[quote]orion wrote:
Also, Japan has, and probably alsways had, lower crime numbers than the US.
I guess that means that Shintoism is the way to go, Christianity is clearly inferior.
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Post them or I’m calling bullshit…Ha ha no no, kidding. I am commenting on our culture. Well not your culture but the culture of the US.
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Whether or not it’s the US culture doesn’t matter, orion’s point is still relevant. You claim (among other things) that a lack of belief in Christianity is the cause of America’s increase in petty violent crime, drug use and sexual promiscuity. Presumably this claim is based on some premise like ``Those without God tend to commit petty violent crime, use drugs and be sexually promiscuous.‘’ (If not, then just what is the premise?) Orion’s example is a counter example to this assumed premise. So . . . If you’re so sure that it’s a movement away from Christianity that has caused the rise in America in violent crime, drug use and sexual promiscuity, why aren’t the largely non-Christian Japanese not also swamped with those ills?
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(eye roll) come on get your own argument. First you take from me now orion. Sheesh.
I think the problem has to do with a lack of religion period. In this case I don’t think that it matters which of the many moral traditional religions. We as a country have stepped back. We think we are smarter than God, or that God does not exist. Religion is good for families and of course for a strong moral base. Without it we’ve grown toward immorality as seen in the many statistics that I’ve pointed out.
Prediction: as we continue to move away from traditional religion (be it Christian or Judism etc.) you will see those statistics get even worse.
[quote]orion wrote:
ZEB wrote:
You guys are not going about this correctly. You will never beat me on the facts. What you have to do is point out that there is no way that I can prove that we are worse off morally today because we’ve thrown God out of our schools and less people are now attending Church. You see that would be difficult for me to prove as there “seems” to be no cause and affect. However, if you continue in your attempt to claim that crime, teen pregnancy, drug use, alcoholism, obesity etc, is not worse today you lose badly.
If todays morality is 100, what is the number for the 13th of march 1954.
If you cannot do that, I am afraid that I have to call bullshit.
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LOL, I don’t mind you can call whatever you’d like. I defy you to find even one stat that I’ve posted that is morally better today than in 1950. For example, if you think that drug abuse was higher in 1950 than today just check the crime stats as I did and you’ll be surprised.
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Irrelevant.
You choose what statistics you deem important, you choose what to ignore, you choose what importance you attach to each statistic.
You pile one value judgemnent on top off another and call it fact.
Either disclose your algorithm that proves beyond any doubt that what you say is true, or simply admit that your opinion is just that, an opinion.
True, now that women have control over their own body, the US is indeed a more moral country because of it.
That is what you are trying to say, right?
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Nope. Was waiting for someone to come along and make the deliberate and targeted killing of an untold number of unquestionably innocent human lives (or the protected legality of it) into a moral good. Thanks for responding.
Orion, entertain me for a bit. Does she have less, more, or equal control over her private property than her body? More to point, her land and shelter.
ZEB, you need to include segregation and institutional racism in this handy little list of yours.
Then take a look at the population of african americans in the 50s, and conclude that legally and technically, these guys were under the yoke of a system which we would all categorise as unjust and immoral. They were all victims of an immoral crime.
THEN we can begin talking about petty theft and the like.
Also, you brought all of this up. You’re making the positive claim, so here’s what you need to do.
DEMONSTRATE that your list adequately and accurately captures what is the standard for ‘a moral society’ and show why you’re excluding certain things.
PROVE with adequate statistics, that in all those cases we’re worse off now.
SUBTRACT all those things which were immoral about society back in the day (this will give us an aggregate of sorts)
And CRUCIALLY, prove that this is due to a decline in christianity.
Consumerism places an inordinate amount of value on things. Through media we’re bombarded with advertising urging us to buy things.
Because the average wages in the USA hasn’t risen since the '70s, and because we still think we need all these things, we have to work longer hours. Both parents have to work longer hours to make ends meet.
To make-up for the lack of love and attention, we give our children more things. We teach our children that love and attention are equal to things. But this is false; things can never take the place of love and attention.
Things become a short-term solution to a long-term problem. Everytime a new thing temporarily filled the void something has to take it’s place. Enter drugs, whoring yourself out and all the consequences that come with it.
Tell me something zeb: not only is the USA the most religious western nation, it’s also the most materialistic and wasteful western nation. The huge contingent of people who say they’re christian have no problem with consumerism, yet, as i’ve just shown, consumerism lies at the heart of the problem.
If you want to return to a simpler life where the strong family unit is prefered over things you need to complete overhaul of general american culture that includes your megachurches, t.v. evangelists and so on.
It’s easy for you to talk zeb, but you live there and you want change: how do you suggest you go from one society to the one your prefer?
[quote]Magicpunch wrote:
ZEB, you need to include segregation and institutional racism in this handy little list of yours.
Then take a look at the population of african americans in the 50s, and conclude that legally and technically, these guys were under the yoke of a system which we would all categorise as unjust and immoral. They were all victims of an immoral crime.
THEN we can begin talking about petty theft and the like.
Also, you brought all of this up. You’re making the positive claim, so here’s what you need to do.
DEMONSTRATE that your list adequately and accurately captures what is the standard for ‘a moral society’ and show why you’re excluding certain things.
PROVE with adequate statistics, that in all those cases we’re worse off now.
SUBTRACT all those things which were immoral about society back in the day (this will give us an aggregate of sorts)
And CRUCIALLY, prove that this is due to a decline in christianity.
