I would chalk this up to people putting more emphasis on being religious-as in going through the motions of a person with morals- than actually instilling a moral base into people. There is having a religion and there is being religious, and I think it makes a big difference.

We have way too much emphasis on acting religious in this country, and it is disappointing to say the least.

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Originally posted by Orbax I would chalk this up to people putting more emphasis on being religious-as in going through the motions of a person with morals- than actually instilling a moral base into people. There is having a religion and there is being religious, and I think it makes a big difference. We have way too much emphasis on acting religious in this country, and it is disappointing to say the least.

I agree completely. I have absolutely nothing wrong with religion in general. If I did then technically I should hate my entire family. An unfortunate byproduct of religion is that it is subject to abuse which results in negative traits such as intolerance, violence, stupidity, etc. In an ideal world, religion should function flawelessly with society. Shit in an ideal world sex wouldn't yield the clap, herpes, aids, etc., but it does because people abuse it. Not like I want to get rid of sex ... it's not like I want to get rid of religion. But it doesn't hurt to expose its flaws and hypocrisy so that maybe people will start to "get it".

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Retro ...

I had a long talk with a friend of mine. He was rabidly atheist and HATED Christians. I had no idea why.

Then I started meeting them and I did the Gary Larson "ohhhhhhhhhh" face.

I was raised by classic English Household standards of honor, integrity, and compassion. Basically, honor is doing the right thing even when no one is around. Integrity focuses on the hard situations.

I fell into religion around 18 unsurprisingly and found a lot of well-put specific case scenarios.

In the end, almost any religious writing is too complex to understand within the span of your lifetime. Don't expect some 15 year old to be gleaning the meaning of morality out of a text thousands of years old when he barely understands the world he is in NOW.

My friend was telling me about a church party he had. They were all 18ish and he walks back into the room and its alcohol, and pot, and coke everywhere. He walks outside in shock and the girl he liked from church had her white ass against the window and was getting it on with someone.

There was no foundation to base previously uncharted territories on.

I see too many cases of people will do the specifics and when they get too a novel situation all hell breaks loose.

I am continuously disappointed, and have several long winded theories on the state of affairs of American Youth, but the easiest way to put it is that any image you might be striving for in life will remain an image if you dont know how to anchor it.

The character and Identity crisis is shocking and religion just covers it up with a blanket "one size fits all" image that just cannot happen any more.

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Originally posted by occrider morality. And from that, you're suggesting that my claim is invalid because I am the one implying causality???

Gee, woe is me, you misunderstand me so...

I never said that. I don't think you are implying causality nor am I implying causality.

What I am saying is simple:
This study does not let us know whether or not religion effects morality.

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Originally posted by Yoepus Gee, woe is me, you misunderstand me so... I never said that. I don't think you are implying causality nor am I implying causality. What I am saying is simple: This study does not let us know whether or not religion effects morality.

The study has collated data suggesting that there is no causality. If there is no evidence for causality and the data, in fact, suggests otherwise, than what exactly is erroneous about my headline? If you have data suggesting otherwise, please provide it. Or should we hold back from rejecting my claim that my burps cause global warming, and every single other ludicrous claim, because no evidence to support such a belief is simply not good enough? No, apparentely we need evidence proving that my burps do not cause global warming before we reject such a silly belief!

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Originally posted by occrider Interesting theory. There is data on Portugal and Ireland as well, and interestingly enough, despite Portugal's socialism, it seems to be an outlier, much like the US, for amoral behavior. I'm not sure how well your theory pans out, however, because first, not all European countries are “socialist”. They may be more liberal than say the US, however, that’s not the same thing. Great Britain and Australia are economically somewhat closely aligned with the US. I would say Great Britain is economically closer to the US system than it is to Scandinavia, France, or Germany with respect to attitudes about business and social reform. Yet, I’m not seeing that kind of correlation with the data at all: Legend A = Australia C = Canada D = Denmark E = Great Britain F = France G = Germany H = Holland I = Ireland J = Japan L = Switzerland N = Norway P = Portugal R = Austria S = Spain T = Italy U = United States W = Sweden Z = New Zealand

Very interesting to see that _all_ of these figures even exist, let alone someone taking the time to put them on graphs, etc. So, the US clearly stands out on all of these things. Some of the 2nd- & 3rd-placers kinda surprised me, but the US standing out SO much didn't at all.

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Originally posted by St_Andrew I think you have a point, but there are many countries that dissaproves your point too. Russia is a very immoral country, with lots of crime, and so are lots of other former sovjet states. Also some warm countries like australia is quite secular, and has a lower crime rate too.

Note that Australians are originally from a more moderate climate though.

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Originally posted by DJ Shibby Note that Australians are originally from a more moderate climate though.

But so are Americans! So that doesn't explain anything.