Does Virginity Work?

I just read an article by Mark Driscoll on Dating, Relating, and Fornicating. Because I don't always agree with his word choices and in my opinion, mishandling of some "hot button" issues, I was surprised to find some interesting study results within his post that, at least scientifically, solidified my opinions on dating and marriage (For said opinions, see posts "How To Land a Wife," "Head vs. Heart - Marriage and Cynicism," and maybe "Surprised by Love" for some background).


Mr. Driscoll can be blunt and offensive, sometimes lacking the grace required to deliver the type of loving correction that people are naturally more receptive to. I don't want to get into a debate about who's team I'm on, or whether I'm a Neo-Calvinist or a Neo-Puritan, because I think we're all on the same team. Mark means well and I have grace for him, because I too have the propensity to pop off at the mouth when I think I'm right. I just wanted to share some statistics from his post that may or may not guide your actions and better your life. Here is the excerpt I'm talking about:

Culture and Dating

Sex outside of marriage is now the norm, a huge change from just a century ago. Today, over 5 million couples cohabitate. This is up from 1 million in 1978. And this number doesn’t take into account the number of couples who don’t live together but who still stay over at each other’s places enough to be classified as cohabitators.

Here are some shocking statistics taken from my book, Religion Saves:

• An estimated quarter of unmarried women between the ages of 25 and 39 currently live with a partner.
• Half of unmarried women in the same age group have lived with a partner at some time.
• Over half of all first marriages are now preceded by cohabitation.
• The most likely people to cohabit are those aged 20 to 24.

This is problematic first because it is sin and against God’s design for sex, which is to be enjoyed in the context of marriage, but also for a number of practical reasons.

• Studies almost always find that cohabitation is associated with a higher divorce risk, with estimates ranging from 33 percent to 151 percent increased risk of divorce.
• Annual rates of depression among cohabitators are more than three times higher than married couples,
• Women in cohabitating relationships are twice as likely as married women to suffer physical abuse.
• Two studies found that women in cohabitating relationships are about nine times more likely to be killed by their partner than married women.
• Couples who cohabitate before marriage report less marital happiness and more conflict when married.

This is in contrast to couples who marry as virgins:

• Men who marry as virgins are 37 percent less likely to divorce.
• Women who marry as virgins are 24 percent less likely to divorce,
• Those who wait to have sex until marriage and remain faithful in marriage report higher levels of life satisfaction compared to adults who engage in premarital or adulterous sex.
• Those who wait to have sex and are faithful to their spouse also report notably higher happiness scores.

What do you think of these statistics?

Human Knowledge

Scientists are funny. They're always throwing around numbers too big to fathom and spewing units of time too long to comprehend. They speak as if their meager calculations and estimates are fact; 450 million years this, 150 thousand light years that. How petty and insignificant is the dawn of man compared to the vast and timeless universe. Even the simplest cell is far beyond the limits of human ingenuity. A very basic yeast cell contains as many components as a Boeing 777. Even if we could fit a Boeing 777 into a microscopic cell, we could never convince it to replicate itself and multiply as all cells do. Yet people devote their lives in some fatalistic attempt to understand it all, and once they settle on their answers they quickly start to lobby for their beliefs. This peculiar condition is not found in any other living creature. It is inherently human.

The fact is we can scientifically prove very little of anything, yet we still search desperately for the absolutes. It's odd that in the face of such staggering confusion every human being longs to know ultimate truth. It is almost as if we have this ancient memory of a time when we understood the truth, but now there is just a void where it once was. It is as if we're all desperately trying to fill truths void with principles, morals, science, religion and meaning. We long for something we've never experienced, but for some reason our hearts still cry out to know these great mysteries. Unfortunately, human instinct counts for very little in human science.

To me, at least cerebrally, the human need for truth and justice could be used as evidence of some inkling of the existence of ultimate truth (and with ultimate anything, there is an ultimate source). Could the source of our desires be from an ultimate designer? Some bearer of truth seeding our lives with a longing to know "it"? Would that be too far off base for any mainstream scientists to imagine? I may have limited scientific knowledge, but to me the idea that our universe was created by an intelligent force seems as reasonable an occurrence as anything that happens on the molecular level. With all we do not know, why is it so hard for the science community to theorize about the possibility of intelligent design? Is it because the whole idea would put Darwinian science books out of date? Possibly. Personally, the belief that this majestic, infinite, intricate, artful and completely functioning universe is a fluke accident requires much more faith, and seems much less probable than the belief in the existence of a creator. Considering that 99% of the species that have lived on our own tiny planet remain undiscovered, who are we to rule out any theories of things unseen? Are we not to trust our instincts, our notions or our convictions? Are we only to rely on the sense of sight? Even so, if you look around you'll find confusing and fascinating things that can only truly be explained with intelligent design. Modern science refers to this idea as a costly cop-out and one that would hinder the industry. It flies in the face of conventional science. It might ruin the common requirement for hard evidence in any field (when in reality certain theories are taken quite simply as fact on a regular basis already). I refer to the idea of a creator as a peaceful submission to a much more probable explanation based on both things seen and felt. On top of the hard evidence within creation, shouldn't we also hypothesize using our instincts and our nature? I suppose the evidence within ones life will never count for much in a textbook, but to me "the proof is in the pudding," so to speak. Darwin's evolution just doesn't answer enough questions, not even for science.

