In prison, why do Christians vastly outnumber atheists?

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Some atheists pretend to be Christians.

Well, let's suppose that this is a significant factor in the numbers. We've discussed how there is pressure in prison and unfair discrimination by parole boards, and even risk of physical harm to atheists so that an atheist might want to be appear religious. Is there some additional reason that you are hypothesizing beyond what is established?

eg. atheists masquerading as clergy.
clergyproject dot org

That appears to be a derail. The vast majority of people in prison are not clergy.

 

[southernhybrid]

There are prisoners, known as trustees, working at our local senior center. Over the years, I've noticed that almost every one of them wears a cross, so it's very possible that expressing yourself as a Christian in prison does have perks. It probably makes you look less dangerous, as I live in the Bible Belt where many if not most Christians think they own the moral high ground. Of course, that's nonsense. There are plenty of scandals in the Christian churches and communities.

 

[laughing dog]

Well, there are lots of self-identifying Christians who aren’t Christians.

My goodness, I know plenty of sekf- identifying Christians who fervently believe Catholics are not Christians.

So it should be no surprise or concern if there are atheists among the clergy.

But all if this obscures the underlying question if “Why should any rational person care?”

 

[Elixir]

I wouldn't say that atheists are masquerading as Christians

Pfffft. I'd say that atheists typically behave in a more Christian manner than do card carrying, holiness flaunting self identified "Christians".

 

[southernhybrid]

I wouldn't say that atheists are masquerading as Christians

Pfffft. I'd say that atheists typically behave in a more Christian manner than do card carrying, holiness flaunting self identified "Christians".

I don't disagree, but I was making the claim that preachers who become atheists aren't masquerading. They are former Christians who are now atheists and in a predicament, regarding what to do next.

It depends on the Christian. Some are people with high moral standards, who don't judge others and who live a moral life, just like all of my atheist friends. I do have atheist friends who are afraid to let their Christian friends know they don't believe. I don't hang out with the bad Christians. I only have good Christian friends who don't judge people who are different from them in a negative way. I seriously doubt that any of my friends will end up in prison, regardless if they are Christians or atheists.

 

[bilby]

The vast majority of people in prison are not clergy.

Though the vast majority of clergy should be in prison.

Using false claims to obtain money from gullible people is the very essence of the crime of fraud.

 

[Lion IRC]

Some atheists pretend to be Christians.

Well, let's suppose that this is a significant factor in the numbers.

We've discussed how there is pressure in prison and unfair discrimination by parole boards, and even risk of physical harm to atheists so that an atheist might want to be appear religious.

Yep.

Is there some additional reason that you are hypothesizing beyond what is established?

I dont need multiple reasons.
...because youve already conceded the point I'm making.

Atheists in prison fake it for pragmatic reasons.
Hence the (artificially high) stats look the way they do.

eg. atheists masquerading as clergy.
clergyproject dot org

That appears to be a derail.

Nope.
Thats an example - evidence - which supports my claim.

The vast majority of people in prison are not clergy.

Agreed.
So what?

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Some atheists pretend to be Christians.

Well, let's suppose that this is a significant factor in the numbers.

We've discussed how there is pressure in prison and unfair discrimination by parole boards, and even risk of physical harm to atheists so that an atheist might want to be appear religious.

Yep.

Is there some additional reason that you are hypothesizing beyond what is established?

I dont need multiple reasons.
...because youve already conceded the point I'm making.

Atheists in prison fake it for pragmatic reasons.

That's the way society works. Religious people control institutions of power, like the government for example, even outside prison, and atheists often cannot out themselves. While it can be "pragmatic" (your word), it's probably also a safety issue in prison.

Hence the (artificially high) stats look the way they do.

Well, hold on there. Don't be so quick to attribute the statistics to only or to mostly one variable. In the op, I give a number of statistics. Did you read the op and the responses by Politesse in the thread?

