{"id":12,"date":"2010-05-20T08:43:00","date_gmt":"2010-05-20T08:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/adultery-my-genes-made-me-do-it.html"},"modified":"2010-05-20T08:43:00","modified_gmt":"2010-05-20T08:43:00","slug":"adultery-my-genes-made-me-do-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/adultery-my-genes-made-me-do-it.html","title":{"rendered":"Adultery: My Genes Made Me Do It"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have a new post at her.menuetics. It begins: <\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"line-height: 15px;font-family:Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:13px\"><\/p>\n<p>In her new and <a href=\"http:\/\/latimesblogs.latimes.com\/booster_shots\/2010\/05\/book-review-for-better-by-tara-parkerpope.html\">buzzworthy<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2010\/05\/06\/AR2010050605866.html\">book<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0525951385\/ctwomensblog-20\"><em>For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage<\/em><\/a>, <em>The New York Times<\/em>&#8216;s Tara Parker-Pope examines what brain chemistry and genes have to do with happy marriages. She begins a <a href=\"http:\/\/well.blogs.nytimes.com\/2010\/05\/10\/tracking-the-science-of-commitment\/?scp=1&amp;sq=fidelity%20gene&amp;st=cse\">recent Well column<\/a> with a question: \u201cWhy do some men and women cheat on their partners while others resist the temptation?\u201d While she doesn\u2019t come right out with an answer, she implies that the inclination toward adultery lies in our genes. Researchers have dubbed the gene that predicts whether or not we will cheat the \u201cfidelity gene.\u201d Her research shows that men with a variant of this gene are less likely to be in committed relationships and more likely to be in unhappy marriages.<\/p>\n<div style=\"float: right;padding-left: 10px\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.christianitytoday.com\/women\/upload\/2010\/05\/41ur812HXJL._SS500_.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.christianitytoday.com\/women\/upload\/2010\/05\/41ur812HXJL._SS500_-thumb.jpg\" width=\"285\" height=\"285\" alt=\"41ur812HXJL._SS500_.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Genetics. It\u2019s a modern answer to an age-old question. In the past, other explanations have been proposed for immoral human behavior. First come spiritual explanations, perhaps best summed up by the phrase \u201cthe Devil made me do it.\u201d Psychological explanations connect our behavior as adults to events that happened in our past. In recent years, biology has joined the list of reasons why humans behave badly.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, none of these explanations are problematic in and of themselves. And none of them should surprise Christians. All aspects of our human nature are fallen, inclined to turn away from God\u2019s good intentions for us. The problem comes when we reduce human behavior to any one of these explanations.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>To keep reading, click <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.christianitytoday.com\/women\/2010\/05\/adultery_my_genes_made_me_do_i.html\">here<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have a new post at her.menuetics. It begins: In her new and buzzworthy book, For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage, The New York Times&#8216;s Tara Parker-Pope examines what brain chemistry and genes have to do with happy marriages. She begins a recent Well column with a question: \u201cWhy do some men and&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-down-syndrome"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Adultery: My Genes Made Me Do It - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/adultery-my-genes-made-me-do-it.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Adultery: My Genes Made Me Do It - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I have a new post at her.menuetics. It begins: In her new and buzzworthy book, For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage, The New York Times&#8216;s Tara Parker-Pope examines what brain chemistry and genes have to do with happy marriages. She begins a recent Well column with a question: \u201cWhy do some men and&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/adultery-my-genes-made-me-do-it.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-05-20T08:43:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.christianitytoday.com\/women\/upload\/2010\/05\/41ur812HXJL._SS500_-thumb.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"amyjuliabecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Adultery: My Genes Made Me Do It - Thin Places","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/adultery-my-genes-made-me-do-it.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Adultery: My Genes Made Me Do It - Thin Places","og_description":"I have a new post at her.menuetics. It begins: In her new and buzzworthy book, For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage, The New York Times&#8216;s Tara Parker-Pope examines what brain chemistry and genes have to do with happy marriages. She begins a recent Well column with a question: \u201cWhy do some men and&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/adultery-my-genes-made-me-do-it.html","og_site_name":"Thin Places","article_published_time":"2010-05-20T08:43:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.christianitytoday.com\/women\/upload\/2010\/05\/41ur812HXJL._SS500_-thumb.jpg"}],"author":"amyjuliabecker","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/adultery-my-genes-made-me-do-it.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/adultery-my-genes-made-me-do-it.html","name":"Adultery: My Genes Made Me Do It - Thin Places","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/adultery-my-genes-made-me-do-it.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/adultery-my-genes-made-me-do-it.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.christianitytoday.com\/women\/upload\/2010\/05\/41ur812HXJL._SS500_-thumb.jpg","datePublished":"2010-05-20T08:43:00+00:00","dateModified":"2010-05-20T08:43:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/adultery-my-genes-made-me-do-it.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/adultery-my-genes-made-me-do-it.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/adultery-my-genes-made-me-do-it.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.christianitytoday.com\/women\/upload\/2010\/05\/41ur812HXJL._SS500_-thumb.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.christianitytoday.com\/women\/upload\/2010\/05\/41ur812HXJL._SS500_-thumb.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/adultery-my-genes-made-me-do-it.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Adultery: My Genes Made Me Do It"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/","name":"Thin Places","description":"Amy Julia Becker on Faith, Family, and Disability","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b","name":"amyjuliabecker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","caption":"amyjuliabecker"},"description":"Amy Julia Becker writes about theology, disability, family, and culture. Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}