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Monday 11 January 2010
Maybe Brit Hume Should Preach Buddhism

Darren Sherkat, a sociologist of religion at Southern Illinois University and one of the more provocative practitioners of that trade, has crunched the numbers at his blog and found that —“Ohm my gosh!”— Buddhists in the U.S. are less likely to stray than any other religious group, notably Protestants.

From 2000-2008, according to the General Social Surveys — the gold standard of such measurements —17.3 percent of Protestant men reported being unfaithful to their spouse as opposed to 15 percent of Buddhist husbands. And close to 20 percent of those husbands identifying as just “Christian” were unfaithful over the eight-year period. (Similarly, 10.4 percent of Protestant wives confessed to violating the Sixth Commandment — or the Seventh, depending on who’s counting — while 7.7 percent of Buddhist wives did so.)

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