 

[ideologyhunter]

All kinds of 'believers' are faking it, in and out of prison. How many churchgoers who attend because it's the thing to do in their family really believe in the Trinity, the resurrection, the transubstantiation, let alone setting fire to a wheat field with 300 burning foxes, etc etc etc? How many Muslims live in countries where they are liable for arrest or execution if they deconvert? I faked for 6 years as a teen because I loved the church camp where I worked and knew I couldn't return if I didn't pretend to believe. I wrote and performed evening devotionals. (I hope I didn't lead anyone to the Lord.) I wasn't going to let a claimed faith to an invisible god and his kid get in the way of the best summers of my life. Wouldn't you love to know the true proportion of true believers to fakers?

 

[southernhybrid]

I started to write this post a couple of hours ago, and just say Ideology's post, which is similar to what I'm going to say.

I've met 3 Methodists who were also atheists. I also used to know one who was sort of agnostic. They enjoyed their community and I assume some of the nicer parts of the Christian messages. Knowing how much charity work, the Methodist church on the corner of my street does, I suppose they may have also wanted to be part of an organization that allowed them to directly participate in charity work. My point is that one can enjoy a particular religion without literally believing in the god of that religion. Maybe that's what non believers in prison do. They assume or hope they will be treated better by their fellow prisoners, so they embrace the better parts of Christianity without taking the god part seriously.

I have no doubt that there are plenty of atheists and agnostics sitting in church on Sundays. I don't think of them as faking it. They just don't take the supernatural elements of the religion literally, they take it symbolically. I don't think one has to take a religion in the literal sense to be a part of one, if one is unable to believe in a god as being real. Mythology has always been popular, especially religious mythology.

I totally enjoyed attending the little Black church I attended recently for a celebration of my friend's parents anniversary. I loved the community and the love radiated from it, but I'm still a strong atheist, despite participating in the service along with the members the church. I wasn't faking it. I was enjoying it, despite not taking the beliefs literally. Religion serves a lot of purposes, outside of beliefs.

 

[TomC]

Knowing how much charity work, the Methodist church on the corner of my street does, I suppose they may have also wanted to be part of an organization that allowed them to directly participate in charity work.

I can say that this was a big deal to me. I remained part of the local Catholic parish for years because they had the best Peace and Justice committee in town. Well funded and well organized and staffed by volunteers who were doing something that they really cared about.
Whatever else nontheists might do well, we generally couldn't organize ourselves out of a wet paper bag. Imagine a group of nontheists trying to organize a "new immigrants acclimating center" or a food pantry or medical missions to rural Haiti.

Heh. Yeah right.
Tom

 

[laughing dog]

Perhaps the reason that Christians in prison vastly outnumber atheists is that there are many more Christians who deserve to be in prison than atheists.

 

[Elixir]

Perhaps the reason that Christians in prison vastly outnumber atheists is that there are many more Christians who deserve to be in prison than atheists.

AYOOYFM?
That can’t possibly be the case!

 

[ideologyhunter]

Well, it may be just a rumor, but I've heard there's an office deep, deep in the Vatican where techies wait for Paypal customers to misspell Paypal.com by omitting the Y...and then charge them fantastic prices for nonexistent goods. It's a wild world of Christians out there.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Knowing how much charity work, the Methodist church on the corner of my street does, I suppose they may have also wanted to be part of an organization that allowed them to directly participate in charity work.

I can say that this was a big deal to me. I remained part of the local Catholic parish for years because they had the best Peace and Justice committee in town. Well funded and well organized and staffed by volunteers who were doing something that they really cared about.
Whatever else nontheists might do well, we generally couldn't organize ourselves out of a wet paper bag. Imagine a group of nontheists trying to organize a "new immigrants acclimating center" or a food pantry or medical missions to rural Haiti.

Heh. Yeah right.
Tom

Good on them. I don't mind my taxes doing the work organizing it for me. Churches that do what you describe are a rarity. As for volunteer hours, volunteering hours for your church is the same as volunteering hours at your country club. I volunteer hundreds of hours annually for the community good. It doesn't have to do with welcoming immigrants but it's the same thing in the big picture.

 

[southernhybrid]

I wan't sure whether to put a very touching NYTImes article about an atheist chaplain who helped a prisoner facing the death penalty who entered prison as a Christian but died as an atheist. Perhaps it belongs in the thread about the death penalty, but it also belongs here. I hope some of you will read it, as it brought tears to my eyes, thinking of this damaged man's journey, and the kindness and comfort he received from the Humanist chaplain as he faced death.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/21/...e_code=1.Pk0.637o.vjwX-oXQvdjo&smid=url-share
The following is the opening paragraph.

