"So the question is: Has the decline in moral values hurt our society?"

My opinion: definitely not more than an extremist view of forcing beliefs of a few on the laws governing the many.

Here, today, in America, we have a cure for cervical cancer in the form of an immunization. You get the immunization, you will not get cervical cancer. It prevents problems with the human papilloma virus. Healthcare experts are pleading to immunize across the country.

One person, working at the behest of the "government", decided that it would "send the wrong message" and encourage sex.

Guess what? No one is getting the immunization. Tragic damage due to extremist moral thinking.

fldave, your post about immunization is not correct.

>One person, working at the behest of the "government", decided that it would "send the wrong message" and encourage sex.<

Don't know where you got this, but it's nowhere near the truth. Some (not all) conservative and religious groups had concerns that the immunization would be mandatory, ie, without allowing parents to decide whether this might send the wrong message for their own kids. I can certainly understand their concern: in most situations, parents should have the right to decide for their own children.

At any rate, the immunizations are going ahead; it appears that state/local jurisdictions have the power to mandate immunizations as a matter of general policy. Read the full story in this NY Times piece:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/30/health/30vaccine.html?ex=1153022400&en=e08ffc1ccb095153&ei=5070

Humm….If the studios estimate that a clean market is not profitable it’s still their prerogative not to do it.
No one here has said they have to provide a clean version or just a clean version only.

As mentioned by Cheno/DSE: “are already two too many choices” maybe for you.
Too many soft cover books titles on the shelf?
Too many colors…flavors of ice cream… after all, some flavors don’t sale well at all.


And last “Odd that a country like Sweden can have a significantly lower violent crime rate”
That is not “odd” at all if you consider that Sweden population is around 9 million as opposed to about 300 million.
Smaller more rural developed populations tend to have a better community.
Better to compare to a developed country with about 300 million.
It’s like comparing New York City to a small rural city’s crime rate.
Overall there are a great many factors beyond if you have you kids at nude beach or not.

Regarding sex and violence, if kids are influenced by what they see on TV, movies, games, etc. then I'd much rather have my kid influenced by sex and even bad language than violence. Sex and bad language are not without consequences, but on average those consequences are only a tiny fraction of the consequences of violence. Would you rather your 13 year-old kid had sex, or killed someone?

And I also ask this: We know that killing is wrong. What's actually wrong about nudity?

<sigh>

C'mon, Vegas 7 !!

Probably a bad example as you're quite right, still there's is amny variants of that collection of works and in general each one of them is rightly attributed to the faith that calls their variant 'Our Bible'. In fact, perhaps wrongly the term 'bible' has now become generic, any text that outlines fundamental principles.

However my core point is that this debate focusses purely on copyright, a right that one day ceases to be. However even beyond that time it is still the work of someone, to change it in anyway and still call it the same work is what I see as fundamentally wrong. I have no issue with anyone changing a work for their own purposes (once copyright has expired) so long as they acknowledge where the work derives from and that they're the one that's made the changes. Even if they change the work while copyright is still valid, the issue of breach of copyright is of minor importance compared to the breach of moral rights.

Perhaps the works of Shakespear would have been a better example.

Bob.

Bob, now I understand what you were saying, and I agree with that. Thanks for the clarification.

Patrick, with all due respect, it felt to me, from reading your comments, that you were playing both ends against the middle. And yes, you and I and everyone have the right to lobby legislation, if so we choose.

Profanity, nudity, sex, and violence are the mud of society. It's unreasonable to believe that continued, unfettered exposure to profanity, nudity, sex, and violence has no negative effects on people (numerous studies over the years have shown otherwise). We can’t roll around in the mud without getting dirty.

Try a web search with "effects of pornography". Granted, many are faith-based, but many are purely clinical.

We need to read and remember more of man's history. Look what happened to the Greeks and the Romans. As one commentator said, Rome was destroyed when the Goths poured over its walls. But it was "not that the walls were low. It was that Rome itself was low."

