We youth at EvC are in Moral Decline

There were other factors, were there not?An overextended empire.
Heavy taxes to support the military/industrial complex.
Armed forces which played policeman to the world.
Infighting countries which threatened the Republicans (er...Republic).
Corruption at the highest levels of government.
The filthy rich taking advantage of the dirt poor.
More?I suspect that morality is related to morale. What can we expect the level of morale to be when the vast majority of Americans are stuck in minimum wage jobs, two to a couple; barely earning a living; with little hope of owning a home; with increasing unemployment, while companies downsize and jobs are sent overseas. The middle class is disappearing and the lower classes (from whence cometh the majority of violent crime) will never experience the "good life" dangled before them daily on television and in magazines. UNLESS, of course, they are willing to compete with the lying, cheating, murdering nation which shares many earmarks with the declining Roman empire.Eh?db[venting my spleen this morning]------------------
Doesn't anyone graduate Sunday School?

I must wonder how many of these suicides are happening among Judeo/Christian's.I am also wondering how the suicide rates reflect city dwellers versus those who live in the countryside. Overcrowding has been implicated in many psychological abberations, antisocial behaviour and senseless violence among them.Hopelessness is certainly a factor in suicide. You may recall that at least one poor loser jumped from a window on wall street when the market crashed in 1929. Expectations of success provide hope. Headlines which tout an improved economy are no substitute for rewarding employment; employment which gives one the ability to afford marriage, children, and home he can call his own.Few of us can claim that hope with any confidence today.db------------------
Doesn't anyone graduate Sunday School?

Not at all. I was referring to the government. I'll not try to explain that. But the question of Rich versus Poor is a valid, and Classic, consideration.While it is true that some people seem to enjoy their poverty, I can't believe you'd say that about those who have lost good paying jobs to corporate downsizing or re-location of manufacturing facilities to overseas labor forces. I'm talking about people who want to work, who were working until the Big Boys gave them the shaft. There's nothing wrong with getting rich, but if one gets rich by lowering the workers wages for his own gain, or failing to raise the workers wage when prices and profits soar (a wildly popular thing to do in this country), then damn him! He is destroying lives.I know a lot of people who are good, regular, punctual and faithful long term employees of companies which treat them no better than the fly-by-night flakes they hire every other week. I've held many jobs in many fields. There are some excellent companies out there but they are few and far between.Corporate executives earn millions of dollars in bonuses by finding ways to reduce costs and increase profits. All too often this is done by grinding the faces of the poor. You are aware of this I am sure. It's all over the news ... Remember the S&L scandal? The Enron affair? These are just the tip of the iceberg.The battle between rich and poor has been going on from the beginning. The earliest codes of law known to man set forth statutes to protect the poor from the rich. Why do suppose they did that? Could it be because the poor tend to rise up and kill those who oppress them?db------------------
Doesn't anyone graduate Sunday School?

You are free to disagree, of course, but the question at hand is whether America's problems are the result of a decline in the influence of Judeo-Christian values. I don't think so. I believe that economic disparity is adequate motivation for political unrest. Remember the Bolshevic Revolution? Add to this: increasing taxes, flat-line or decreasing wages, and increasing unemployment. Then, perhaps, the "morality" of economic justice may kick in. Of course, you could claim that too as an aspect of J-C values.Remember the Boston Tea Party?db------------------
Doesn't anyone graduate Sunday School?

Bingo! And that takes us right back to the economy.I remember a time when my father insisted that my mother take no work outside the home (late fities/early sixties). Then when he was injured on the job and layed up, they had no choice. Later, even though working again and with fewer children at home, they again had no choice. Mom had to work. They needed two incomes to make ends meet. They did OK on the two incomes in those days. Compared to today's reality, they did quite well.Need I mention latch-key kids and the devil's workshop?I am confident that much evil stems from a sick economy. Not enough to do, and too many people to do it. But those who do it earn so little for their effort that it takes two or three of them to earn a living wage.db------------------
Doesn't anyone graduate Sunday School?

U.S. Census Bureau: Page not foundIf I am reading these stats correctly, it appears that they put somewhere between 30 and 50 million Americans below poverty level based on income. That's as many as 18% of us.The next question would be: How many of us clear the bar of poverty but still can't get a leg up on the American Dream?I'm workin' on it. The statistics I mean. Well, the other too. db------------------
Doesn't anyone graduate Sunday School?

The Following are quotes from the AFL-CIO.

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"In 2000, half or more of the workers in more than 50 occupations were paid poverty-level wages. A number of these jobspersonal/home care aides, child-care workers, home health aidesinvolve substantial responsibility for providing care for our children and elderly parents." Attention Required! | Cloudflare

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See the link for a breakdown of the occupations they are talking about.

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"The inflation-adjusted value of the minimum wage is 24 percent lower today than it was in 1979 and in real dollars, $5.15 an hour minimum wage is worth just $4.75. If the wage had just kept pace with inflation since 1968 when it was a $1.60 an hour, minimum wage would be $8.46 an hour in 2003." Attention Required! | Cloudflare

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That's more than I make now and the minimum wage has been increased twice since my last raise.

