Take That Family Value Christians!

[Solitary]

When conservative evangelical Christians complain about the decline of morals in America, the growth of divorce over the decades is often cited as evidence or pulled out as the consequence. There's just one problem with this:

 Divorce rates are generally higher among Christians than they are among atheists. In fact, divorce rates for atheists are lower than the national average, so if divorce is a sign or symptom of immorality, then atheists should qualify as being more moral than average and perhaps more moral than the average Christian.

So why do evangelical Christians also regularly accuse atheists of lacking a solid foundation for morality? This contradiction points to a clear problem in the position which these Christians are defending, but it's a contradiction that's been known for a long time now and so far none seem to have cared enough to try to resolve it.

Divorce Rates in America

The Barna Research Group, an evangelical Christian organization that does surveys and research to better understand what Christians believe and how they behave, studied divorce rates in America in 2007-2008 and learned that divorce rates weren't quite what they expected. With a margin of error of ±1.6%, they came up with the following divorce rates for various demographic groups:

All born again Christians: 32%
All non born again Christians: 33%
Evangelical Christians: 26%
Non-evangelical born again Christians: 33%
National Christians: 33%

Non-Christian Faith: 38%
Atheist or agnostic: 30%

 :rollin:  :rollin:  :rollin:  Solitary

[Sargon The Grape]

I like how the evangelical organization, despite pegging the atheist divorce rate second-lowest, still managed to peg their own faith as the absolute lowest even with the error margin. That ain't suspicious at all.

[Jutter]

Those figures lead me to think it doesn't matter shockingly much which demographic you belong to.

[Colanth]

You can find "research" to back up any "fact" you prefer.  For instance, //http://divorce.lovetoknow.com/Divorce_Statistics_by_Religion lists atheists, Lutherans and Catholics tied for last place, and evangelicals at or near the top.