Reply #41: These statistics may be meaningless [View All]

[Synthesis]

The essay is not clear on what they mean by "divorce rates." The statistic given is "% who have been divorced." Unless this is weighted against the actual percentage of people from such a group that get married at all, it is not a meaningful statistic. For example, if only 40 percent of atheists get married in their life, and of those 50 percent of them get a divorce, the "divorce rate," by the method apparently used in this study, would register as 20 percent for atheists. Whereas if 90 percent of Christians get married and 33 percent of them divorce, then the rate would register as 30 percent by the study's methods. The really relevant statistic is what percentage of marriages last, depending on the group.