>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?

Among other things, yes - but we never ever told our kids that these two must be capitalized. And, then, we always tried to convey the reasons why something is not good (mostly avoiding the word "evil" - that's reserved for really criminal things) - it may be bad for your health, it may hurt other people, it may cause other people to react (and why would they do so), sometimes ending with "...and that's why there's a law against it".

>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?

Human life, yes, each. Animal... well, we're eating chicken, pork, beef, fish. Can't then just say "all life except your food" or "all life that can send you a sad look". But they didn't kill animals either - actually, one of them kept bringing in hurt pigeons, even a crow once.

>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.

So far, so good.

>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.

Then something's wrong with the system. If it can't function without involving religion, how is it different from a religious school? You seem to forget that, apart from "Could it be that a person's religious beliefs are what makes them a good parent" there can be good parents which have the same basic set of humanistic values without religion? The thing missing may be the desire to be subordinate, which then shouldn't be a necessary ingredient - I'd much more prefer being respected and paying respect, than being obeyed or obeying.

IOW, are my kids bad simply because they've grown in an agnostic family?

>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.

My family is fine, don't feel destroyed at all (even though we live in two cities).