Fred, I wouldn't want my children to do either. In my mind both are abhorrent.

In response to your question what's wrong with nudity, most Christians, and many of other faiths, believe that the corporal body is a gift from God--a means of clothing the human spirit or soul or whatever you want to call it. The body was created in the image of God. The body is also the temple of the Spirit. Therefore, many feel that the body is sacred; likewise, the act of procreation is equally as sacred. Sacred things are not to be flaunted in public.

I agree with David McKnight, we've gotten far off the subject, but by the same token, I feel that these kinds of dialogues are important. It is important that questions be answered, comments be replied to. Only in this way can we ever hope to understand one another, even though we may never come to fully agree with one another.

Erk
I stand corrected. I had not heard of those decisions, which are fabulous. It still has to be approved by Dept of Health and Human Services.

Spot, I read an article a few years ago that showed that the USA was not at all a "leader" in a comparison of worldwide crime rates. I did a quick Google search just now and came across this article, which is not the same one I read, but it tells a similar tale.

Jay - please don't be offended by Ken - he's just making a point.

Ken - you should do stand-up - wow - our own Carlin, right here on VV forum.

Pretty strong stuff up here - ain't it great to know that you can still get up on a public soapbox - spout your beliefs - and not have the door broken down tonight by ANY form of moral police??

That's why I love this country.

v

Victor, when someone calls any group of people "aholes" for any reason, that goes beyond making a point.

Well said, Vic!

That Economist article was very interesting, although I couldn't understand how "Sweden was in the worst group" when its numbers were too small to even show up in the tables?

These are all percentages, so population doesn't matter.

The numbers were from 1999, it's likely much worse in England today, especially as drinking has increased immensely according to a very recent study quoted last week in L.A. Times.

Crime has increased dramatically in Europe over the last decade for another reason. Unmanaged immigration from the former East Bloc and many very different cultures.

The East Bloc immigrants include a very large number of criminals who were unable to do much in totalitarian times, and now see immense opportunity in the New Europe (a friend of mine shot three feature films about this, quite good too).

The other group comes from vastly different cultures, nobody learns the language of their new host country and they live isolated all by themselves in their own suburbs, with massive youth unemployment especially which quickly creates unrest.

Sweden still has very low murder rates, but other crimes have increased substantially because of police force cutbacks and overly lenient courts that have become laughing stock.

Jay Gladwell makes some good points about values, but I don't think values can be taught with condemnation.

IMHO, many of today's churches have really failed in explaining to people why certain things are helpful while others are not. They just shout, "do as I say or you will rot in hell forever," to which people respond "Pffft, fogey!" :O) Th extension of that is that many people today see churches as being obsolete, not relevant in today's society, stuck in an old mindset, and telling people to do this and that but not being able to explain why they should do it.

I have created programs for educating people about values, without any condemnation language whatsoever, and these are used in a number of church programs nationwide, as part of their family ministries (they're also used in prisons, social agencies, women's shelters, probation programs, and more). There is no preaching in this, just pointing so people can see for themselves. There is a whole mechanism to make sure the seeing actually happens, because without reflection on what it means in each individual's life nothing happens.

> Fred, I wouldn't want my children to do either. In my mind both are abhorrent.

I wasn't suggesting that you'd *want* either of them to happen, merely which you'd be more upset by if it happened anyway.

You really think that a 13 year old having sex is exactly as bad as a 13 year old murdering someone??? That's messed up. That's really messed up.

As far as profanity, nudity, etc. being the mud of society, that's a circular argument. You are stating that those things are bad, and that they escalate. But who says they're inherently bad? They're not; it's a cultural thing. And it's only very recently (say, the last 100 years) where the age where it's considered acceptable for kids to have sex (or be exposed to it in any way) has risen to 18. For most of history, 13 was prime, or at least perfectly acceptable, marriage age. In some cultures it still is.

