Angela

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 andFree-Thinkers are absent from penitentiaries or nearly so.

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Steiner and Swancara surveyed Canadian prisons and found 1,294 Catholics, 435 Anglicans, 241 Methodists, 135 Baptists, and 1 Unitarian.

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1. Religions often teach the concept of hell, where there is eternal suffering of an unimaginable degree. This concept is taught to very young children, and in order for them toaccept the idea that some of the people they care about will burn in hell for all eternity, they must turn off their compassion for those people. Even in religions that teach that hell is only for people who have done really horrible things, it still forces people to turn off their compassion for other human beings. Once a person, especially a child, learns to turn off their compassion and shrug theirshoulders at eternal suffering, then being able to do the same thing for real-world, short-term suffering is much easier.

2. Religious individuals often feel as though God is guiding them in some way. This may be through prayer or just simple emotions, but it allows individuals the ability to decide that their emotions and desires are sanctioned by God, so when they gain the urge to do harm,they are more likely to convince themselves that they are justified because they have such strong emotions that they feel are given to them, not by the neurons firing in their brain, but by God.

3. If there is something morally wrong in society, or with an individual, the religious person has the ability to chalk it up to God’s “Mysterious Ways”. This can diminish a person’s desire to make adifference because they believe it’s all part of some great plan.

4. Religions often teach that it’s not easy for a person to have morality without the concept of heaven and hell to motivate them. This teaches people that they do not have the mental capacity to be good without an outside motivator.

5. If people are taught that heaven and hell are necessary for a moral society, then this impliesthat there is no inherent logic to being moral, and implies that there’s nothing to be gained here on earth by being good, and implies that there won’t be immediate emotional consequences for wrongdoing.

6. Religions often teach belief in God and prayer as a moral issue, so a criminal can believe that they can atone for anything simply by worshipping harder.

7. Religions often try toestablish arguably irrelevant things as moral issues, such as masturbation, homosexuality, or blasphemous thoughts. This fills a religious person’s mind with a whole list of things they can’t do, and wastes precious moral willpower that could otherwise be used to resist the urge to lie or commit crime.

8. When things like masturbation, homosexuality, or blasphemous thoughts are given such attention asmoral issues, a religious person may gain the idea that they are on par morally with other things such as burglary or rape, and they see a world that is full of masturbation, homosexuality and blasphemous thoughts, and they are able to think, “well, what’s one more sin in a world of sin?”

9. The concept of hell teaches eternal suffering, essentially a punishment, or an act of vengeance againstanyone who is either a bad person or somehow angers God. This can set a precedent for people that states that it’s morally acceptable to make people suffer in order to get what you want.

10. Religions teach people to believe in a very specific set of spiritual concepts, and believe that these concepts are absolute truth. However, they see other people all around them who do not share their...