re: Correlation: Prayer out of schools to increase in mass shootings

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I (a Christian) had a thought. The thought I had, was if there was an increase of school shootings that correlated with the time of prayer being taken out of schools. What I found was unfortunately not surprising. Here are a few articles that can shed some light on that.
The year that prayer was removed from school was 1962, and the chart that starts talking about the increase in mass shootings starts in 1982. I do not this is coincidence.
What I mean by the timing, is that 20 years is about a generation. My hypothesis was/is that the more generations removed without prayer in school, the more shootings,suicides,overdoses and etc.

But yea, blame it on the inanimate objects.

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Sadly, your hypothesis is just as rooted in belief as the inanimate object hypothesis.

You're only drawing a correlation between a school shooting frequency and forced prayer, without considering other variables that are also at play.

People draw similar correlations to video games, the rate we medicate our kids, the birth of band members that formed Nickelback, and so on.

But how do you explain the significant DECLINE in murder rate, robbery, and assault over the same period of time? We now live longer. Fewer people now smoke cigarettes. We now have more women in the workplace. We have more women and minorities in management positions than ever before. Are we to now CREDIT the removal of forced prayer for all of those things that have happened?