Then we will agree to disagree on what it means to honor heritage.
Fine, but I do not see why. I was not challenging what you meant by honoring a heritage, I was explaining what the United States heritage is and why it should be honored.
Actually secularism has had very very little to do with the fact that we have later marriages. This has far more to do with the public funding of the education system and the higher esteem placed on those that finnish high school as being more functional and capable adults. So now it is less desirable to get married at 16 and go into the unskilled labor force but rather wait till after you are 18 or even 19 to get married and get your education down first.
I did not say secularism did, but it actually might indirectly. For example secularism shifts the balance between the career and the family. Now days everyone identity is the job title and so people are putting off having a family until much later, also the full Man and women family unit is no longer so important in these secular times. But that was not my point. My point was that secularism has de-stigmatized sex outside of wedlock and made promiscuity almost a virtue. So now that marriage is less important sex is even more important and more teen pregnancies result.
Though I admit it has been hard to find the actual statistics on teen pregnancy over the last 80 years but it has been in solid decline over the last 2 and a half decades. So I will need to see some numbers on this.
Trends in Teen Pregnancy and Childbearing - The Office of Adolescent Health
This is a point that needs mentioning. There was a regression in secularism in the Reagan era. So many of the stats start rising in the late 50's then peak in the late 70's, start dropping and eventually hit a low point but then start trending back up.
U.S. Teen Pregnancy, Birth and Abortion Rates Reach Historic Lows
Teen Pregnancies Rise Again, Experts Debate Reasons Why - ABC News
Rise in teenage pregnancy rate spurs new debate on arresting it
What your seeing are local trends not over all data from the 50's to today. Below is a link to the whole data set. Look at the second graph from the top as it is the average overall. Teen pregnancy never has been as low since it spiked in the late 50's until today as it was in the early 50's.
Products - Data Briefs - Number 89 - April 2012
Keep this in mind local trends within a decade or two are misleading in our context here.
I would like to see evidence that the majority of these kids were atheists. In fact it seems to me that the evidence has proven that they were mostly Christians. This doesn't indicate that Christianity is the problem but just that the majority of teenagers are Christian.
I did not say the majority were atheists. I said we did not have these atheist verse anyone of faith school shooting back in the 20's. You think that majority of who were Christians. Keep this in mind as well. Even being a Christian (especially a nominal one) does not mean you do not get caught up in the secular trends of the age, and most Christians are nominal. Being a Christian is not proof against acting immorally, in fact it is logical that Satan would be after those who believe not the ones he already has deceived. Satan targets his greatest threat the same as our military does, not his our allies (with the exception of Obama and Israel).
I also haven't seen any information linking even correlation much less causation. Do you have anything for it or is it speculation or personal views?
Causation is much harder to show, it is not a matter of simple stats but when virtually all the stats spike at the same moment secularism went on the offensive it is hard not to see causation. I can get into the theoretical reasons why secularism causes these things but I am not sure how to go about proving it.
What are some of these other evidences? The only thing that we have really seen so far is that school shootings are up (which is a problem) and that you don't agree with abortion. So we agree to disagree about abortion and both agree that school shootings is a problem what other aspect of life has gotten worse? It is a new secular morality but it seems to be more effective than the pre-social revolution religiously dominated morality. At least by the numbers.
Well the surveys I mentioned were about what people think the moral condition is today verses decades ago. So in addition to that is the statistical proof that shows that their opinions are factual, and there are a mountain of them. Again I have posted maybe a hundred of them, and linked thousands and you can search for them if you want. It took a long time to dig them al up and I just can't stomach going through that again.
Our founding documents are secular. The only thing even slightly considered non-secular would be the Declaration of Independence and that was the mention of a creator. Our morals as a country have changed fundamentally in the dynamic of society from the founding to the 50's. The fact that you think otherwise is simply wrong. People are still people and if someone from today was planted back in that time period as a child they would most likely absorb that culture. But that culture is vastly different. We have seen massive changes in attitudes towards race, towards violence, towards religion, science, ect. It was vastly different depending on WHERE you were up until the recent years of mass communication.
Well lets take a look at a sample and see. There are so many I can only give one at a time. Here our original founding document.
The Five References to
God in the Declaration of Independence Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. Says Dr. Pease: It always amazes me when otherwise intelligent people are unable to find evidence of
God in our governing documents. The Declaration of Independence, the signing of which we commemorate July 4th, alone has five references to
God - two in the first paragraph, one in the middle, and two in the last. "When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's
God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." Who is responsible for "the laws of nature" but
God - certainly not man nor nature itself? From the "laws of nature" sprang an awareness of natural law (sometimes called common sense), understood by early philosophers to be a source of higher law that never changes. This was best explained by Cicero, a Roman politician, as early as the 1st Century B. C. -even predating the existence of Christianity when he wrote: "Nor may any other law override it, nor may it be repealed as a whole or in part... Nor is it one thing at Rome and another at Athens, one thing today and another tomorrow, but one eternal and unalterable law, that binds all nations forever." Of "Nature's
God," the second reference to deity is, of course, more explicit and needs no explanation. The third reference to
God is the word "creator" found in the second paragraph. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." This boldly identified our base for at least three unalienable rights as
God, and the Founders identified this truth as self-evident. Any person endowed with common sense or reason would/could come to this conclusion. So passionate were they with respect to these three "
God-given rights" that such was identified as the purpose of government. "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ..."Moreover, their right of revolution hinged upon the denial of these "
God-given rights." "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes ... But when a long train of abuses and usurpations ... evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government and to provide new Guards for their future security." Once again, an appeal to natural law, which emanates from
God, was noted and the loss of which always justifies revolution. The fourth and fifth references to
God are found in the last paragraph. The rightness of our cause was left to
God as judge. "We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown..."The fifth and last reference to
God asks for his divine protection in our revolutionary course of action. "And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor. "There was no dissent noted with respect to these references to
God and their placement or emphasis in this document by any of the participants then, nor should there be now.
Our national motto is "In God we trust" and is inscribed over the podium in the house of representatives for pity sake. And if you spun around you would find that face and name of Moses in just that one room.