Raw Links: June 2013

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Gallup Values and Beliefs polls

Family Values of Catholics and Protestants - marriage between homosexuals, sex before marriage, live together before marriage, have a baby before marriage, married men and women having an affair

Church Reform: Women in the Clergy

U.S. Catholics Vary Widely on Moral Issues - Active Catholics much more conservative
Moral Issues - Abortion, Death penalty, Doctor-assisted suicide, Homosexual behavior, Divorce, Stem cells/Human embryos

Preaching to Another Church's Choir? - Practicing Protestants' moral views more consistent with Catholic Church
Life and Death Issues - Abortion, Death penalty, Doctor-assisted suicide, Medical research involving stem cells obtained from human embryos.
Marriage and Sex - Divorce, Sex between unmarried man and woman, Having a baby outside of marriage, Married men and women having an affair, Homosexual behavior

Mormons, Evangelical Protestants, Baptists Top Church Attendance List - Jews and Episcopalians least likely to attend on regular basis
Church of Christ, Mormon, Pentecostal, Other Protestants, Southern Baptist, Other Baptist, Non-denominational, Other Christian, Other, Catholic, Average, Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Protestant: None, Episcopal, DK, Jewish, NONE

Americans' Views of Catholic Religion - Most unfavorable views based on doctrine, not priest abuse scandal
Do not agree with their views/practices/doctrine, Sexual scandal/Cover-ups/Child molestation, Partial to/belong to another religion, Idolization of saints/Virgin Mary, Is an organized religion, Hypocrisy, Dislike all religions, Views on abortion, Poor past history with the Catholic Church, Dislike their views on birth control, Not letting women be priests/Sexist, Cult-like religion, Confessions/Communion issues, Issues on homosexuality, Greed of money in the church, Celibacy of priesthood/No marriage, Other, None, No opinion

A Look at Religious Switching in America Today - Majority of Americans keep the same religion they've always had, not switching

Catholics Similar to Mainstream on Abortion, Stem Cells - Catholics actually more liberal on some issues
Abortion, The death penalty, Sex between an unmarried man and woman, Divorce, Medical research using stem cells obtained from human embryos, Having a baby outside of marriage, Gambling, Homosexual relations

Pew Research Center: Fact Tank: Why has Pentecostalism grown so dramatically in Latin America?
Pew Research Center: Religion and Public Life Project
Religion in Latin America
The Shifting Religious Identity of Latinos in the United States

Friday, June 21, 2013

Language similarity

Language Difficulty Ranking by The Foreign Service Institute (FSI)

Lexical similarity

Lang. code	Language 1 ↓	Lexical similarity coefficients
		English	French	German	Italian	Portuguese	Russian	Spanish
eng	English	1	0.27	0.60	-	-	0.24	-
fra	French	0.27	1	0.29	0.89	0.75	-	0.75
deu	German	0.60	0.29	1	-	-	-	-
ita	Italian	-	0.89	-	1	-	-	0.82
por	Portuguese	-	0.75	-	-	1	-	0.89
rus	Russian	0.24	-	-	-	-	1	-
spa	Spanish	-	0.75	-	0.82	0.89	-	1
		English	French	German	Italian	Portuguese	Russian	Spanish
Language 2 →		eng	fra	deu	ita	por	rus	spa

English - Lexical similarity: 60% with German, 27% with French, 24% with Russian.
Spanish - Lexical similarity: 89% with Portuguese [por], 82% with Italian [ita], 75% with French [fra]
French - Lexical similarity: 89% with Italian [ita], 75% with Portuguese [por] and Spanish[spa], 29% with German [deu], 27% with English [eng].

Language similarities - English - vocabulary 40% French, 35% Spanish, Italian
Spanish - 85% Portuguese, 80% French, Italian, 50% Latin
French - 85% Italian, 80% Spanish, Portuguese, 50% Latin