of reliable info on the matter.
I understand that religiosity (faith and hope) is negatively correlated to intelligence, so I also understand faith driven mental models are an uphill climb to better health outcomes at scale. "It is what it is." As I mentioned, perhaps we'll have better luck next generation, when systems have improved in this regard.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23921675/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602...
https://hilo.hawaii.edu/campuscenter/hohonu/volumes/document...
https://arxiv.org/abs/2011.12425
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34449007/
(edit: facts and data are not unkind, they just are, and I feel like I have been very polite in my delivery of all facts and data presented; if you are unhappy about the facts and data presented, that is an internal issue to reconcile)
That's a pretty longwinded ad hominem you've got right there.
Forgive me for not digging into your links again...fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
You're entitled to your opinion, but when you go around spouting about faith not being a good strategy and then cite a bunch of unrelated articles, you've shown that you are yourself not very intelligent (or kind).
"Faith" is fundamentally belief without knowledge. Thus you by definition have no reason to rely on it. (Although the word also gets used in situations where there is a track record to rely on but no specific evidence in the particular case.)
And you're using the wrong yardstick. What you should be looking at is the number of adverse events. STDs. Unintended pregnancies.
Everyone hopes for and has faith in their kids with regard to some actions. It could be going to class, staying out of gangs, not drinking/doing drugs. We don't know for a fact our kids will do what we hope, but we act in a way that shows we have faith in them, so as to avoid undermining their confidence.
I don't need to use the yardstick you propose. There are many confounders in aggregate data, and there are not public polls that capture the demographics and beliefs of my family. It would be a fool's errand to pretend that publicly available data is somehow more important than my own understanding of my kids.
It's funny how you think I shouldn't be able to make decisions for my children, but you seem to think that you know better than me what is right for them.
The available data indicates that you're wrong. You *think* you know, you don't.
Would it be acceptable to not belt your kids because you have faith in your driving skills? (And never mind that the one time in my life where a seat belt mattered was when I was essentially PITted by someone who didn't look left. I walked away with nothing but a pulled muscle and because I was belted my foot correctly found the brake pedal while I was spinning around and totally disorientated.)
Or how about the woman from ~30 years back that said that DUI doesn't really matter if your faith is strong enough as god will protect you.
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