Here’s some data that at first glance supports the “religion as social prophylactic” argument. When asked to state their religion, 46.5% of the 20,000 or so mostly low-level offenders who cycle through the Grand Rapids county jail each year (which I just visited) answer “none.” (The most common charge among Grand Rapids inmates is disorderly conduct, which includes a high number of drunk driving offenses.) The next highest category of religious affiliation was Protestant, with 37.7% of the vote. Western Michigan is very church-saturated; the general population would have nowhere near a 46% “none” answer rate when asked to state its religion.
I have not seen religion surveys of detainees in other jails or prisons to know whether Grand Rapids is typical.
The Grand Rapids detainees also answer “none” most frequently when asked to state their occupation; second most frequently stated occupation is “unemployed.” They are most often single, rather than married or divorced, with at least one child.
Obviously, there would be a lot of disaggregating necessary here.
Well, just off the top of my head, I’d think it would be much easier to believe in God, and publicly profess so, when things are going good for you. I see this all the time among my Christian friends. As your other posts have shown, they tend to go silent when bad things happen, to them or others.
And if that’s true, I would guess these criminal offenders would disproportionally not be in that “things are going good for me” state. Also, human nature being what it is, when one is caught misbehaving, it would seem to me one would not like, just then, to fess up to holding religious beliefs that one has just obviously violated. Kind of extra embarrassing and self-incriminating, no?
It seems to me that these sorts of posts are addressed to a consequentialist style of thinking.
I am only concerned with whether religions are true. The nature of the consequences derive from their existences is completely irrelevant.
If we accept the “religion as social prophylactic” argument, what are the consequences for secular conservatives?
If we accept the “religion as social prophylactic” argument, what are the consequences for secular conservatives?
A need to proceed with caution when it comes to public policy.
It seems to me that a lot of people see religious systems, however construed, as necessarily embodying constraints on individual behavior. It also seems to me that people who wind up incarcerated have, in practice anyway, demonstrated an unwillingness to accommodate constraints on individual behavior.
It’s certainly true that religion is a useful social prophylactic for SOME people. It is also true that there are other people who can behave in a civil manner without believing in any religion. Is there any reason to believe that either of these statements are false? I mean, what is the argument here?
It’s rather silly to argue that religion isn’t a “social prophylactic” – of course it is. While it has drawbacks in terms of increasing human happiness, I think it’s clear that, on average, it is socially beneficial. Religions preach virtuous behavior at least toward the conforming in group. Add divine enforcement you have a mechanism that keeps even the weak willed in line. I would say that many people require something like religion to suppress their negative tendencies. It would be an interesting experiment to send a random sample of those 46.5% not to prison but rather to an institution that inculcates a religious doctrine. I bet recidivism among the latter would be reduced relative to the former.
But it is reasonable to ask, is religion the best such mechanism for our times? I’d say the answer is no. Man is both rational and irrational. Religion is an effective appeal only to the irrational side. Today, unlike in the distant past whence religion came, we see the power of rationality in our everyday lives. When you pit an appeal to authority against an opposing appeal to evidence that you can see for yourself, the former loses much luster.
Religion is further diminished by globalization. When different religions come into contact the result is either conflict or a diminishment of both.
What would work better today? I don’t know but I think a replacement could be scientifically designed.
“The Grand Rapids detainees also answer “none” most frequently when asked to state their occupation”
Shall we also infer that being godless also makes you jobless?
Shall we also infer that being godless also makes you jobless?
Saying they have no religion doesn’t necessarily make them godless. More likely, they’re unaffiliated with any church. If you asked them, “Do you believe there’s a God?” You’d see more yes answers.
To your question, though, being unchurched may be a cause of joblessness, but more for secular reasons. For one thing, you don’t have a network of readily available friends to point you to openings or to give you a recommendation. Also, like it or not, going to church on a weekly basis is evidence of discipline, and disciplined people are more likely to hold jobs (That’s more of correlation than causation, really). Finally, if you’re going to church, you’re subject to some social shame if you don’t have job. You’ll have people asking you how you’re work is going, after all. So that stimulus also encourages work.
It’s rather silly to argue that religion isn’t a “social prophylactic” – of course it is. While it has drawbacks in terms of increasing human happiness, I think it’s clear that, on average, it is socially beneficial. Religions preach virtuous behavior at least toward the conforming in group.
The “conforming ingroup” may be significantly smaller than society – the KKK was composed pretty much entirely of Christians, for example. Furthermore, virtuous behavior may not be socially beneficial – it can include stoning heretics, smiting the infidel, mutilating the genitals of your children, etc. Most extant religions advocate a mix of socially beneficial, neutral and harmful behaviors. It’s not at all clear that this would be better than the behaviors people would come up with on their own, let alone the influence of a rationally designed system of social pressures.
Finally, if you’re going to church, you’re subject to some social shame if you don’t have job. You’ll have people asking you how you’re work is going, after all. So that stimulus also encourages work.
Or stopping going to church. (The social stigma of joblessness exists regardless of church attendance, but that might increase it at least a little – although non-churchgoers do something else with that time and also have social lives at which people might ask them how work is going.) It’s also difficult to see how you could continue your church attendance *after* imprisonment, let alone how the facts of imprisonment and trial could affect your faith.
But in any case, this shows no better than a correlation, even if the pattern were borne out on a larger scale (which, IIRC, it isn’t – atheists are in fact underrepresented in prisons). A generalized antisocial tendency, for example, could lead to simultaneous rebellion against conventional religion and the law, with no causal relationship between religious belief or lack thereof and criminal behavior.