Bingo!

However, if you state that a high ratio of Christians means low teen pregnancies, you're forgetting this: Christians tend to be around unbelievers. About 90% of the people I come into contact with are not professing believers (not even just not talking about it, but not displaying it passively) of any faith. Attendance does not equal godliness, and, better yet, you forget that the places Christians live are not always the most godly places.

SanChonino,

The graph is the rate of live births for teenagers from 1950 to 1997. Examine the graph and what do we see keeping in mind that Roe v. Wade "legalized" abortion in 1973. Look at the chart and notice that the rate of live birth rates plummeted at 1970 line. What happened, these girls who were getting pregnant instead of delivering their babies (thus recorded as live births) were having abortions and thus the drastic drop in live birth rate.

Sure Allah is in scripture. The god named Aleph Lamed Heh is constantly mentioned in scripture.

Ishmael went towards the Arab lands, that is true. Whether his wife was pagan is immaterial.

Ishmael was very much a part of the history of the Hebrew people. Perhaps you haven't followed that history well enough. And Jews NEVER considered "anything outside of that realm" pagan. Otherwise interactions with the Persian Empire would have been quite different. (The Persians were not pagans.)

Everything in scripture points to all gods outside of the Jewish god as pagan gods, that is correct. But NOTHING in scripture says that Ishmael stopped believing in the Jewish god or that his descendants did.

And the plain fact is that some didn't. During Muhammed's time many arabised Arabs (Ishmaelis), including Muhammed himself, and many other Arabs did believe in Allah.

Other Arabs did believe in many gods, pagan gods, including moon gods. But the arabised Arabs (Ishmaelis) believed in Allah, the same god Abraham believed in.

Why don't you ask a Muslim if he believes in the god of Abraham or a moon god?

(I admit that many self-proclaimed Muslims don't know that their god is the Jewish god.)

It seems that in the Bible Belt there are FAR more unbelievers than outside the Bible Belt.

I can believe that.




You seem to attract them. About 90% of the people I come into contact with are believers.




How can I forget that? That's exactly what I'm afraid of and why I oppose a Christian presence in schools.

There is also a sharp drop in the 1960s, just after schools became secular.

You explained the drop in the 1970s well. I agree with you there.

However, look at the 1980s. With the rise of fundamentalist Christianity in the mid-1980s, teen pregnancies go up again.

So we have "taking G-d out of the schools" and the rate drops. We get abortions and the rate drops. We get more Christianity, and the rate goes up again.

Seems pretty obvious to me what's going on there.

Can I be opposed to both fundamentalist Christianity and abortion? It seems to me like both are bad things.

Incidentally, the graph also shows that the drop in the 1970s is as steep as the drop in the 1960s, suggesting that taking G-d out of schools and abortion had the same effect on teen pregnancies. Seems like teen pregnancies go down every time we do something "Christians" oppose.

But that's probably not what it means. If abortion doesn't affect the steepness of the graph, it implies that the number of abortions before and after 1970 hasn't really changed that much (unless teens made out more often to make up for legal abortions). So the big evil here was that abortions are now done under state control and not in back alleys. THAT is a good thing.

Yes, these things are more accepted now than back then. I guess with more secularism came more love for thy neighbour and less judging people.

From what I have read Jesus was one of the types who would have welcomed the teenage mother in his circle of friends, when others did would not.

His "followers" of today complain about a world in which everyone acts like that.

It's not their faults.

Believers in your definition is not the same as in mine. Sure, Obama-esque lay-member enjoy-then-leave-and-hope-to-be-saved people can be considered believers, but they don't believe.

There you go again, all judgy-judge on other people's hearts where it's neither your place nor your privilege to do so.

Who are you to judge these people's hearts? You're putting yourself on God's throne, there, buddy.

Indeed.

Erathoniel thinks that anyone who doesn't believe what he believes is not a believer. Why should everyone follow his false religion?

To teach Erathoniel something about faith and to inform SanChonino, who I know is generally interested in faith-related matters, I will tell you both something about myself and belief. You can then both judge (for yourselves) whether I can identify a believer or not.

I am not religious.

I attend services every week, I celebrate most Jewish holidays, I do not eat animals forbidden for Jews (but I don't keep kosher), and I own several bibles and prayer books. But I am not religious. I consider what I do not practicing a religion but the logical result of believing in G-d. Nobody, I think, "believes" but doesn't try to learn as much about faith as possible! (Although it is possible to want to believe or to claim belief and not learn or, more likely even, not to learn but to think that one already knows.)

