Maybe Jesus Just Doesn't Like NASCAR

We don't usually like to share the spotlight here in the marbled halls of IM Central, but we ran across this post from Ed over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars and it got us to thinking. OK, quit that. We do think from time to time. And not just about Stoli mixes either. With an IQ equal to that of the President (Well, his reported IQ anyway, but we don't want to get into that whole size matters thing) we find ourselves thinking quite a bit as a matter of fact. Actually, it seems to go on all the time, whether we're paying attention or not. We're intrigued by the fact that republicans seem to have found a way to turn that off.

But we digress.

Ed points out that the Gallup Company just completed a poll asking Americans, many of whom must have been sober, how big a role religion plays in their lives. Turns out the 4 most religious states are Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee, and the heathens run Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts.

This got him to wondering if there was any correlation between things like divorce rates, teen pregnancies, the godly folks and the devil's spawn, so he did a little digging and found out the divorce rate in that secular hell hole Massachusetts was the lowest in the country, while the church going god fearin' tithe giving folks in Tennessee had the fourth highest, the best(?) showing of any of the Jesus friendly states.

When it came to protecting their daughters from TEH SEXXOR, astute readers of this blog will recall that we beat Ed to the punch. Of course, astute readers stopped reading this blog years ago, so the rest of you will probably have to click on the link. Anyway, towards the end of that entry we posited that if the young people of old Dixie had something else to do (like, say, read and write) perhaps they wouldn't be so likely to engage in...ah...procreation without benefit of liturgical approval, or as the kids like to call it, hide the pickle.

Here's the part that got us thinking: we wondered if there were any other correlations between the states of the new Jerusalem and the hoards of hell, you know things like poverty rates, crime, college degrees, stuff like that, so we decided to do something we very seldom do, and before we tell you what that is we're going to ask you to send any small children from the room. We'll wait.

Hmmm...Oooo...Whoa...Oh sorry. Ready?

We did research. No. Really. We know how and everything, it's just not something we like to talk about in public. Anyway, here's what we found:

College graduates: Most--Massachusetts. Least--Mississippi

Poverty: Lowest in the country--Vermont. Highest--Mississippi

Overall Crime: Lowest--Maine. Highest (well, second and third highest)--Tennessee and South Carolina

Murder: Lowest--New Hampshire. Highest (In fifth, sixth and seventh place respectively)--South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi

Rape: Lowest--Vermont (ninth). Highest--South Carolina (tenth)

So what have we learned. Well, it seems god likes his followers divorced, dumb, horny and on probation. And for those of us in the hell bound sections of the country? We're not sure, but since we know god likes to unleash plagues, earthquakes, death, devastation and destruction, maybe he's saying if you don't bother him with all those prayers, (Which are usually about things like winning the Lotto, smiting the gays, or throwing the election) he won't bother you.