Wednesday, September 28th, 2016
Julie Zauzmer, Religion Reporter - The Washington Post
Stephan: Here is the newest data on divorce and religion. In my view this is all part of a realignment trend in which gender, relationship, and sexuality are no longer defined and dominated by religion authority. I see this as a good trend, it seems more honest and compassionate.
Two widely recognized trends in American society might have something to do with each other.
Divorce rates climbed to the highest levels ever in the 1980s, when about half of all marriages ended in divorce.
And in the present day, Americans are rapidly becoming less religious. Since 1972, the share of Americans who say they do not adhere to any particular religion has increased from 5 percent of the population to 25 percent.
Could those two trends be related? A new study from the Public Religion Research Institute says yes. The children of divorced parents have grown up to be adults of no religion.
People whose parents divorced when they were children are significantly more likely to grow up not to be religious as adults, the study found. Thirty-five percent of the children of divorced parents told pollsters they are now nonreligious, compared with 23 percent of people whose parents were married when they were children.
Other studies on the rise of the “nones” — those who say they have no religion — have focused on millennials’ changing preferences. This study found that 29 […]
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Wednesday, September 28th, 2016
Patricia Miller , - Religion Dispatches
Stephan: Here is a more granular look at this dramatic shift in religious belief and practice in the U.S., and its effect on social conventions.
The shift in Catholicism I think arises because of the seemingly endless litany of incidents in which clergy have been charged with the sexual abuse of young children. There is a cost besides money to an organization that sets itself up as the arbiter of morality when its official members are repeatedly caught in hypocrisy, and that cost is coming due.
The Public Religion Research Institute is out with another
fascinating report on one of the most significant religious trends of our time: the dramatic rise in disaffiliation, or, as some call them, the “
nones.”
PPRI found that a fully a quarter of all Americans, and a whopping 39% of young adults, now say they have no religious affiliation, making the unaffiliated the largest “religious” group in a country long known for its high levels of religiosity.
And while the rise of the “nones” will continue to make headlines and shape culture for a long time to come, there is another largely unnoticed trend lurking in the numbers: just how much the growth in the nones has been fueled by the disaffiliation of Roman Catholics. According to PPRI:
While non-white Protestants and non-Christian religious groups have remained fairly stable, white Protestants and Catholics have all experienced declines, with Catholics suffering the largest decline among major religious groups: a 10-percentage point loss overall. Nearly one-third (31%) of Americans report being raised in a Catholic household, but only about one in five (21%) Americans identify […]
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Tuesday, September 27th, 2016
Stephan A. Schwartz, Editor - Schwartzreport
Stephan: Several readers have written to ask me what I thought of last night's debate; who I thought won.
By any number of objective criteria I think Clinton won. Trump can't stop lying; he wants to sound smart and knowledgeable but he is too intellectually lazy to actually do the heavy lifting to become expert about something. He just "goes with his gut" as he says and makes up numbers to make it look like he actually knows what he is talking about. And he has the ethics of a snake oil salesman.
That said I don't actually think who won will make much difference. Trump's followers aren't interested in facts, so fact checking really has no effect on them. And they have a desperate need to tell someone off, and through Trump they can live that fantasy.
The truth is I think Trump may well win the Presidency. I think he will have a high voter turn out, while many social progressives will vote for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson, which is to say they will vote for Trump, although they cannot seem to understand that.
If Trump wins by the end of his term I am not sure America will be recognizable. History makes it clear that nothing is forever, and this may be the long goodbye.
-- Stephan
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Tuesday, September 27th, 2016
Derek Markham , - treehugger
Stephan: The creation of a complete solar power system is the big breakthrough being sought. Tesla offered one solution and now this. Others are coming, and I think an affordable system will be commercially available within two years. I for one will be very glad to see it, so I see this as good news.
SunCulture system
This startup is reinventing the solar panel, and aims to cut the cost of integrating clean power and energy storage to homes by half.
Home solar has the potential to reduce, and even eliminate, electricity costs for many people, but even with the rapid advancements we’re seeing in solar technology, there are still weak points that can be addressed and overcome, such as energy storage and ‘smart’ home integration. But a newcomer to the residential solar scene believes it has the answer, in the form of a standalone solar and battery unit which can be used singly or connected in an array, and which may be able to lower the overall costs considerably.
SunCulture’s SolPad solar device integrates solid state batteries directly into the solar panels themselves, offering its users the ability to not only generate their own clean electricity, but to also store if for use after dark or during peak demand times, when electricity costs are higher. The SolPad units also incorporate an inverter, which converts the electricity from the DC generated and […]
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Tuesday, September 27th, 2016
Stephan: Because of their ivory tusks and the greed and stupidity of humanity I would predict that unless the Asian nations pass and enforce laws making the possession of ivory illegal the chances are your grandchildren will know about elephants only in zoos and books, and maybe just books. Here is the latest report.
Africa’s overall elephant population has seen the worst declines in 25 years, mainly due to poaching — according to IUCN’s African Elephant Status Report launched at the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES, taking place in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The report is an authoritative source of knowledge about the numbers and distribution of African elephant populations across their 37 range states in sub-Saharan Africa.
It presents more than 275 new or updated estimates for individual elephant populations across Africa, with over 180 of these arising from systematic surveys. The report summarizes — for the first time in almost a decade — elephant numbers at the continental, regional and national levels, and examines changes in population estimates at the site level.
Based on population estimates from a wide range of sources — including aerial surveys and elephant dung counts — the estimates for 2015 are 93,000 lower than in 2006. However, this figure includes 18,000 from previously uncounted populations. Therefore, the real decline from estimates is considered to be closer to 111,000. The continental total is now thought to […]
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