The conclusion of the study which prompted the article was that since there are so few atheists and agnostics in prison, they must live the most moral lives, shunning any criminal acts. The clincher quote is this:
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.
I think what was disregarded is that when a person is faced with a dead end, when he/she is at the lowest part of the gutter, they only place to look is up. There is an extraordinary number of prisoners who finally meet Jesus. There are also numerous people in the U.S. who profess Jesus but truly do not possess Him.
Another fact that was disregarded, or rather twisted, is that religion does not equal Christianity. I was born a Baptist, but didn't actually meet Jesus and take Him into my heart until I was six years old. Others go to church regularly but never have asked Jesus into their hearts. They are content to set on pews never hatching anything.
It is an erroneous conclusion to some interesting facts.
3 comments:
"The conclusion of the study which prompted the article was that since there are so few atheists and agnostics in prison, they must live the most moral lives, shunning any criminal acts."
Ever hear the story of the scientist and the frog? He puts a frog on the ground and shouts, and the frog leaps. "Frog with four leg jumps 4 feet" he writes in his journal. Then he cuts off a leg, puts the frog on the ground and shouts, and the frog leaps. "Frog with three legs leaps 3 feet," he writes in his journal. He cuts off a second leg and repeats the experiment. "Frog with two legs leaps 2 feet," he notes and then, "Frog with one leg leaps 1 foot." Finally he puts down the frog with no legs and shouts. The frog doesn't move. He pounds the ground around the frog. It doesn't move. He claps his hands and yells and the frog doesn't move. He writes his conclusion in his journal: "Frog with no legs goes deaf."
Human beings have a great capacity to think logically, step by step ... to the wrong conclusion. Isn't it funny, for instance, that when this study finds that there are fewer atheists in prison, it must be that they're more moral, but when other studies point out the large numbers of minorities in prison, they conclude that it must be an unfair treatment of minorities? Poor deaf frog.
Exactly! I wonder if the frog is entitled to some disability after giving not only an arm and a leg, but 2 arms and 2 leggs to further science intelligence...
No, the scientist was a government employee, and everyone knows that the government has the right to take whatever they want without compensation ...
Post a Comment