Wow, a whole .8 of a year!

ex-preacher you have a real bad habit of misquoting and leaving things out don’t you? According to the article when “religious intensity” are factored in, evangelical teens actually stay chaste longer than the secular teen. b>It means that you were wrong to claim that secularism is better for teens than Christianity.

Europe AND Australia AND Japan (and I’ll throw in New Zealand) are all overwhelmingly secular.

I disagree with you and the facts disagree with you. Unless you want to parse the data which would make the U.S. also overwhelmingly secular, but that would mean that you are again wrong about secularism and Christianity. The only way that you can come out ahead is to use secular ethics and apply different measuring standards to different groups to tailor the outcome to fit your bias.

Your problem is that you’ve created a fixed set of reality in your own mind and you propensity to allow only data in that fit your fictitious reality. But please don’t expect others to think your wild assertions are logically defensible.

I don’t think we’re making any progress here, DennyReader, so I expect this to be my last response to you.

Yes, Europe AND Australia AND Japan (and I’ll throw in New Zealand) are all overwhelmingly secular. This is simply not a matter of disagreement.

Also beyond debate is the fact that almost all measurable indicators of well-being are higher in secular Western Europe, Australia, Japan and New Zealand than in the U.S.

Finally, within the U.S., statistics consistently show higher indicators of well-being in the most secular states (Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Alaska, Washington and Oregon), while the most religious states (Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia and North Carolina) hover near the bottom of such indicators.

Let me emphasize that this doesn’t prove that religiosity causes murder, divorce, obesity and teen pregnancy. I do think there is a clear connection between poverty (which does cause lots of bad things) and religiosity. That is, poor people are more likely to be religious and poor people are more likely to engage in socially negative behavior. People in Mississippi probably pray and worship and believe at a higher rate than the people in any other state, and yet they’re stuck at the bottom of almost every list. If the gospel could beat back Mississippi’s problems, you’d think it would have worked by now.

Earlier I’ve made this comment, “there is no guarantee that we will escape the problems you’ve raised but I believe the percentages would be much lower than secularists (confirmed by survey).”
Here’s the article ‘Evangelical Girls Are Easy’

* But these numbers shift when controlled for religious intensity. For those who attend church often, sexual activity is delayed until nearly 17, while nominal evangelicals begin at 16.2 years, earlier than the national average.

* Only 1 percent of conservative Protestants who attend church weekly cohabit, compared to 10 percent of all adults. (On this statistic, nominal evangelicals almost exactly mirror the nation.)

* Twelve percent of churchgoing evangelicals have children out of wedlock, compared to 33 percent of all mothers.

To ex-preacher, the fact to the matter is that you were wrong to make that claim. Even in your qualifier, you can only claim that for Europe but not Australia. As for the question itself “Does religion occupy an important place in your life?” What does that actually mean? Does that mean that they reject all Christian ethics which they claim affiliation to and adopt only atheistic ethics? Isn’t it a leap for you to assume from that response to a single question that secularism is better than Christianity?

Here is the second problem with your argument. When you realized that you were wrong about your blanket assertion that secularism is better than Christianity, in the context of this discussion. You begin to qualify what people mean when they say they are Christians. You begin to switch your argument and say that they claim to be Christian but they aren’t really Christians, implying that they are more secularists. Well, didn’t you understand that was what Dr. Burk and I have been telling you? Who are the real Christians? As you have finally realized after you’ve been proven wrong, that it is not about what one profess as their faith but rather how important is that faith in a person’s life. You ought to know; didn’t you used to be one of those who profess to be a Christian?

You also go back to that fallacy of equating pregnancy, crime, and divorce rates with Christian principles. Even among those professing Christians, didn’t you say that they don’t use birth control? Teen pregnancy is the symptoms of the problem of a sinful nature to engage in intimate relationships outside the bounds of marriage. I suspect the pregnancy rate is not indicative of the higher immorality rate in the more secular states. Divorce rate also does not take into account the immoral actions of the more secular states where couples chooses to live together instead of getting married. It also does not take into account the gay couples rate either does it? Less marriages therefore less divorce. Finally can you show me the statistic that links crime rate to professing Christians? The bottom line is that these social problems are the result of those who reject Christian ethics for a secular lifestyle, regardless if they are professing Christians or secularists.

When asked “Does religion occupy an important place in your life?” the following percentage of people answered “No.”

Sweden 83%
Denmark 80%
Norway 78%
Czech Rep. 74%
France 73%
UK 71%
Finland 69%
Netherlands 66%
Belgium 61%
Spain 59%
Germany 57%
Switzerland 56%

A measure of actual behavior reveals the following percentages claim to attend church weekly: (all statistics below from nationmastercom)

Japan 2%
Iceland 4%
Finland 4%
Sweden 4%
Norway 5%
Denmark 5%
Czech Rep. 14%
Australia 16%
Switzerland 16%
France 21%
Spain 25%
UK 27%
Netherlands 35%
U.S. 44%

Here’s the abortion rate – per 1,000 people

Sweden 4.2
U.S. 4.1
Norway 3
Iceland 2.7
Japan 2.7
France 2.7
Finland 1.9
Germany 1.2

Below is the births to teens per 1 million people

U.S. 1,671
Iceland 890
Australia 590
Czech Rep. 589
Germany 351
Norway 350
France 297
Belgium 287
Finland 284
Spain 279
Denmark 213
Sweden 178
Netherlands 172
Switzerland 146
Japan 137

And finally, murders per 100,000 people

U.S. 4.3
Finland 2.8
France 1.7
Czech Rep. 1.7
Iceland 1.7
Australia 1.5
UK 1.4
Spain 1.2
Germany 1.2
Netherlands 1.1
Denmark 1.1
Norway 1.1
Switzerland .9
Japan .5

I was listening to Begg today. He spoke of expectations. The struggle for a Christian is just what you highlight, Kelly. We cannot expect those outside of Christ to live a life as though they are in Christ. For instance, I think you have a couple of letters wrong. It’s not that abortion is necessary, but it is necessarily a result of the sexually immoral. Destroying a human life is (as unpopular as this will be), at its heart, self serving. It’s not necessary, it’s necessarily a product of turning away from God. For some, it’s a rebellious action. For others it’s a life of rebellion. So, as Christians, we strive to uphold God’s word. Sometimes we have the ability to politically affect this. But as some have rightly pointed out here, we don’t trust in horses and chariots. We should strive to preach the message of Christ crucified above all other things to help liberate those who are in a life of theft. To free those in sexual sin of the chains of their own sinful choices. To bring the forgiveness bought on Calvary to those who daily deny God’s grace. In response to much of what you (and ep) have said, I, for one, am severely deficient in that I don’t weep enough for those who are perishing. I am too often happy to be where I am and never give it a thought. I appreciate the stoke.

THAT is what I pointed out. Not that conservative (and liberal) Christians sin. I was raised a conservative…trust me, I know that they sin.

(In a huge paraphrase) You state that conservative Christians still sin. I’m sorry, but Paul beat you to that argument.

Regardless of what happens, we are called to a standard of righteousness that is unmovable. We strive to affirm what God affirms and decry what God has decried. We do not call evil good or dark light.

And, to answer the other question by Larry, no, we don’t vie for a theocratic state. But we should uphold what God upholds in any way we possibly can. With abortion, we uphold the dignity of human life, the highest of God’s creation, in His own image. That is why it is so important to those who are of Christ.

I read this earlier this morning and thought of the discussion going on here (and the other ice cream one and tree thing as well). Hebrews 4:

For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.