How to stop the spread of fundamentalism?
- Thread starter Machjo
- Start date
Yup, even those on the right can admit mistakes, glad I gave you a chuckle, and I assume you know what I really meant.
bluealberta said:
Well it matters little what I assume or don't, as long as you know what you really meant...
...by the by, ever hear of a guy named Freud...
Psychology, eh? Again: Open to interpretation. It's amazing how belief systems do that. :violent1: I'm fairly anal. 'Fairly' in the 'not very' sense, btw :wink: . No, wait ... 'fairly' in the 'not in the least' sense, I meant.
Hard-Luck Henry said:
LOL, great response. To Vanni, yes I heard of Freud, but I don't think he had to worry about a keyboard and participating in a forum. Too bad, though, he would have had a lot of subjects to observe from a distance.
RE: How to stop the sprea
Sometimes I regret my decision to stop taking drugs. Conservatives are always involved in that regret. Conservatives cause drug abuse...no doubt about it. ;-)
Sometimes I regret my decision to stop taking drugs. Conservatives are always involved in that regret. Conservatives cause drug abuse...no doubt about it. ;-)
Re: RE: How to stop the sprea
Don't let me hold you back, glad to provide a service.
Reverend Blair said:
Don't let me hold you back, glad to provide a service.
Atheists Supply Less Than 1% Of Prison Populations
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It's suprising how many people say to me, "You're an Atheist? You must have no conscience about commiting crime then." Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, if we examine the population of our prisons, we see a very different picture:
In "The New Criminology", Max D. schlapp and Edward E. Smith say that two generations of statisticians found that the ratio of convicts without religious training is about 1/10 of 1%. W. T. Root, professor of psychology at the Univ. of Pittsburgh, examined 1,916 prisoners and said "Indifference to religion, due to thought,strengthens character," adding that Unitarians, Agnostics, Atheists and Free-Thinkers are absent from penitentiariers or nearly so.
During 10 years in Sing-Sing, those executed for murder were 65% Catholics, 26% Protestants, 6% Hebrew, 2% Pagan, and less than 1/3 of 1% non-religious.
Steiner and Swancara surveyed Canadian prisons and found 1,294 Catholics, 435 Anglicans, 241 Methodists, 135 Baptists, and 1 Unitarian.
Dr. Christian, Superintendant of the NY State Reformatories, checked 22,000 prison inmates and found only 4 college graduates. In "Who's who" 91% were college graduates, and he commented that "intelligence and knowledge produce right living" and that "crime is the offspring of superstition and ignorance."
Surveyed Massachusetts reformatories found every inmate religious, carefully herded by chaplins.
In Joliet, there were 2,888 Catholics, 1,020 Baptists, 617 Methodists and 0 non-religious.
Michigan had 82,000 Baptists and 83,000 Jews in their state population.
But in the prisons, there were 22 times as many Baptists as Jews, and 18 times as many Methodists as Jews. In Sing-Sing, there were 1,553 total inmates with 855 of them Catholics (over half), 518 Protestants, 177 Jews and 8 non-religious. There's a vey interesting qualified statistic.
Steiner first surveyed 27 states, and found 19,400 Christians, 5,000 with no preference, and only 3 Agnostics (one each in Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Illinois). A later, more complete survey found 60,605 Christians, 5,000 Jews, 131 Pagans, 4,000 no preference, and only 3 Agnostics.
In one 29-state survey, Steiner found 15 unbelievers, Spirtualists,
Theosophists, Deists, Pantheists and 1 Agnostic among nearly 83,000 inmates.
Calling all 15 "anti-christians" made it one half person to each state.
Elmira reformatory overshadowed all, with nearly 31,000 inmates,
including 15,694 Catholics (half), and 10,968 Protestants, 4,000 Jews, 325 refusing to answer, and 0 unbelievers.
In the East, over 64% of inmates are Catholics. In the national
prison population they average 50%. A national census found Catholics 15%. They count from the diaper up. Hardly 12% are old enough to commit a crime. Half of these are women. That leaves an adult Catholic population of 6% supplying 50% of the prison population.
Liverpool, England produces three times as many young criminals as Birgmingham, a larger city, 28% comming from Catholic schools.
What does this tell you about parochial school systems or claims that religion is the guardian of morals?
* Fifty-two percent of people belong to no church, yet live clean *
* lives and supply less than 1% of the total criminal population. *
* So much for religious indoctrination.
Oh I forgot, none of this true...just because.
--------------------------------------------------
It's suprising how many people say to me, "You're an Atheist? You must have no conscience about commiting crime then." Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, if we examine the population of our prisons, we see a very different picture:
In "The New Criminology", Max D. schlapp and Edward E. Smith say that two generations of statisticians found that the ratio of convicts without religious training is about 1/10 of 1%. W. T. Root, professor of psychology at the Univ. of Pittsburgh, examined 1,916 prisoners and said "Indifference to religion, due to thought,strengthens character," adding that Unitarians, Agnostics, Atheists and Free-Thinkers are absent from penitentiariers or nearly so.
During 10 years in Sing-Sing, those executed for murder were 65% Catholics, 26% Protestants, 6% Hebrew, 2% Pagan, and less than 1/3 of 1% non-religious.
Steiner and Swancara surveyed Canadian prisons and found 1,294 Catholics, 435 Anglicans, 241 Methodists, 135 Baptists, and 1 Unitarian.
Dr. Christian, Superintendant of the NY State Reformatories, checked 22,000 prison inmates and found only 4 college graduates. In "Who's who" 91% were college graduates, and he commented that "intelligence and knowledge produce right living" and that "crime is the offspring of superstition and ignorance."
Surveyed Massachusetts reformatories found every inmate religious, carefully herded by chaplins.
