Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Would you be happy to see Hinduism, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Jainism and Shintoism in public schools alongside Christianity?
...and if the coach was a Muslim or a Hindu?
Quote:
Originally Posted by cupper3
So you would be OK with a Muslim Iman coming in and preaching, or a Scientologist, or a Buddhist monk? Or are you sticky about which religion is taught in school? How about a Voodoo chicken entrails reading before the game?
Location: In a little house on the prairie - literally
10,202 posts, read 7,926,708 times
Reputation: 4561
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
With that logic, every parent should be imprisoned for the actions of their children even if they are grown. They are responsible.
God is a compassionate God and He has done plenty. He gave us an escape route from the death penalty of sin and the opportunity to have eternal life forever in exchange for a few short year on this cursed land. That's a pretty amazing deal. The beauty of life is that God first gave us life which is an amazing gift. In return, we are asked to give that life back to Him. With God guiding and direction your life path, blessings and GOOD things can happen.
God is a big picture God. We can only reason without our limited human brain perspective. You think the worst possible thing is physical suffering when it reality, the worst possible thing is to lose your soul. With your reasoning, God should zap end the physical suffering. But from a spriitual perspective, what does that accomplish reality? It only delays the evidentable. The death of the human body. Your demand requires God to intefer heavily with free wil directing and forcing the actions of people until we are just puppets with no control of our actions.
Christians still live in a sin fallen world and deal with pain. We also have to deal with an enemy who relentlessly wants to discourage us.
No, man is too stupid and selfish to follow God's blueprint for life which would greatly defeat depression and suicidal thoughts. That blueprint is to put the needs of others before yourself. To love your neighbor as you love yourself. Even if everyone just went around giving each other the simple gesture of a hug, that would make a world of difference. The problem isn't God. It's that man doesn't care.
The beauty of being an atheist is that we know we only have one life to live, this is it, that we become wormfood when we die, and it is only our atoms that get recycled. The same atoms that make up the cosmos; we are all just stardust.
As such, we strive to make this the best live we can for ourselves, our children, our community. No false hopes, no fantasies.
In my world, a triple rate is not "about the same".
And they have clearly gone up consistently year by year in the last 5 years.
I already sent you the link at the same time I sent the list of suicide rates of countries of the world. You dismissed what I have already sent you so I am not going to repeat that. Keep looking for data that supports you claim and cherry pick those parts of stats that supports and discard what does not. According to the data you linked to the suicide rate was higher in 1960 than it is now and was much higher in 1940. If teen age suicide is way up then adult suicide must be down. From your very own link
[SIZE=4]The suicide rate in the Silver State dropped sharply from 32.7 in 1940 to 22.6 in 1960 and remained relatively flat until 1990 when it began to rise again to 23.7 before dropping in 2003 to 18.5.
[SIZE=3]With 19.1 suicides per 100,000 residents in 2000, Nevada’s rate was almost twice the national average of 10.7. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]Between 1993 and 2003, the overall rate in Nevada steadily declined from 25.8 to 18.5, but remained about twice the national rate. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]New York and Massachusetts shared the lowest rate at 6.4 suicide rates in the nation with 6.4 suicides per 100,000 residents. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]Nearby states California (8.8) and Utah (13.8) had significantly lower rates than Nevada. At 22.0, Alaska topped the nation.[/SIZE]
[/SIZE]
[SIZE=4]
[/SIZE] [SIZE=4]Conclusion [/SIZE]
[SIZE=3] Nevada’s tragically high suicide rate remains a complex, unsolved problem, and one of the most pressing social health challenges. Suicide may well be an indication of deeper social malaise plaguing the Silver State and Nevadans must take seriously the possibility that something unusually violent plagues our communities, something which results in a tendency to inflict an intentional self-harm and of which we are perhaps only dimly aware. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=3] The present report has identified several factors behind the historically high suicide rates in the Silver State. The most important among these factors are social isolation, population explosion, addictive behavior, mental health crisis, and frontier culture. To ameliorate the Nevada situation, we need to take several urgent steps, starting with improved data collection, building more mental health facilities, augmenting community resources, and mounting a state-wide campaign to educate Nevadans about the risk factors they face as residents of this state. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]
[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]Suicide and Mental Health [SIZE=3] [/SIZE]
[SIZE=3] 95% of people who complete suicide have a diagnosable psychiatric illness at the time of death, according to the Journal of American Medical Association. At the same time, 80% of people consider psychiatric illnesses to be a character flaw and blame life emergencies like divorce and bankruptcy rather than depression for the decision to end one’s life. Understanding that depression is the leading cause of suicide, that mental health issues are behind more than 90% of lethal suicidal acts, is critically important for suicide prevention.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3] The mental health crisis in Nevada contributes to our high suicide rates. The historically underdeveloped mental health infrastructure in both rural and metropolitan areas throughout the state plays a major role.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3] With 42% of its population reporting poor mental health in the past 30 days, Nevada has the highest rate of mental illness among the 50 states. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=3] At the same time, 2005 per capita spending on mental health ranks Nevada 38th out of 50 states. [/SIZE]
[/SIZE]
I am not sure how your world is going to be any better if you can twist the evidence to show that atheists are all the mean spirited people who are responsible for all the woes in your world. So where in your link does it associate suicide with lack of belief in God?
According to your claim Utah should have a lower suicide rate then CA. MA or NY. Pick and choose however you want, it does not seem from any place I looked that there is a relationship between suicide and religion or lack of religion unless you take the five non democratic Islamic theocracies at the very bottom of the list of all countries. I would hazard a guess that the majority of even the most religious Christians in the USA will take the current suicide rate over living in a non democratic theocracy, even a Christian one.
The rate in 1950 and 1960 were 13.2 when prayer was in school was it not? So now it has gone back to the rates of the good old days when everyone was a Christian and no one told you you could not have your religion everywhere.
The rate in 1950 and 1960 were 13.2 when prayer was in school was it not? So now it has gone back to the rates of the good old days when everyone was a Christian and no one told you you could not have your religion everywhere.
The rate in 1950 and 1960 were 13.2 when prayer was in school was it not? So now it has gone back to the rates of the good old days when everyone was a Christian and no one told you you could not have your religion everywhere.
Quit confusing him with facts, his mind is made up. It' a faith thing.
I am sure that he honestly believes that without religion, notably his religion, that one has little or nothing to live for and therefore one would be more likely to commit suicide. Even his own links do not support his personal conviction unless he picks and chooses what part of the stats he is willing to accept or not and reject the conclusions and discussions of his own sources. I would concede that the support a church group can provide would be a good tool on working for suicide prevention but on the other hand what some of the churches promote might be something that causes confusion and depression.
I do not believe that his personal bias against atheists and atheism will allow him to see that there is first of all no correlation behind what he claims and secondly even if there was any correlation there is no cause and effect shown.
Jeff: until you can actually show some evidence to back your claim that suicide rates increased with the banning of prayer in schools in 1962 and the increase of those without religion you have failed to make your case for your claims. If it is important for you to prove your case go ahead but the links I have provided will make it very difficult for you to do so. With the skyrocketing rates you claim you have finally got back to the rates were before the prayer in school ban. Maybe you would be better if you simply explained why you think that atheism or lack of prayers in schools lead to suicide, more interesting than swapping stats.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