“God, that chicken.” Devin Moss has a voice that rumbles, low and slow like distant thunder, but this morning it was softer, more contemplative. His hands gripped the steering wheel of his rental car. He was dressed head to toe in white linen, his body glowing in an almost celestial way, as he drove toward the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.

Moss, a chaplain, had spent the year working as the spiritual adviser to Phillip Hancock, a death row inmate in Oklahoma. The morning of the November execution had arrived. The prison had brought Hancock the wrong last meal the night before, white meat from Kentucky Fried Chicken instead of dark.

“That chicken, I know,” echoed Sue Hosch, an anti-death penalty activist seated in the passenger seat beside Moss. “I couldn’t believe it.”

 

[TomC]

I don't mind my taxes doing the work organizing it for me.

You have more faith in politicians than I do. Far more.
Part of what made what I referred to as a "food pantry" so great is that it was 100% privately funded by a consortium of local churches. Instead of individual congregations operating their own individual help agencies, they pooled their funds and invited members to volunteer, as they're able, with whatever skills they have. We had doctors and mechanics and lawyers and all kinds of professional resources to draw on. The staff could help a person connect with government agencies when available. But they weren't bound by any regulations. They could help people falling through cracks in a way that no government agency possibly could.

Churches that do what you describe are a rarity.

Maybe not as much as you think. Maybe they just don't mention it to you.

As for volunteer hours, volunteering hours for your church is the same as volunteering hours at your country club. I volunteer hundreds of hours annually for the community good.

If you think manicuring the golf course is the equivalent of fixing an old ladies stopped up sink...
Tom

 

[ideologyhunter]

I contribute to the local Catholic church foodbank. Six times a year I can be seen entering the church office. So far no one in town has asked me if I'm pursuing a vocation. There's a valuable soup kitchen in the nearest decent-sized city that I contribute to. They also organize a shoebox Santa giveout and I do that, too, much as I can't stand the friggin' holiday. The workers tell me that families report that without shoebox Santa, their kids don't get any gifts. I'm pleased that there are folks staffing these outreach facilities, and, yeah, they fill a vacuum that might not get filled otherwise. Elsewhere in my state, as has been noted above, believers are busy trying to take rights away from women and from youth who are considered "different". And in my town, there's an active group trying to dictate policy to the public library.
Can't wait for the much-publicized demographics to marginalize the hard right and the religious right.

 

[bilby]

But they weren't bound by any regulations

I can assure you that they were. Those regulations were perhaps unspoken, and certainly put in place by unelected power brokers from the church heirarchies, but they were certainly there. It wasn't an anarchy.

 

[southernhybrid]

A lot if not most of the charity in the South comes from the churches, so it's not a rarity here. There are food banks, free or low cost clinics and a homeless shelter owned by The Salvation Army etc. The Methodist church I mentioned opened its doors for months to anyone needing temporary shelter after the tornado that hit my town last. year. I know someone who was almost blind from cataracts that were progressing rapidly. She had no money and because she was living with a former boyfriend who had an income, she was turned down for Medicaid, and too young for Medicare. The Mega church clinic paid for her surgery. She probably had to listen to some proselytizing, but she felt it was worth it to be able to safely drive again etc. I think we atheists don't always appreciate what a lot of churches do in the way of charity. I think it's only fair to look at both the good influences and the bad influences of religion.

The church I was forced to attend as a child wan't like that at all. It did no charity work. The money all went to foreign missionaries and a fat salary for the pastor, who lived in one of the most expensive, high status towns in New Jersey. It was a crazy, fundamentalist Baptist church. The members were all middle or upper middle class, with a few very wealthy ones as well. Many the members were highly educated too. Looking back, that church preached and judged but didn't do the work that the Jesus they are supposed to love, demanded in the Bible. All that money was wasted to convince people in foreign countries that they were going to hell if they didn't believe. That is so nuts!

I've found that many if not most churches in the South do a lot of charity work. Sure, it would be great if we had more government programs for the poor, including the homeless, but unless that happens, we should at least give credit to the churches who are willing to help the poor.