Why are religious people filling up prisons?

Beyond the fact that faith creates this internal tug-of-war between impossible ideals and reality, the prison statistics for believers in the USA might have a much more mundane explanation;
essentially, drug cartels are most frequently tied to South America, where the population is predominantly Catholic. Plus, the mafia figures are often Italian or Irish—also Catholics
It would be useful to check the data from other countries.
As for what came first—the chicken or the egg
I guess it’s obvious that Catholics have generally led the way in levels of violence throughout history, ranging from the Inquisition and forced conversions to modern drug cartels and the mafia.

Battles said:So, let’s just play along and assume there really is a smaller number of atheists in prisons compared to their share of the general population.
What would that actually imply?
Well, I suppose it means they’re better at looking out for themselves because they’re smarter—you know, being more calculated, watching their step, and not just letting their impulses run the show.

Yeah, sure, those are all just assumptions and hypotheses, but when you frame them the way you just did, they come across like absolute facts.

What kind of (bolded) sentence is that even supposed to be!? Does it make any sense!? It doesn't!!

Where on earth are you getting this idea that atheists, agnostics, and people like that are somehow "more intelligent"? 😕

Maybe take a quick trip through history—just a mental one—and actually face the truth for once. 🙂

Some of the greatest inventions in human history were provided to us by people of faith (and I’m not specifically talking about Catholics here).

I mean, seriously, what does intelligence have to do with "faith" anyway? 😕

Just absolutely ridiculous!

Maybe those self-righteous types, like the Catholics, just assume their sins are already wiped clean by Jesus, so they feel they can get away with breaking the law and then eventually end up behind bars... 🤷
Or, you know, maybe there are just more religious people out there in general. 🤷

crimsonhound80 said:Yeah, sure, those are all just assumptions and hypotheses, but when you frame them the way you just did, they come across like absolute facts.

What kind of (bolded) sentence is that even supposed to be!? Does it make any sense!? It doesn't!!

Where on earth are you getting this idea that atheists, agnostics, and people like that are somehow "more intelligent"? 😕

Maybe take a quick trip through history—just a mental one—and actually face the truth for once. 🙂

Some of the greatest inventions in human history were provided to us by people of faith (and I’m not specifically talking about Catholics here).

I mean, seriously, what does intelligence have to do with "faith" anyway? 😕

Just absolutely ridiculous!

That isn't true. Throughout history, the most brilliant minds were primarily idealists, and since Catholicism was the dominant religion, they aligned themselves with it because it held primacy over God and the divine.
Who's to say how devout they truly were?

On the other hand, I made it very clear that this statistic lacks a complete analysis regarding the actual representation of atheists within the total population. Someone mentioned a figure of 30 million, but they offered zero explanation for it.

So, under the ASSUMPTION that there really are proportionally fewer atheists in American prisons compared to believers, I posited that it might be because they are less impulsive—or, to put it in street slang, they aren't as prone to doing stupid shit. Nature didn't just invent reason, the neocortex, and all those other complexities for no reason. Faith is meant to serve as the connective tissue, yet believers frequently reject reason in favor of following their "hearts," which usually means following impulses that lead straight back to pure animalistic instincts. I see it happen constantly in the debates on this spirituality forum.

Here is some relatively recent data from 1997:

Response Number %
----------------------------------
Catholic . . 29267 39.164%
Protestant . 26162 35.008%
Muslim . . . 5435 7.273%
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Scientology 190 0.254%
Atheist . . . 156 0.209%

http://www.holysmoke.org/icr-pri.htm

Essentially, atheists make up more than a tenth of the general population, yet they represent less than 0.2% of inmates in the USA.

http://freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Per...ists_In_Prison

I’d keep my answer pretty brief. It’s because their piety is nothing more than a mask.

swiftcobra15 said:Essentially, atheists make up more than a tenth of the general population, yet they represent less than 0.2% of inmates in the USA.

Basically, atheists make up more than a tenth of the population, yet they account for less than 0.2% of prisoners in the USA.

http://freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Per...ists_In_Prison

If that’s how it stands, I’m sticking to my guns and maintaining that this happens because they are essentially slaves to their impulses, driven by animalistic instincts and what they mistakenly label as "intuition."

slavko said:But what about the Scientologists?😕

🙂🙂🙂

There are only about 60,000 of them, so they aren't really overrepresented in the prison system.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/scientolnbr.htm
http://www.xenu.net/archive/COS_members.html

goldencobra5 said:From what I can tell, it’s usually celebrities involved. Famous people don't exactly go to jail—or if they do, it's incredibly rare and barely lasts a minute. They've got enough cash to make sure they walk free.

Celebrities are Scientologists in the exact same way our local pro athletes are Republicans. Did it really not cross your mind that famous people get paid to endorse everything from yogurt brands and political parties to weight-loss teas—and yeah, even rising new religions?

