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Originally Posted by willravel
First off, Let me explain something. Oft I use my oppositions argument to undo itself. My opening statement was to point out that this is not about self. Didn't you read my whole post? Sheesh, I hate having to explain this. The point to what I was trying to make is that this isn't about one side being right or wrong. This is about people's fears leading them to act in ways that cause our country to split. "Under God" is filler? Actually, a great deal of it is filler. "I pledge allegience to the flag" well, no. We are actually supposed to be pledging the constitution. "and to the republic" we are a democracy. "indivisable" m hmm. "with liberty and justice for all." nope.
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Our country is already split. Red states and blue states. This is about not excluding people based on their religious beliefs. If there is anyone who is allowing fear to split the country, it is the christians who scream bloody murder at occurences such as this. It seems a bit silly to me to not do something that seems to make sense because it has the potential to divide people.
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Hahahahaha I'm going to let you in on a little secret. most christians in America don't have a very good understanding of what is being taught by Jesus. People do think that it is their responsibility to make commercials and go door to door talking about Jesus because it's what God wants them to do. They haven't figured out that it is actually an attempt to get more parishners so the church can get more money. Just like we should be saluting the constitution, not the flag, christians choose to praise the bible, not Jesus. It's complicated, but the gist is that christians *not all christians, but some christians* will be upset about this. The only thing this suit serves to do is drive a wedge between christians and nonchristians.
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Are you trying to say that only "real" christians are upset about this, or that only the misguided ones are? I wonder if you are qualified to make that distinction?
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That was really helpful. I hope all fo your contributions to the conversation are as constructive as this.
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I made my point, perhaps you'd like to dispute it.
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Why aren't you addressing the article beyond "I searched the rest of the site and it claims america owes its soul to the bible." Give me a break. Please read the article. It cites the fact that seperation of church and state *the foundation of your whole argument* is flawed.
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I did read the article. I think it is bullshit. It attributes
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Birth rates for unwed girls from 15-19; sexually transmitted diseases among 10-14 year olds; pre-marital sex increased; violent crime; adolescent homicide have all gone up considerably from 1961 to the 1990's
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to the dissalowal of the bible in school. And you want me to take it seriously? Give me a break. As if nothing else was going on in that 30 year timespan. Besides, these statistics are innacurate.
according to
http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/tgr/05/1/gr050107.html
Teen birth rates were the highest in the 1950's and have been declining ever since.
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Key Trends Over Time
Childbearing. The rate of teen childbearing in the United States has fallen steeply since the late 1950s, from an all time high of 96 births per 1,000 women aged 15-19 in 1957 to an all time low of 49 in 2000 (see chart below). Birthrates fell steadily throughout the 1960s and 1970s; they were fairly steady in the early 1980s and then rose sharply between 1988 and 1991 before declining throughout the 1990s. In recent years, this downward trend has occurred among teens of all ages and races.
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or
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/98news/teenrel.htm
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Still, teen birth rates are higher today than in the mid-1980's when the rate was at its lowest point, 50-53 births per thousand teens age 15-19. The national teen birth rate was at its highest in 1957, at 96 births per 1,000 women ages 15-19. However, most teenagers giving birth in the 1950's and for the next two decades were married while the vast majority of teenage mothers today are unmarried.
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The authors of your article are misrepresenting this, what else are they misrepresenting? You'll have to pardon me if i lack faith in their conclusions. I think it is a christian interpretation of history and i reject it because there is an entire class of christians who are so completely blinded by their love for being christian that they would sooner attribute a rise in the crime rate to the lack of a biblical presence in school than anything else. There are many other interpretations of history that don't rely on false statistics to back up ludicrous assertions. I think any christian who believes america to be a christian nation is confused. Christ made the poor and the sick a priority, america doesn't and generally hasn't. This country's foundation can hardly be considered to be the bible.
But all that is meaningless, perhaps you'd throw me a bone and read the part where i posted about precedent trumping ascribed founding father intent. It doesn't matter what values your christian website ascribes to the founding fathers. What matters is how the courts interpret the constitution.