Someone could just as easily believe that religion is bad and say: "Religion is the mud of society and continued exposure to it degenerates people to the point where they get involved with it themselves, thereby escalating it even further and getting everyone dirty." Or how about, "The color blue is evil. And exposing children to blue will desensitize them to it and they will end up even *wearing* it!!! Just look at how society allows more and more blue-- it's like they're addicted to it and the addiction is growing and spreading. This must be stopped!!!" Arbitrarily deciding that something is wrong and pointing out examples as "proof" proves nothing.

Now, violence is a different story. It would be really stretching things for someone to say "it's only your opinion that murdering a family and stealing their money is wrong." There's a very clear and very simple "wrongness" to violence against the innocent. But what's wrong with nudity? I'm not saying, nor is anyone else (give or take an extremist) that hard-core porn should be shown to 10 year-olds, but what is inherently wrong or abhorrent about a 10 year old seeing a topless woman at a beach? I don't think that drags society down, because I don't see that as being *down.*

a 10 year old seeing a topless woman at a beach?

We know from the several European countries where this is the norm at many beaches (not all), that 10-year olds throw a quick glance at that and say, "I'm a big boy now, I'm over that! [not breastfeeding anymore]"

Misguided puritanism has also led to more women feeding formula to their babies, with resulting immune system deficiencies (proven factors in mother's milk) and missing nutrition, some of which may not even have been discovered yet, and creating additional allergies, in some cases for life.

We're mammals, thanks for the mammaries!

Seriously.

"Profanity, nudity, sex, and violence are the mud of society"

What a sad existence for people that think like this. (minus the violence--of course) I went from feeling anger, to feeling sorry for you.

From Wikpedia (not directed just at Jay)

"Marx says that religion is a way the oppressed workers can convince themselves that their lives are worth living, though it is an illusion, a fantasy, like an opium dream."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_of_the_people

You really think that a 13 year old having sex is exactly as bad as a 13 year old murdering someone??? That's messed up. That's really messed up.

Fred, I totally understand why you feel that way. Let me ask you this, and there are no implications here whatsoever, just an honest question...

Is possible, even remotely, that you and I see this differently because we do not have the same information regarding the subject?

Man, when Americans start quoting Marx to support their arguments, whatever they may be, then we're worse off than I ever imagined!

You might want to do a little more reading about Marx and his agenda before using an out of context quote from Wikepedia.

Jay,

It's also good to look at history in this case. Religion was used to oppress people for centuries.

The king's crown had a cross on top, to show that his power came from God. This was used to demonstrate to the poor that when the king's knights came to haul off a substantial portion of their meager supplies, it was all for God (since it went to the king).

Religion has been used both for good and evil purposes, so I think Marx was at least right about that, in a limited context of course.

I'll be right on it, Jay--since I'm obviously supporting ALL of Marx's agendas and beliefs now!

Jeff "marxist" Krepner

Bjorn, I'm confident that you know, as well as anyone who reads in depth, that that was not what Marx was referring to. His agenda went much, much further than concerns with oppressive religion. Even if we were to assume otherwise, two wrongs don't--never have and never will--made a right.

Is possible, even remotely, that you and I see this differently because we do not have the same information regarding the subject?

What one individual considers "information" is usually considered "opinion" by another. I've sadly come to absolutely realize this in the past few days. One man's "truth" is another man's "lie," as a general rule. Fortunately we can all agree that we're all born, and we all will die. Everything in between is up for debate. ;-)

Does it bother anyone else that a thread about copyright has once again degenerated into a thread about politics, religion and morality?

Fortunately we can all agree that we're all born, and we all will die. Everything in between is up for debate. ;-)

No, taxes are certain, too!

:O)

We all have blinders on, one way or another. Some blinders are just cultural, we're simply not used to seeing things in a different way.

Then there are the psychological blinders, and "me vs. them." Those are part of the stages of human life as taught in psychology, with a progression from only concrete thinking to also including more and more abstract thinking where we are able to see the world more objectively.