I feel bad for you.[/quote]
Don’t feel bad for me my friend. I’ve made a judgement based on what I’ve seen and the many statistics that I’ve pulled from the Department of Justice. Some people, like you, think that things are better now. No problem. You can agree, disagree or never post again that’s all up to you. Honestly, we both know that there’s no way to convince secular humanists that God makes a difference, or that things are worse now than when God had a more prominent place in our society. And certainly this cannot be done on a message board - LOL funny stuff.
All I can say is that time will tell who is right and who is wrong - Remember my name when that day comes.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Orion, entertain me for a bit. Does she have less, more, or equal control over her private property than her body?[/quote]
Irrelevant.
The point was that value judgements =/= facts.
In case of abortions it can go either way.
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Equal, less, more?[/quote]
Who knows?
It is not as if there are reliable statistics.
Also, child abandonment might have gone down.
The point is though that legal abortions are not all bad, you could even be glad about womens new found freedom while condemning what they do with it.
Either way, what you see as “bad”, or less moral behavior says more about you than the behavior in and of itself.
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A woman practices her freedom, control over her body, and refuses to feed her 2 week old. She owns the land she lives on, not giving any other permission to enter and take custody of the child. I’m supposed to be “glad” about that? Sorry, but that kind of freedom doesn’t interest me and I won’t condone it.
Pay attention beautiful, this is important:[/quote]
Important? Oh good I’m all ears and eyes.
So far so good, makes sense. But then again the media always urged us to buy things. As long ago as their were media they were urging us to buy things. It never brought us to a morally reprehensible society. But you do make a legitimate point the media does this quite well.
Agreed.
Agreed. We’ll get into why we have this emptiness later. But you can guess I’m sure.
Oh darn, you were doing good up to this point. If there were a moral base there would be less drugs, whoring etc. But you don’t believe in God so you are automatically not even looking at that possibility. That puts you in an inferior position in this debate. We have to look at the totality of what has happened in order to grasp an idea for the way out.
No, you’ve not shown that at all. What you’ve done is given one reason why things are not as good as they once were. But you have no explanation for why it got to this point. The base problem is NOT consumerism. Consumerism is symptomatic of something else - That something else is a pulling away from God and the church, that is the missing link in this equation. But as an atheist you are not allowed to look at this possibility. You’re “religion” is so freakin strict, how can you stand it?
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It’s easy for you to talk zeb, but you live there and you want change: how do you suggest you go from one society to the one your prefer?[/quote]
Simple, promote God and the Church. There are no long lasting family values without those two things. One can say that there is but it is not sustainable. Tell me what has replaced God and the Church? When you take something that large and of such serious consequence it must be replaced by something of equal power. This must make sense to you even if you don’t believe in God. Call it something else if you like. We had this large organization that taught children not to steal, take drugs, be promiscuous etc. Now it’s gone, or at least depleted. That leaves a gap, an emptiness. Nothing has replaced it? Where do kids that normally went to Church and spent time at religious instructions go? What has filled their time and more importantly their heads? The movies? Hanging out with equally lost friends?
Atheists don’t want God in society but what has replaced God? Perhaps consumerism, and possibly many other things which help no one in the end. At what point are children get their notions of right from wrong reinforced on a regular basis (as in weekly gatherings)? At what point do entire families get together and go to a place where they all share a common good? At what point does a child, who is still searching for their own moral compass get the regular guidance and moral base that the family WITH God and the Church can give?
It’s easy to say we don’t need God, but what has replaced God is something that even as an atheist you must admit has not been good. Without God and the Church the US is failing morally.
[quote]ephrem wrote:
What you are ignoring here Zeb is the fact that the USA is very religious as it is.
God, church and religion does not seem to matter, or are you proposing turning the USA into a theocracy?[/quote]
We may be more religious than say England (but who isn’t…kidding). But over all we’ve slipped quite a bit from our pinnacle relative to Church attendance.
In fact accordig to “NationMaster” the US is ranked number 11 in world wide attendance.
As I’ve said, whether you believe in a higher power or not, throw out God and the Church and you have a major void. It seems to me that more laws
God and the Church have been very good for society.
[quote]ephrem wrote:
What you are ignoring here Zeb is the fact that the USA is very religious as it is.
God, church and religion does not seem to matter, or are you proposing turning the USA into a theocracy?[/quote]
We may be more religious than say England (but who isn’t…kidding). But over all we’ve slipped quite a bit from our pinnacle relative to Church attendance.
In fact accordig to “NationMaster” the US is ranked number 11 in world wide attendance.
As I’ve said, whether you believe in a higher power or not, throw out God and the Church and you have a major void. It seems to me that more laws
God and the Church have been very good for society.
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I honestly don’t think that’s the only source of your problems. The atheistic Scandanavian countries do pretty well without religion.
[quote]ephrem wrote:
What you are ignoring here Zeb is the fact that the USA is very religious as it is.
God, church and religion does not seem to matter, or are you proposing turning the USA into a theocracy?[/quote]
We may be more religious than say England (but who isn’t…kidding). But over all we’ve slipped quite a bit from our pinnacle relative to Church attendance.
In fact accordig to “NationMaster” the US is ranked number 11 in world wide attendance.
As I’ve said, whether you believe in a higher power or not, throw out God and the Church and you have a major void. It seems to me that more laws
God and the Church have been very good for society.
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I honestly don’t think that’s the only source of your problems. The atheistic Scandanavian countries do pretty well without religion.
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Yeah, I saw that. I’m sure that there is a cultural aspect as it relates to religion.
I honestly don’t think that’s the only source of your problems. The atheistic Scandanavian countries do pretty well without religion.
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Yeah, I saw that. I’m sure that there is a cultural aspect as it relates to religion.
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What do you mean?
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I don’t know but I’m thinking that if a culture develops with a religious base and then abandons that, with nothing there to replace it (as I’ve said) this is what you get.
