Mappiness

I nifty British experiment has begun to map happiness using iPhones. Mappiness pings iPhone users who have signed up for the project several times a day to ask them how happy they feel and what they are doing. The phone will also tell the researchers where the respondents are, and the time of day. The research project can them map which places are happiest, and what sort of features those places have. The app also keeps track of the users responses over time, creating personal happiness graphs for each person.

Christian Practice, Not Nominal Faith, Prevents Divorce

The widely-reported statistic that Christians are as likely to divorce as other people is not quite true.

Brad Wilcox, of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, reports that people who attend religious services are 35% less likely to divorce than people who do not attend religious services.

Even more intriguing, though, is his report that people who report conservative Protestant beliefs, but who do not actually attend church, are 20% more likely to divorce than secular people are.

The Ballad of Mary Magdelene

This song, by Cry, Cry, Cry, has this wonderful line:

Long ago I had my work
When I was in prime
But I gave it up and all for love
It was his career or mine

Blue Kentucky

Last Sunday I wrote about basketball as the civil religion of Kentucky.

This week, the feeling is even stronger. The University of Kentucky men's basketball team plays a Final Four game tonight. Today, our town was blue and white. In the grocery store, the bank, the coffee shop, on the street - by my count every third person was wearing blue and white and/or the word "Kentucky."

The commonwealth will slow down at 8:40. This is a binding fact among people of all classes. Civil religion's high festival is upon us.