A recent study published in Review of the Economics of the Household is one more study that calls into question the claims of the American Psychological Association and American Sociological Association that when it comes to the effects on children, there is no difference between being raised in a home headed up by male-female parents and a home headed up by same-sex parents.
What did the researchers find? When looking at the rates of high school graduation, they found that the children of lesbian couples were the least likely to graduate (65% as likely as children of married, opposite-sex couples) – even more unlikely than children of single parents! They even discovered that male children raised in a lesbian home are less likely to graduate than male children raised in a gay home, and female children raised in a gay home are less likely to graduate than female children raised in a lesbian home. It appears that when it comes to parenting, moms and dads are not interchangeable. The gender of one’s parent does have an effect on kids.
The findings are significant because Canada has long supported same-sex couples (marriage benefits since 1997, and marriage since 2005), and the data set is extremely large (a 20% sampling of the Canadian population based on the data contained in the Canadian Census).
For similar studies, see the following:
Studies purporting to show that children raised by same-sex parents fare just as well as children raised by opposite-sex couples are flawed, and new evidence that they fare worse
For a critique of Allen’s study, see Philip Cohen’s analysis. Mark Regnerus also points out a few limitations of the study, even though he finds the overall study credible and valuable.
HT: Mark Regnerus
Christian apologists have long pointed out that when it comes to textual reliability, the NT is in a league of its own compared to all other ancient texts. According to NT manuscript expert Daniel Wallace, there are 1000x more copies of the NT than the average ancient Greek text. If we stacked the NT manuscripts on top of each other, they would reach more than a mile high. Not only are there more manuscripts for the NT than any other ancient text, but the gap between the original text and our first copies is smaller for the NT than other ancient texts. There are 3x as many NT manuscripts within 200 years of the original text than the average Greco-Roman text has in 2000 years.
Unfortunately, many of the statistics appearing in apologetics literature are outdated. Additional manuscripts of both the NT and other ancient texts continue to be discovered. Clay Jones wrote an article for the Christian Research Institute in 2012 providing the latest stats. The article was recently posted on the CRI website. Check it out and see how the NT compares to other ancient Greek texts.
A couple of years ago a friendly soul purchased Steven C. Roy’s book, How Much Does God Foreknow from my Ministry Resource List. Other research, however, prevented me from getting to this book until now.
As the title implies, the purpose of the book is to explore the question of God’s foreknowledge. It is meant to be a critical evaluation of open theism, which is the view that God cannot know the future, free choices made by moral agents because the future does not exist. One of the strengths of Roy’s work is that he interacts directly with Open Theists, quoting them at length. This avoids the potential for constructing a straw man argument, and allows the reader to consider Open Theists arguments for themselves.
(more…)
Thinking to Believe 