http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm

The Associated Press computed divorce statistics from data supplied by the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Center for Health.4 They found that Nevada had the highest divorce rate, at 8.5 divorces per 1,000 people in 1998. Nevada has had a reputation as a quickie divorce location for decades. People from other states visited Nevada, fulfilled their residency requirements, got divorced and returned home single.

The data showed that the highest divorce rates were found in the Bible Belt. "Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama and Oklahoma round out the Top Five in frequency of divorce…the divorce rates in these conservative states are roughly 50 percent above the national average" of 4.2/1000 people.

11 southern states (AL, AR, AZ, FL, GA, MS, NC, NM, OK, SC and TX averaged 5.1/1000 people. (LA data is not available; TX data is for 1997).

Nine states in the Northeast (CT, MA, ME, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, VT) averaged only 3.5/1000 people.

Some of the factors that contribute to a high divorce rate in the Bible Belt, relative to Northeastern states are:

More couples enter their first marriage at a younger age.

Average household incomes are lower (OK and AR rate 46th and 47th in the U.S.)

They have a lower percentage of Roman Catholics, a denomination that does not recognize divorce. Anthony Jordan, executive director of the Southern Baptist Convention in Oklahoma commented: "I applaud the Catholics," says Jordan. "I don't think we as Protestant evangelists have done nearly as well preparing people for marriage. And in the name of being loving and accepting, we have not placed the stigma on divorce that we should have."

Some factor in conservative Protestantism — which is prevalent in the Bible Belt — may causes a higher level of divorce.

Associated Press' confirmation of Barna's results:
The Associated Press analyzed divorce statistics from the US Census Bureau. They found that Massachusetts had the lowest divorce rate in the U.S. at 2.4 per 1,000 population. Texas had the highest rate at 4.1 per 1,000. They found that the highest divorce rates are found in the "Bible Belt."
According to the Boston Globe:

"The AP report stated that 'the divorce rates in these conservative states are roughly 50 percent above the national average of 4.2 per thousand people.' The 10 Southern states with some of the highest divorce rates were Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas. By comparison nine states in the Northeast were among those with the lowest divorce rates: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont."

One reason for the higher divorce rates in the Bible Belt may be the lower percentage of Roman Catholics in the South. Their denomination does not recognize divorce. Other reasons could be related more to culture than religion:

Couples in the South enter their first marriages at a younger age.

Family incomes in the South are lower.

Educational attainment is lower in the South: One in three Massachusetts residents have completed college. while only 23% of Texans have. 11

On the other hand divorce rates for atheists are lower.

Variation in divorce rates by religion:

Religion % have been divorced
Jews 30%
Born-again Christians 27%
Other Christians 24%
Atheists, Agnostics 21%

According to who and what? Source, please? Methodology please?

Hello Heidi. Are you refering to the flawed “Barna” study? “16.7 percent of Baptist and Pentecostal marriages ended in divorce compared to 26.5 percent of the irreligious marriages. If one takes the varying populations of the different Christian denominations properly into account, the result is that only one in eight of all Christian marriages, 12.5 percent, end in divorce. So it is not only an exaggeration, it is statistically incorrect to assert that Christian marriages are more likely to end in divorce, because atheist marriages are more than twice as likely to fail even though atheists are less than half as likely to get married in the first place….Perhaps the seven marriages of the atheist champions Bertrand Russell and Richard Dawkins should have been Barna’s first clue that his initial conclusions were awry.” Link

Insofar as obesity is concerned

http://www.edge.org/discourse/vote_morality.html#…

The myth that logic and the scientific method cannot have anything to say about morality is patently wrong. This is simply more of the dogma that theologians devised to protect what they claim is their exclusive right to lay down laws of morality as they interpret them from sacred texts and revelation. They have mostly been proved irrelevant over the centuries, but they persist. <div style="margin: 6px 0pt 0pt; display: block;"><a class="a2a_dd" href="http://www.addtoany.com/share_save"><img style="border-width: 0pt;" src="http://static.addtoany.com/buttons/share_save_171_16.png&quot; alt="Share/Save/Bookmark" border="0" height="16" width="171">

Why are you changing the subject? That's not what James said. He said that it is clearly not a true statement "that people need religious beliefs to act ethically." And he is correct.