To be religious means to follow the rules of the faith. I believe, but I am not religious. I have friends who are religious. And I have friends who are believers but not religious. Those friends include Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus. I have atheist and agnostic friends as well.

I once quit my job to travel to Jerusalem. They wouldn't give me enough time off, so I quit so I could travel to the holy city. That was not missing a party to go to church, it was my career I was playing with, for my faith. There are others who do more, but they are probably religious.

Last year I was in Jerusalem again when a (Christian) friend of mine got married (in a mixed ceremony because he and his wife and friends are great admirers of Jewish culture). I only met him a year before. During the celebration a friend of his and I mainly discussed the Bible.

I have read the Bible, even studied Hebrew in university. When someone here on JU says something about the Bible, I check the Hebrew version and make my own translation of the bit, using a dictionary, a grammar help ("501 Hebrew Verbs"), and a (small) library of scholarly books and treatises. It is that important to me to understand the Bible.

But it is not a matter of telling other people that they must believe what I believe or go to hell. And I don't want state schools to teach what I believe to children whose parents might believe in the same god or many gods, or no god at all.

It is a matter of study, not of knowledge.

When I am confronted with, say, Mormonism, here at JU, for example, I do not think "Damn, another false religion I have to attack." I think "Interesting. What do they believe? Did they understand something I missed?"

(And no, by the way, a prophet translating from a strange language doesn't make sense to me. All other prophecies, false or true, came in normal current widely-spoken languages. But I do believe that G-d might send all sorts of prophets to peoples all over the world, so I am not calling Mormonism a false religion or its prophet a false prophet. I simply don't know. I have not learned nearly enough to know.)

Because of my very pro-Israeli online persona I often run into Muslims, oddly enough many pro-Israel (or at least pro-peace) Muslims, and I have often been told, by Muslims, that I understand Islam better than many Muslims (and they didn't mean terrorists but normal Muslims). I read the Quran too. Admittedly I read an English interpretation (Muslims do not call it a "translation"), but I did start learning Arabic a few weeks ago (I suck at it, can hardly read it).

G-d fascinates me, as does the history of the peoples who first heard His message. And yes, those are most all Semitic peoples, because their legends are all part of a whole. It is important to know what, say, Mandaeans believe to learn more about why the Hebrew Bible contains some text but not other text.

I do not usually feel the need to belittle somebody else's religion or somebody else's god unless some individual annoys me with his self-righteous claim of representing the one true religion. Guess what... MY religion is true, that's why I don't care what you believe. YOUR religion might also be true. I don't know if G-d told everyone of us the same. Perhaps He did say to Erathoniel that at least one guy should make a bad impression and misrepresent Christianity.

Am I able to judge other people's belief? I am not.

But I am absolutely able to judge other people's claims of knowledge of religion, other people's religions and their own!

  

Foreverserenity posts# 4 [quote]While I don't agree with the kicking God out of school, and think that it is a wrong thing to have done. I don't agree that this is the reason why all those bad things have happened in school. Are you saying that God, not being allowed their, so to speak, is the reason why what has happened did?[/quote]

fOREVERSERENITY POSTS:

KFC, I thank you and agree with your response. When people do evil things, it's their doing, not God's vengence.


KFC POSTS #7





Yes, this just about sums up my entire article. History shows how things were then when God was allowed IN before these Supreme Court decisions and history shows what happened as a result of kicking God OUT of schools.

LULA WRITES:

To me, the Supreme Court decisions declared that, in all public schools, we don't want God and His principles of right and wrong (morality) here anymore. We want man to determine what is right and wrong without God and thus, secular humanism was established in place of Christianity.

So, the US moved from George Washington's "It is impossible to rightly govern without God" to secular humanistic views that insist on such things as I delineated in my article.

What we see happening ever since the cultural and sexual revolution came into full play is a battleground between the first religion, Christianity based upon honoring God and His principles of right and wrong, and the second religion, Secular Humanism, based upon honoring man, or "self", and his ideas of right and wrong.


It's quite clear that America went from being a Christian nation to a Secular Humanist nation. As KFC said, "Look at the news today", and you'll see we've gone from honoring and worshipping God to honoring and worshipping man. Open a book, watch a movie, listen to songs, read our laws, and notice that every one upholds and promotes either one religion or the other.

We've gone from the Supreme Court decision of 1892, "Our laws and institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian..."

to the Supreme Court decisions of banning prayer, Bible reading and removing the Ten Commandments in all our public schools.

We've gone from morality (no classroom sex education) to amorality (indoctrinating that any kind of sexual activity is "good" as long as it's consensual and practiced "safely".