In Joliet, there were 2,888 Catholics, 1,020 Baptists, 617 Methodists and 0 non-religious.
Michigan had 82,000 Baptists and 83,000 Jews in their state population.
But in the prisons, there were 22 times as many Baptists as Jews, and 18 times as many Methodists as Jews. In Sing-Sing, there were 1,553 total inmates with 855 of them Catholics (over half), 518 Protestants, 177 Jews and 8 non-religious. There's a vey interesting qualified statistic.
Steiner first surveyed 27 states, and found 19,400 Christians, 5,000 with no preference, and only 3 Agnostics (one each in Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Illinois). A later, more complete survey found 60,605 Christians, 5,000 Jews, 131 Pagans, 4,000 no preference, and only 3 Agnostics.
In one 29-state survey, Steiner found 15 unbelievers, Spirtualists,
Theosophists, Deists, Pantheists and 1 Agnostic among nearly 83,000 inmates.
Calling all 15 "anti-christians" made it one half person to each state.
Elmira reformatory overshadowed all, with nearly 31,000 inmates,
including 15,694 Catholics (half), and 10,968 Protestants, 4,000 Jews, 325 refusing to answer, and 0 unbelievers.
In the East, over 64% of inmates are Catholics. In the national
prison population they average 50%. A national census found Catholics 15%. They count from the diaper up. Hardly 12% are old enough to commit a crime. Half of these are women. That leaves an adult Catholic population of 6% supplying 50% of the prison population.
Liverpool, England produces three times as many young criminals as Birgmingham, a larger city, 28% comming from Catholic schools.
What does this tell you about parochial school systems or claims that religion is the guardian of morals?
* Fifty-two percent of people belong to no church, yet live clean *
* lives and supply less than 1% of the total criminal population. *
* So much for religious indoctrination.
Oh I forgot, none of this true...just because.
Pea...
Nice bit of writing, there. Yours?
I'm always surprised when people fail to differentiate between practicing Christians and those who merely make the claim.
Oh, wait a minute... no I'm not.
Nice bit of writing, there. Yours?
I'm always surprised when people fail to differentiate between practicing Christians and those who merely make the claim.
Oh, wait a minute... no I'm not.
"Oh I forgot, none of this true...just because."
Peapod, did you just make all that up? Personaly, I'm an atheist, but I still fell remorse when I wrong someone, and I still feel compassion for the less fortunate. I think religious people fail to recognize the difference beween atheists or free-thinkers and existenstialists. Anyone ever read "The Ousider" by Camus?
Peapod, did you just make all that up? Personaly, I'm an atheist, but I still fell remorse when I wrong someone, and I still feel compassion for the less fortunate. I think religious people fail to recognize the difference beween atheists or free-thinkers and existenstialists. Anyone ever read "The Ousider" by Camus?
Remorse and compassion aren't exclusive to religious people. I think the only one who has even hinted at that is peapod herself... to dispute something no-one said.
You seem to be making the same sort of generalization you just objected to.
How come no-one ever points fingers at the left-wing Christians? Or the right-wing atheists?
Just a thought.
Just a thought.
RE: How to stop the sprea
Because the right wing hardline "christians" cause and have caused the majority of problems on this planet, all in the name of religion, "allah" or "god".
Because the right wing hardline "christians" cause and have caused the majority of problems on this planet, all in the name of religion, "allah" or "god".
They have? she said, all wide-eyed.no1important said:
I won't even ask you to back that, because I think you made it up.
Re: RE: How to stop the sprea
Well now, that's a bit of a stretch, given that I don't think Hitler had much to do with religion, other than his hate of an identifiable group, and I'm pretty sure the Soviet Union during the Cold War was officially atheist, and I'm also pretty sure both Hitler and the Soviet regime cause a lot of problems during their time. However, I will agree with you that a lot of problems have been caused by religions zealots, something I have a problem with as well.
no1important said:
Well now, that's a bit of a stretch, given that I don't think Hitler had much to do with religion, other than his hate of an identifiable group, and I'm pretty sure the Soviet Union during the Cold War was officially atheist, and I'm also pretty sure both Hitler and the Soviet regime cause a lot of problems during their time. However, I will agree with you that a lot of problems have been caused by religions zealots, something I have a problem with as well.
Re: RE: How to stop the sprea
Hitler Not Religious?
Atheism is not Communism
...sounds like a certain neighbour to our south, doesn't it?
bluealberta said:
Hitler Not Religious?
Atheism is not Communism
...sounds like a certain neighbour to our south, doesn't it?
Re: RE: How to stop the sprea
Sooooo, now you are saying that GWB is an atheist? Which is it, radical religious, or atheist? And no, does not sound at all like the US at all, to me. Some things sound like our present government, though here in Canada.
Vanni Fucci said:
Sooooo, now you are saying that GWB is an atheist? Which is it, radical religious, or atheist? And no, does not sound at all like the US at all, to me. Some things sound like our present government, though here in Canada.
Re: RE: How to stop the sprea
Nope...never said Dubya was an atheist...but the alleged effects of atheism seem to parallel many things that are happening in the US...
For instance:
bluealberta said:
Nope...never said Dubya was an atheist...but the alleged effects of atheism seem to parallel many things that are happening in the US...
For instance:
- Killing of their own people -- 9/11
Waging war -- Iraq
Not allowing freedom of religion -- profiling of Muslims
Withholding civil rights -- Detainees in Gitmo, Patriot Acts 1 and 2
Keeping people in poverty -- New bankruptcy laws/healthcare costs
Allowing special priveleges for elites -- Halliburton/Carlisle Group
Censorship of news and literature -- Mergers and acquistions of media/defense contractors to ensure corporatist supremacy
Spying on people -- biometrics for new immigrants among other things too numerous to mention
Interfering with their private affairs -- denying abortion and SSM