Abstinence Education Does Not Work
So here’s a great one that came down the AP newswire on the 13th:
WASHINGTON - Students who took part in sexual abstinence programs were just as likely to have sex as those who did not, according to a study ordered by Congress.
Also, those who attended one of the four abstinence classes that were reviewed reported having similar numbers of sexual partners as those who did not attend the classes. And they first had sex at about the same age as other students — 14.9 years, according to Mathematica Policy Research Inc.
The federal government now spends about $176 million annually on abstinence-until-marriage education. Critics have repeatedly said they don’t believe the programs are working, and the study will give them reinforcement.
However, Bush administration officials cautioned against drawing sweeping conclusions from the study. They said the four programs reviewed — among several hundred across the nation — were some of the very first established after Congress overhauled the nation’s welfare laws in 1996.
Officials said one lesson they learned from the study is that the abstinence message should be reinforced in subsequent years to truly affect behavior.
There’s more here, but I simply can’t stomach to print any more of this.
So in short this demonstrates yet another time that religious morality simply doesn’t work and doesn’t help keep people on the straight and narrow. A lot of parents desire to send their children to church even if they themselves aren’t faithful because they are led to believe that religious moral education is supposed to ensure that their children have a strong moral base during childhood and concequentialy become better people.
Bull Shit
It doesn’t help. It doesn’t provide a better moral base than any simple arbitrary set of rules. In fact I think if we spent more of our time showing our children real punishment and encouraging beneficial behavior instead of telling them that Santa’s good friend Jesus, who loves everyone, will punish you horribly for your ill behavior. Kids are smart, and once they decide that God is a lie so goes all of their morality. Additionally, given a forgiving God, what is the reason to do well? As long as you have time to be sorry, you’re forgiven. No bundle of lies is ever going to result in a truth, and this is the most shining example of it. Face it, religious morality simply doesn’t exist.
I guess that would explain why the jails are stuffed to the gills with Christians.
The worst thing about all of this is the current regime’s comment about how we have to spend even more money on this failed project. This is the shining example of the theist mind. In spite of empirical evidence the suggestion is to carry on with a failed plan, wasting more money, and honestly not accomplishing in the least what they want to do. Face it, these are people who don’t think twice about killing innocent people by the thousands in the name of peace. Think about it.
Good work guys. I swear that our budding theocracy won’t be happy until we’re back in the dark ages with brutal churches and governments grinding the populace under their fat heels. We must break away from those who enslave us. Stop giving credence, time, effort, and most importantly money to these people. If you want to find God sit at home and read the freaking scriptures. Figure it out for yourself. Don’t let these people lie to us any more.