I don't believe that there is cause and effect here.  This is just your view.  Life wasn't perfect in the 50's and 60's.  The imperfections were just more hidden then.  It seems like every generation thinks the next generation is the worst. 

"17:7 And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee."

Perhaps G-d did change the "everlasting covenant" to apply only to Isaac. Or there was a different covenant specifically for Isaac and His descendants.



And most churches have a cross on their roof; but Jesus is not a wood god.

Incidentally, the crescent is part of the coat of arms of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem.



I have not seen you use scripture to show that Allah (or Elohim as Jews call Him) is a moon god.

(I think I fixed the brackets correctly?)

Indeed.




You see, and THAT (what they did) is what I would consider immoral.

(Sorry, LW. I do not want to insult your parents.)

And you know that, because...?

But let's assume it is true.

Great, a large number of married couples who didn't want to be married.

So you are arguing now that teen pregnancies are not actually a problem?

Um . . . nope. Less rare than now.



I'm sure Leauki will be fascinated by this graph.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

  

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

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".