Rotundus.com

One of the things that has typically gotten ignored is that relatively small, and seemingly insignificant things can be a strong predictor for future, more significant behaviour. The long-term followup to one such experiment was covered by the New York Times in an article entitled Marshmallows and Public Policy. (The New Yorker has a similar article with a whole lot more detail). ... and for the ADD crowd, here's the corresponding talk from TED:

On a similar note, I've come across references to John Gottman in a couple books, neither of which was focused primarily on marriage. Based upon the research he's done, he's able to predict long-term success of marriage with high accuracy based on watching a few minutes of a couple conversing about a subject not directly related to their marriage. (What's crazier is that an analysis of a urine sample from the couple's children also seems to work quite well).

The Prosperity Gospel from The Global Conversation on Vimeo.

What do you say when a "pastor" claims that "God told me today that you should pay in dollars."

HT: Tim Challies

Yes... in family kangaroo court, the court can determine what religious views children can be exposed to.

The Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Tuesday that a divorced father who became a Christian cannot share his newfound beliefs with his children if it alienates them from their Orthodox Jewish mother. A court-appointed guardian found that two of Jeffrey Kendall's three children were suffering "stress" because he was exposing them to Christian teaching while their mother, who gained custody after a 1994 divorce, wanted to raise them in the Jewish faith. The court agreed, ruling that Mr. Kendall cannot take the children to church where they would be told that non-Christians are "destined to burn in hell," in the words of Judge Neil Lynch, who wrote the decision. Mr. Kendall's lawyer denounced the ruling, noting that the court had essentially chosen the mother's religion over the father's. "The court effectively has established a religion for these three children," said Michael Greco. "That's the court intruding where it shouldn't be intruding."

Source: World Magazine
(the site is using the stupid Google referrer thing that some sites have taken up... if you access the link directly, they want you to pay, but with the link pasted into Google, you're able to freely access the article)

More details here.