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"About 3.5 million workers worked full-time and year-round in 1999, yet they and their families lived in poverty.

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A 2001 U.S. Conference of Mayors study found that 37 percent of adults seeking emergency food aid were employed. Officials in 63 percent of the cities surveyed identified low-paying jobs as a primary cause of hunger.

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According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s September 2001 report Out of Reach, The national median housing wage, based on each county’s housing wage for a two-bedroom unit at the Fair Market Rent weighted by Census 2000 population estimates, is $13.87 an hour, more than twice the federal minimum wage of $5.15 per hour. This means that on average, there must be more than two full-time minimum wage workers in a household in order for the household to afford a two-bedroom housing unit at the Fair Market Rent.
" Attention Required! | Cloudflare

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Few of these workers are doing much more than dreaming about owning a home.That's the gist of it. There's a lot more where this comes from.db [edited to add content]
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Doesn't anyone graduate Sunday School?[This message has been edited by doctrbill, 08-03-2003]

From the site you cite:

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Donald Hughes, author of The Divorce Reality, said: "In the churches, people have a superstitious view that Christianity will keep them from divorce, but they are subject to the same problems as everyone else, and they include a lack of relationship skills. ...Just being born again is not a rabbit's foot." Hughes claim that 90% of divorces among born-again couples occur after they have been "saved."

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Perhaps you witnessed one of the top stories of the religious world, sometime last year I think. It got a big write up in our local paper: Bible Belt Leads Nation In Divorce.Now we know who's sending this country to hell in a handbasket, Eh Buzz?It's the Funnymentalists!db------------------
Doesn't anyone graduate Sunday School?

Maybe they do it according to Buzz's Bible? Considering the source of the message, to which you were responding, there is little cause for alarm.db------------------
Doesn't anyone graduate Sunday School?

If you cannot accept statistics generated by these agencies (which actually have access to the raw data), then what can you accept? Casual observation and anecdotal reports are classically unreliable, mine included. So, I look to the data and voila! - The data seems to support my personal experience. Can you offer verifiable alternative confirmation of your impressions?db------------------
Doesn't anyone graduate Sunday School?

I find that my longer posts are more likely to be skimmed over and misunderstood. So, when I think of, I limit my response to the points I think are most important. The trivial bullshit will come around again if one is patient. Besides, I get weary of creating long, well researched, profusely edited responses only to have them entirely ignored. You know? Sometimes I break my response into a number of shorter posts. That seems to work better for me and people seem less likely to misunderstand what I write.You know: rifle versus shotgun.db------------------
Doesn't anyone graduate Sunday School?

I remember hearing all this back in the fifties. But then, apartment buildings were blamed on the "disassociative" behaviour. And I recall reading similar complaints written by Sumerians 5,000 years ago. That's capitalism for you, and besides, if you don't look out for number one, no one else will look out for him either. Now that's a fact.db------------------
Doesn't anyone graduate Sunday School?

None that you'd rather discuss anyhow. eh? I mean, you have spent some effort debating what you believe to be 1. -a general decline in morality, 2. -a generally good economy (which you think is unrelated to morality) and 3. (a corollary of 2.?) -the prospects which today's youth have of enjoying the American dream (a debatable and oft debated issue).I don't know how one can consider any of these issues without the others coming up sooner or later. And I have thoroughly enjoyed debating these things with you. I have yet to search out relevant data on the price of homes and majority levels of income. I have however listened to programs on NPR which make a very good case for what I have asserted heretofore. Too bad I can't get my hands on the transcript.db------------------
Doesn't anyone graduate Sunday School?

Except for the oil well servicing, I have done all the jobs you mentioned, and other menial tasks surrounded by whatever constituted the majority of poor workers in the particular region where the job was located. Mexican immigrants (and wetbacks) in southern Cal.; mostly white folk in Oregon and a sprinkling of Canadian nationals in the state of Washington. Be advised. Slavery is not dead. It's better now in some ways. It is now Equal Opportunity Slavery.------------------
Doesn't anyone graduate Sunday School?

That reminds me of the school teacher, working part-time after a prolonged illness; living in her car, in a city park, and walking to the school where she used the bath facilities of the PE department. City officials had police sweep the homeless out of this park and thus her story came to light. (Corvallis Oregon, circa 1983). She said, she had not believed that it could ever happen to her (becoming homeless).Whatever the national economy may be, you can bet that the government will try to make it look as good as possible. Average income for example. Average the income of a thousand Americans: one corporate executive, earning $20 million annually; and a thousand workers earning $10,000 annually (totaling $10 million). That's 1,001 individuals with an average income of nearly $30,000. Is this the way average income is figured? It is if you want to be re-elected!Am I too cynical?------------------
Doesn't anyone graduate Sunday School?