Hi Brett,

I don't want to get into a discussion about religion, but rather simply offer a possible alternate cause for society's downward trend.

I think it is CLEARLY materialism - the pursuit of the almight buck!

America in particular (with Canada almost on a par) has marketing/advertising/promotion as a pillar of business and economics, making CONSUMPTION the mantra. Gotta have it, and gotta have it NOW!

This is drummed in to all of us every hour of every day, on TV, newspapers, radio, billboards, etc. There is now advertising in schools, at urinals, in elevators, and the internet, just to name some 'unusual' places.
The younger folks (we were all young once and felt exactly the same) are particularly the target audience, and the barrage is far far stronger today than it was 20 years ago. It is omnipresent and consistent in its message - CONSUME.

To comply (consume) you have to have the money. To get money you will do what it takes. The message for consumption, always accompanied by a variation of "money = success", has people going to extreme measures to get their hands on it.

I've seen (on TV) parents try to talk their daughters out of starting porn sites but it's very hard for them to succeed when the $$$$ are exposed. They know it's bad, but the attraction of $$$$ has them relenting. And if they don't the daughter is seduced enough by the money that she does it anyway after she hits 18 years old.

There is a huge industry built around cover-girl pictures, looking great/young, being Twiggy-like, etc, all rooted in advertising and (subtly?) pushing the perception that you're less than a human if you are a tad chunky or don't have perfect skin or big boobs or a trim nose or have cellulite or...

Brand names are de rigeur and any kid who has generic clothes or shoes or phones or makeup is less than human in his own eyes.

We all see the TV evangelists raking in the dough under totally false pretenses.

People who don't have what they are barraged to wanting find ways to make the money to get the STUFF (sell drugs, start scams, bilk insurance companies, etc.) or simply steal it.

People also see how companies, and especially the large corporations, lie, cheat and dishonour contracts (written or implied) to make more $$$, so they make the jump that they can go ahead and act the same way.
The insurers are about to be exposed in LA/MI/AL for relying on technicalities to get out of their obligations. Before that we saw Enron and the rash of others and it is common knowledge that there are lots more out there doing roughly the same thing. And these corporations generally have "protection", either by their connections or in the law itself. And it has become cliche to say things like "business has no morals" and "the bottom line is all that matters".

So how can you possibly blame someone, especially a younger person, for following what society is constantly pushing at them.

So wouldn't it be a good first step to have the politicians and the business owners/shareholders to first get religion themselves, rather than pretending they are deep into it while all the while keeeping right on doing what they do?????

George Bush was just attending a memorial Church service.
It's too bad that he talks religious but his actions tell us all that it is all phoney and done with the objective of making the rich richer regardless the impact.




>OK, this will open a new side discussion Alex but your statement:
>
>>This is an example of totally bogus conclusions from no statistical research whatsoever. What you are describing as cause and effect has nothing to do with religion but it does with lack of parenting and the gun culture of the US.<
>
>Begs me to ask you then what is parenting that leads to good behavior? Is it raising your kids with a knowledge of Good and Evil? Is it training your kids to respect other people? Is it teaching them the basics of descent human behavior? Is it showing them that all life is precious? Are these things that you would say are ingredients to parenting and may be absent today and root causes of a lot of problems. If the answer is yes, then all I can say is these values are passed down from person to person and learned from somewhere. Could it be that a person's religious beliefs are what makes them a good parent in your eye's because they are being taught core values of their religion. Take God out of school's and maybe, in some cases you damage the system. You can ask for all the statistics you want, so you can safely draw your conclusions, but I truly believe that American Society (as I do not live anywhere else) is going down hill fast with the distruction of the basic family
>unit.