You don't actually believe Magic Johnson is a hardcore Republican, right? Or that Elvis Presley works for Comcast, or that Madonna is a Kabbalist, or that Tom Cruise is actually a devout Scientologist? 🤣 🤣 🤣

Edward Flores4 said:Celebrities are Scientologists in the exact same way our local pro athletes are Republicans. Did it really not cross your mind that famous people get paid to endorse everything from yogurt brands and political parties to weight-loss teas—and yeah, even rising new religions?

You don't actually believe Magic Johnson is a hardcore Republican, right? Or that Elvis Presley works for Comcast, or that Madonna is a Kabbalist, or that Tom Cruise is actually a devout Scientologist? 🤣 🤣 🤣

No. Look, John Travolta is a Scientologist. He isn't getting a paycheck to be one; he’s the one writing the checks.
It's the same story with Kirstie Alley—if I'm spelling her name right, anyway.

You don't honestly believe Magic Johnson is actually a Republican, or that Frank Sinatra worked for Comcast, or that Madonna is a Kabbalist and Tom Cruise is a Scientologist, do you? 🤣 🤣 🤣

No. I think you're completely clueless when it comes to Scientology.

Insults are against the rules. - adriatic

goldencobra5 said:That isn't true. Throughout history, the most brilliant minds were primarily idealists, and since Catholicism was the dominant religion, they aligned themselves with it because it held primacy over God and the divine.
Who's to say how devout they truly were?

On the other hand, I made it very clear that this statistic lacks a complete analysis regarding the actual representation of atheists within the total population. Someone mentioned a figure of 30 million, but they offered zero explanation for it.

So, under the ASSUMPTION that there really are proportionally fewer atheists in American prisons compared to believers, I posited that it might be because they are less impulsive—or, to put it in street slang, they aren't as prone to doing stupid shit. Nature didn't just invent reason, the neocortex, and all those other complexities for no reason. Faith is meant to serve as the connective tissue, yet believers frequently reject reason in favor of following their "hearts," which usually means following impulses that lead straight back to pure animalistic instincts. I see it happen constantly in the debates on this spirituality forum.

wherever you're getting this idea that the smartest people were all idealists from...
you talking about scientists or something?

Jungians explained this using the way paganism persisted long after Christianity took over—through customs, carnivals, fairy tales, and especially dreams. The general thesis is that psychological conflicts arise because dominant archetypal patterns have cast out, tabooed, crippled, or suppressed the pagan gods who personify "lower forces" or various internal drives within a person. This pushes an individual toward an idealized state that rejects elemental, essential parts of their own personality. When vital parts of the psyche are driven into the unconscious through suppression, they fight to manifest themselves autonomously.
Take domestic violence, for example. In the Christian tradition, the prevailing archetype for women is the Virgin Mary; since that’s a hyper-idealized image that bears little resemblance to reality, when pagan archetypes (those primal, wild forces and natural feminine forms) resurface from the psyche, a Christian loses his footing. He might lash out at his wife simply because he's experiencing an eruption of suppressed unconscious content that his faith denies and pushes away.
It seems like a decent explanation for why there is so much violence in the Christian world.

Morgan Hernandez5 said:wherever you're getting this idea that the smartest people were all idealists from...
you talking about scientists or something?

But let me give you my two cents on this: without those core ideals, there isn’t even a spark of desire to explore the unknown. You see plenty of folks out there chasing nothing but a paycheck or a fancy title on a business card; sure, they might achieve some technical proficiency in their fields, but they aren't going to leave a lasting legacy. It’s mostly just superficial tweaks and incremental adjustments.
To pull off truly monumental feats—the kind of things actual geniuses manage to do—you need something deeper than the mundane grind of daily life. Schopenhauer understood that quite well.

dustyharbor18 said:Jungians explained this using the way paganism persisted long after Christianity took over—through customs, carnivals, fairy tales, and especially dreams. The general thesis is that psychological conflicts arise because dominant archetypal patterns have cast out, tabooed, crippled, or suppressed the pagan gods who personify "lower forces" or various internal drives within a person. This pushes an individual toward an idealized state that rejects elemental, essential parts of their own personality. When vital parts of the psyche are driven into the unconscious through suppression, they fight to manifest themselves autonomously.
Take domestic violence, for example. In the Christian tradition, the prevailing archetype for women is the Virgin Mary; since that’s a hyper-idealized image that bears little resemblance to reality, when pagan archetypes (those primal, wild forces and natural feminine forms) resurface from the psyche, a Christian loses his footing. He might lash out at his wife simply because he's experiencing an eruption of suppressed unconscious content that his faith denies and pushes away.
It seems like a decent explanation for why there is so much violence in the Christian world.

That is a very precise way of putting it. However, I would argue that this tendency toward idealization isn't strictly tied to Christianity itself, but rather to the broader structure of civilization and its behavioral norms.
In this way, a person—and I am intentionally avoiding saying "a Christian"—will suppress those primordial instincts, certainly. But once those elements begin to resurface, they tend to manifest through the most toxic modes of behavior precisely because of that repression. It won't just be some "Christian" husband hitting his wife; you'll also see the wife playing the role of the tigress, the predator, or whatever else, using sexuality as a tool for blackmail. It's a twisted game played in the marital bed, involving incredibly nasty manipulations and mutual psychological warfare.