Why else do we cling so desperately to our metaphysical principles? Why else do we care? We all want to know the truth, and when we think we find it through science or faith or both, we tend to parade it around. Deep down we know that every human longs for it. We all want validation. We want the majority to agree with us so we can have assurance that what we believe is true. In this sense, everyone develops a sort of religion. Even atheists will try to convert and indoctrinate followers, sometimes more diligently than any church. I think our need for validation is based out of the fear that perhaps we're wrong. As much as we like to give lip service to the idea of everyone being right in their own way, there is something in our nature that screams, "There is only one truth and many lies!" It seems burned into our genetics. Once we've claimed the "truth" we try to fix everyone else's "lies." Maybe there is truth. Maybe there is a piece missing that perfectly fits that void in your life. I say maybe, but for me it is fact.

Some of you know my back story. I had a real life-changing experience when I felt the love of Jesus. This had nothing to do with stacking up evidence or studying the possibilities of Jesus or God. I saw evidence in my life and my heart. I watched as I became someone completely unlike myself overnight (this is not to say I am no longer a pain in the ass, its just to say that now I know when and why I am being one). I changed very thoroughly from my encounter, and that cannot be explained by science in any way. So naturally, I'm quicker than your average person to believe in the unseen world. However, I've never been a natural at faith, so for my minds sake I've done plenty of scientific research on the matter. The truth is you don't have to be an idiot to believe in God. In fact many of the worlds most famous scientists believed in the possibility of God, including Newton, Galileo and Einstein. On the contrary, I would question the creativity, objectivity and thoroughness of anyone who completely rejects the idea of a higher power. Most of all, I would question their motives.

Random Reflections on 'Reality'

What if when people go brain-dead their mind wakes up in a parallel universe. What if as they lay there in a vegetative state, seemingly devoid of any thought, they are living it up somewhere else. Somewhen else. Stephen Hawking is a pretty smart guy, and he suggests that our universe (or dimension) may be one of many. What if people could make the jump. It kind of reminds me of that TV show Life On Mars, where the guy gets hit by a car and wakes up in the 1970's. What if his body is lying there, in present time, completely vacant, while his soul takes on a new form to fight crime in the 'past'. I know we like to simplify life and creation, but who knows for real, right?

The other day while I was delivering food to dying businesses (thats an economy joke), I thought up a cure for cancer. In my mind I deciphered what was similar between all cancer cells and then I developed a specific protein compound that destroyed those cancer cells. It was obvious I'd been watching too much CSI, because I don't even know what a compound of protein looks like, or what it does exactly. When reading about famous scientists, though, I find that many of them weren't even that gifted. They were just creative and ingenious and were at the right place at the right time. I think most people, if given the right circumstances, can be very creative and ingenious. You just have to spend some time thinking.

What if time governs our entire reality. If you think about it, we are bound to it. We have a beginning and an end, as does everything in our universe. It's hard to imagine something that truly transcends time because from our point of view everything is born and everything dies. Everything. But what if there is this eternal realm outside of time. We can't see it because we are bound to time. Say heaven is eternal, not bound by time. What if when you die and you get to heaven its just as if everyone got there at the same time. Grandma, she just showed up, same time as you. Since there is no time, she wasn't waiting, even though she passed forty years back. She's probably confused as to why you died right when she did, but I think she'll figure it out soon enough and be happy you're there. And then there's St. Peter, he just got there too. He's been gone two thousand years from earth but thats nothing in heaven because there is no time. What if the Rapture is a metaphor for death, and we'll all be caught up in the sky at the 'same time' when we die. Me, Grandma, and St. Pete getting called home... separate from the timeline of Earth. I mean this is all speculation, but you never know, right?

They say the speed of light governs time. Thats the definition of a light-year: The distance that light travels in one year. That star you see twinkling at night, that actually twinkled fifty thousand light years ago, or more, and its just now caught your eye. The light from that twinkle took fifty thousand years to get to you, but there it is, showing you what happened in the past. Back before humans were around. They say if you could travel at the speed of light, you could go through time, forward or backwards, and you wouldn't even need a souped-up delorean.

Personally, I think our universe is just one big cosmic example of how small we are compared to God. I think He created it to show us that we will never fully comprehend it all. We are separated by billions of light years, just lingering in space so big we could never begin to comprehend it. If we were cartoons, we wouldn't have any light bulbs above our heads. Only question marks. Maybe God put a thousand billion trillion giant spheres of gas and minerals between us and Him, mindless but bound by gravity, as if to say, "See? You don't know jack, I control all of this." But at the same time, its just us who can witness the majesty of the universe, so its like God's saying, "See? This is my Glory for you to witness, because you are important." A supergiant (massive sun) can't see anything. However magnificent it is, its just mindless chemicals and gasses. It isn't aware. But we get to see it and study it and wonder how it got there. So as far as cognizance goes, in a way the universe does revolve around us.

