Is it the moral message that counts or isn’t it? Or, is it just beleif in God that you think should be publically promoted?
I’m looking forward to our first openly athesit or agnostic president. Other than that, anyone can express thier sincere beliefs as they wish.
Then fear not. The idea that atheists and agnostics have no moral compass is pure nonsense. If there’s a lack of respect and compassion growing Christians are just as guilty as anyone. God belief isn’t nessecary to treat people with compassion and respect.
The teen suicide rate has not “skyrocketed,” by the way. It’s been declining consistently for a couple of decades. It rose significantly between the 50s and 70s and has been decreasing for about 20 years. I think it is now the lowest it’s been in a long time. Awareness of the problem has increased, which can leave people with a different impression even though it can be a good thing. I very much doubt bullying has increased either. It’s just that few school administrators and politicians took it seriously until recently.
Cites on suicide rates:
http://www.afsp.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewpage&page_id=050fea9f-b064-4092-b1135c3a70de1fda
http://www.afsp.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewPage&page_id=04EB7CD1-9EED-9712-89C9540AFCB44481
Hey, for those playing along at home go check out OECD.stat at http://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?DataSetCode=HEALTH_STAT#
Brilliant information, particularly if you wanted to look up mortality statistics, linked to self harm for both men and women across the OECD. I mean you might want to go check and see if there really was an explosion of suicides in the US due to the on rushing tide of unbelievers.
I’m as shocked as you to find that it isn’t. 2007 rates per 100,000 were 10.5 verses a 17 year median of 10.6 showing a decline from 1990’s 11.9.
Aside from that the OECD site is fantastic - you can play with the data to your heart’s content.
Well…
It seems clear that the argument being made is that they are one and the same; no god, no morality. Which is nonsense of course as many have pointed out.
Whenever dealing with statistical data, it bears doing more research rather than just trusting one cite. Do they explain exactly why it was so high in the 50s - 70s?
This cite claims teen suicide has seen a sharp increase within the last 15 years:
Your cite hardly supports any sweeping claims.
So you have an outlier, for one single year.
Kay.
GEEPERS are you unable to to read?
1990 - 9.48
2003 - 6.78
2004 - 7.32
That’s your sharp increase within 15 years?
That cite doesna say what you thin’ it says, kimosabe. It’s a single year rise…hardly a trend.
ETA: or what Finn and Grey said. :smack:
-XT
Um, Mormons, and maybe worshipers of Zeus. :shrug:
Knock it off.
Do we have to have a religion in order to have a moral compass?
Bullying has gone on for quite a while. I’d suggest that it is simply recognized and discussed more openly now.
The cite I posted did not go into it, but I’m sure there are theories. I’d say people at that time looked at mental health issues very differently - for one thing I don’t think people were as willing to go to therapy and were more disapproving of mental illness, and while I have my reservations about drugs in some cases I am sure prescription drugs have helped a significant number of people.
I realize several posters beat me to it, but no, it does not say that at all. It says suicide rates increased that year (2004) compared to the previous year, but the suicide rate was still much lower that it was in 1990 at 7.32 per 100,000 vs. 9.48 per 100,000. The suicide rate does change from year to year and it’s not always clear why that happens.
This is not just true for teens. Suicide rates have fluctuated over the years, but overall the suicide rate now is about the same as it was in 1965, the worst rates were in the mid '70s, there has been a bit of a decline over the last couple of decades. From other sources I see some indications that the economy has made things a little worse. If you’re suggesting that suicide has increased because there’s less religion in public life and people have lost their moral compass, the facts do not support you. So let’s get back to the original topic.
GEEPERS–can you please address the issue with your suicide claim?
I’d be ever-so-happy if you would.
A quick Google search revealed a plethora of claims that teen suicide is indeed on the rise.
http://www.befrienders.org/info/index.asp?PageURL=statistics.php
"The WHO further reports that:
•In the last 45 years suicide rates have increased by 60% worldwide. Suicide is now among the three leading causes of death among those aged 15-44 (male and female). Suicide attempts are up to 20 times more frequent than completed suicides.
•Although suicide rates have traditionally been highest amongst elderly males, rates among young people have been increasing to such an extent that they are now the group at highest risk in a third of all countries"
"•Youth suicide is increasing at the greatest rate "
“Over the past 30 years the suicide rate has tripled in the United States (Santrock, 2002, p.405)”
http://www.mesacc.edu/dept/d46/psy/dev/Fall02/DD/suicide.html
I really don’t think atheists live in the real world. Outside your sheltered walls of academia, there is a lot of hurting people out there, and atheism offers ZERO hope.
Nor does it offer the threat of eternal torture. And the only hope religion can offer is false hope. Atheism does offer the hope for a better world indirectly, given that atheism is the lack of one of the most destructive ideas ever invented.
And it’s contradictory to push a faith based worldview then complain that someone else isn’t living in the real world.
WHO data, as found from your first link, plainly contradicts this claim. While 2002 and 1972 aren’t data points on this graph, there is no point at which anything approaching a tripling of the rate occurs, and if we take 1970 to 2000, there is again a decrease in the rate.
Again it seems that you haven’t read your own cite.
In other words, not only is most of it caused by mental health disorders and not beliefs, the sociocultural factors which cause it include the bigoted hate mongering of Christians (and others) who make gay people feel like, what was it? Oh yeah, sinners who aren’t even welcome in someone’s community church even if they’re ardent believers. And “Hey, we have a big Sky God who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent… but still allows you to suffer. Oh, and our Sky God has no more proof or validity than the next guy’s” is hardly “hope”. I’d also wager that groups like It Gets Better have done far, far more to prevent teen suicide and provide hope than, say, Christian religious leaders who call for the death of homosexuals.
Of course, all of this is just one of your dodges and has nothing to do with the claims made in your OP. It’s just yet another rabbit trail built around your absurd “atheists are teh bad!” nonsense, coupled with a mini-rant about academia. Why that’s thrown in is anybody’s guess.
This does not say teen suicide is on the rise.
This doesn’t say teen suicides are up either. It says there are now more suicides attributed to bullying than in the past.
This does say the suicide rate is up, but there are no statistics posted to support it. Since the cites I’ve posted (and other people have posted) do have specific data, I think they’re more credible than this community college website.
GEEPERS, rather than launching another screed against atheists, can you get back to the Constitution and the Rhode Island school case? You’ve lost this argument about suicide in an overwhelming way.
Agreed, clearly the CDC is an unreliable source, maybe you can find a few random bloggers to make vague, poorly supported claims that we can REALLY trust.