America never was a "Christian nation". The constitution everyone is referring to is from the 18th century.

Writes Thomas Jeffersion:

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."

http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html

Yes it most certainly started out that way and it's based on scripture. You need to read "real" history not the revisionists' copy. The bible was not only the only book in most homes but was "required" reading in the school systems. The kids learned how to read and write and arithmetic using the bible as their primer.



believe me...you don't want to get in a quote contest because I can quite literally bury you with Christian quotes from our forefathers who signed both the declaration and the constitution.

Leauki,

Alas! first, let's be clear...Jefferson's metaphor, "wall of separation between Church and State" is nowhere found in the US Constitution.

Second, it's noteworthy that some of the Supreme Court justices fall back on this supposed "wall" when they decided these cases.

Taken from David Barton's Original Intent,

Justice William Rehnquist described this phrase as a "misleading metaphor, noting the greatest injury of the "wall" notion is its michievous diversion if judges from the actual intentions of the drefters of the Bill of Rights...."The Wall of separation of Church and State" is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned."

The public's current understanding (it should be mis understanding) of its religious provisos of the First Amendment has been shoped by a phrase that doesn't even appear in the Constitution.

The imperative for understanding today the original purposes of the two religious clauses in the Constitution results from contemporary Courts often excusing their unpopular decisions with the specious claim that they are upholding the Constitution's original "intent" or "purpose". This claim is an historical absurdity.

Barton writes, Perhaps the most conclusive historical demonstration of the fact that the Founders nnever intended the Federal Constitution to establish today's religion-free public arena is seen in their creation and passage of the "Northwest Ordinance." That Ordinance is a federal law which legal texts consider as one of the four foundational or "organic" laws set forth the requirements of statehood for prospective territories.
It received Senate and House approval in 1789 and was signed into law by Pres. George Washington on August 7, 1789.

Article II is the only sestion to address either religion or public education and in in the Founders couple them, declaring:

"Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools, and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

It's worth repeating. The Framers of the Ordinance were the very same Framers of the US Constitution, beieved that schools and educational systems were a proper means to encourage the "religion, morality, and knowledge" which they deemed "necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind".

Now get this.....Subsequent to the passage of this Ordinance when a territory applied for admission as a State, Congress issued an "enabling act" establishing the provisions of the ORdinance as criteria for drafting a State constitution. For example, whe Ohio territory applied for statehood in 1802, its enabling act required that Ohio form its government in a manner "not repugnant to the Ordinance." Consequently, Ohio's constition read,
"Religion, morality, and knowledge being essentially necessary to the good government and the happiness of mankind, schools, and the means of instruction shall forever be encouraged by legislative provision."

While this requirement originally applied to all the territorial holdings of the US in 1789, as more territory was gradually ceded and then applied for Statehood, Congress applied the principle of that Ordinance to that State.

In compliance with the Ordinance, the State of Maine in 1820 adopted the following education law which is still "on the books"-----

Maine Education Law, Title 20, Section 1221

"Instructors of/in public or private institutions shall use their best endeavors to impress upon the minds of the children and youth committed to their care and instruction the principles of morality and justice and a sacred regard for truth; love of country, humanity and a universal benevolence; the great principles of humanity as illustrated by kindness to birds and animals and regard all factors which contribute to the well-being of man; industry and frugality; chastity, moderation and temperance; and all other virtues which ornament human society; and to lead those under their care, as their ages and capacities admit, into a particular understanding of the tendency of such virtues to preserve and perfect a republican constitution, secure the blessings of liberty and to promote their future happiness."

While some may disagree, I think it's clear that the Founders never intended to separate religion, religious instruction, or activities from the public or official life of the USA. Yet, the Courts in these decisions have misrepresented the First AMendment and Article VI to prohibit exactly what the Founders intended to protect.

Again, of this, Justice William Rehnquist Wallace v. Jaffree, "History must judge whether it was the Father of his country in 1789 or a majority of the Court today, which has strayed from the meaning of the First Amendment."

The historical straying from the Founders original meaning for the FIrst Amendment has been greatly facilitated by an overused, misused, and often even regularly abused historical phrase, "the separation of Chruch and State".

Well, that was unconstitutional.

And learning maths from the Bible is purest idiocy.



Which just goes to show that you don't understand the concept of a secular state. It doesn't matter how "Christian" the founding fathers were. All that matters is that THEY didn't want their "Christianity" or any religion to be supported by the federal government.

The fact that they believed that and were also Christians teaches us a valuable lesson.