If you want to get a big headache, look into molecular science. It's even crazier than space. Its all magic. None of the laws of physics apply. Apparently, we're all made up of trillions of atoms, tiny particles bound together to form very distinct and unique human beings, or animals, or carpet fiber. About a sugar cube of air at sea level contains 45 billion billion molecules. And they're in every single cubic centimeter around you. Talk about mind blowing. If you wanted to see an atom in a drop of water, you'd have to make the drop of water fifteen miles across. Thats how small it is, and it has a bunch of little buggers around its nucleus, all making sense to each other.

So why don't we fall apart? We're held together like magnets, with positive and negative charges. The reason I don't fall through this chair is because the make up of the chair is such that the molecules are charged to resist the molecules in my clothes and my body. Technically, I'm hovering above the chair at the width of one ten millionth of a millimeter (the width of one atom), the molecules like two positively charged magnets pushing apart. Crazy stuff. We've been around a long time, and we still don't know jack. The more we find out, the more we realize we don't know jack. Ironic, eh? Kind of like trying to get to know God.

Just as the scientists wont stop searching for purpose in their labs, neither should we stop searching for meaning in our lives. Everyone is searching for God in some way, through some avenue, to some extent. You'll never really know, at least not in this lifetime, right? Thats where faith comes in. Whether you believe that this is some big cosmic accident, or you believe its all artfully designed, you have to have significant faith.

When I'm in doubt, I look up. It restores my faith.

The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning

This post is about nothing specific, so ignore the title. It is not referring to any theme on The Silver Cord, nor does it pertain to anything deep and meaningful in concept. I merely wanted to time-stamp this moment, which is the first month anniversary of this blog. It is my intent with this time-stamp to look back at the ramblings posted in February, and to resolve to make better sense of the ramblings in March, and so on. It looks like we're off to a bad start already, because I'm not entirely sure of how much sense I just made.

I want to thank everyone who have taken the time to read through at least one of the posts on this blog. I especially want to thank those who chose to comment. I've been surprised by how mature and concise some of your responses have been. I'll admit I was expecting comments that looked more like, "Come to Georgia!" and, "How did you guys get signed?"

As it turns out, those of you who follow along seem to be a solid group of thinkers, and I'm humbled and inspired by that. Thank you for challenging me and in turn (I hope) allowing yourself to be challenged. This blog is lucky to be a microscopic blip on the radar of the greater blogosphere, but I love it and I wouldn't mind if it stayed that way.

Excuse me while I work something out for myself. I may go off on a bit of a tangent here...

I am not an Albert Einstien or an Isaac Newton. I may have scored a 137 on an online IQ test once, but I doubt that certifies me as a genius. And even if I was a genius, I've spent most of my life dumbing my brain down, numbing it with whatever comes my way, trying to render it useless. I guess I'm about as inquisitive as the next guy, but I couldnt imagine the Theory of Relativity or Space-time, and I couldn't even read Principia, let alone imagine it. When I learn about the true mad geniuses and scientists, those who were blessed with the types of minds which can explain the interconnectedness of creation, I am saddened that my life has been as futile as it's been at times. I am saddened by how narrow and unmotivated I've been. By how unimaginative, unappreciative, and selfish I've been. 

Imagine a guy like Newton, who upon swinging his feet out of bed in the morning he would reportedly sometimes sit for hours, immobilized by the sudden rush of thoughts to his head. He was strange, solitary, distracted and otherwise joyless, but he was completely fascinated by creation. Imagine Einstein, with such a noggin that he rarely wrote things down. He essentially thought up the Theory of Relativity without using a notebook. His paper called "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies," published in 1905, is incredible because it contains no citations or footnotes, almost no mathematics, and made no mention of any work that had influenced it. He essentially just thought it all up. 

These guys must have lived each day in sheer wonder and amazement of everything around them. We take for granted the air we breathe, the veins and nerves and blood cells and organs that work tirelessly day after day without so much as a thought on our behalf. Isn't that crazy? We don't even need to pay attention to it and our heart pumps blood, sometimes for over a century straight. My heart, the relentless servant of an abusive and thankless master. I guess most of this stuff could be for another post.

I think the point of all of this rambling is that it's taken me 25 years to realize that I'm pretty much a normal guy. I used to think I was different, but the truth is I'm not that different. I'm not too tortured an artist or too deep a thinker to lack the ability to relate or function in society. I'm not going to stick a long leather stitching needle in my eye socket to "see what happens" (as Newton once did). I have questions like everyone else, but like most people I resort to seeking peace of mind through conversation and community. 

I think we've had some great conversations since this thing started, and I hope to have many more with all of you.