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Sorry but no, no lives have ever been fixed through religion. Anything they think they gained through religion could just as easily have been gained through any other non-religious/god-less group therapy/social support system.
This post ^^^ got me thinking and this is what I found. From studies done by prisions see below:
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The recidivism rates for two exemplary Brazilian prisons are compared and commented upon. Sections within this article are: introduction; Humaita (a faith-based facility); Braganca (a vocational training/prison industry based facility, methodology; findings; and conclusions. Recidivism rates (over three years) are 16% for Humaita and 36% for Braganca.
The more a person attended Prison Fellowship and other religious programs, the less likely he was to have an infraction. For example, 21% of inmates with none or a low level of religious involvement had an infraction compared to 11% of inmates with a medium or high level of involvement.
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What about religion and recidivism? To date, the Center for Social Research has been involved with at least three studies on religion and recidivism. The first study found that a group of federal inmates who had taken part in a Prison Fellowship program had a significantly lower rate of recidivism (40%) than the rate of recidivism (51%) for a matched control group of federal inmates up to fourteen years after release. The religiously involved women in this study did particularly well
The third study found that a group of inmates in Sing Sing prison who had taken part in an intensive religious education program run by the New York Theological Seminary (NYTS) to prepare them for prison ministry had a 9% rate of recidivism compared to a 37% rate for a comparison group after twenty eight months of release.
DOC Transitional Services Division Spirituality, Religion and What Works (http://www.oregon.gov/DOC/TRANS/religious_services/rs_article2.shtml - broken link)
Religion does make a positive difference in people's lives despite what some say
Mr 5150, thank you for posting this thread. Can't rep you at the moment but I appreciate your posts.
The following is merely anecdotal, but it is fascinating.
Please read this story about Joseph Pearce, a former member of the racist BNP who converted to Christianity while in prison and is now an accomplished author and scholar:
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(I)n 1982 he was sentenced to six months in Chelmsford young offenders' institute for soliciting material "likely to incite racial hatred". The authorities, fearful that Pearce's presence would stir up tension in a jail evenly split between white and black, put him in solitary. This decision changed his life....
But while most of his former comrades are still extremists, either active, retired or dead, Pearce has turned his back on racial hatred and, much to the bemusement or disgust of old allies, embraced Catholicism
READ MORE....
Rescued from racism by the love of GK - Catholic Herald (http://archive.catholicherald.co.uk/features/f0000524.shtml - broken link)
Thanks. I was going to respond to Mr SISO with 'You missed the point. It wasn't saying that religion can't fix lives but that religion can't fix lives in any way that can't be done through non -religious methods'.
However, your example does make a point. I can't honestly say that I am convinced that you can make a thug a nice guy by reasoning with him as quickly as turning him into a Church -goer.
I just wish there was a better way of accomplishing this than by feeding the crims Bible - belief.
It's similar to the playground choice. Kids sometimes fall off swings and hurt themselves. You can either teach them to be responsible, spend a lot of money on safety gadgets or take the swings away. I have always been distrustful of the easier option.
Thanks. I was going to respond to Mr SISO with 'You missed the point. It wasn't saying that religion can't fix lives but that religion can't fix lives in any way that can't be done through non -religious methods'.
However, your example does make a point. I can't honestly say that I am convinced that you can make a thug a nice guy by reasoning with him as quickly as turning him into a Church -goer.
I just wish there was a better way of accomplishing this than by feeding the Bible - belief.
It's similar to the playground choice. Kids sometimes fall off swings and hurt themselves. You can either teach them to be responsible, spend a lot of money on safety gadgets or take the swings away. I have always been distrustful of the easier option.
According to the story there was nothing "quick" about Pearce's conversion. It was a slow intellectual process (a term which implies it involved reasoning). From the same article:
"There are two types of conversion - the quick conversion of St Paul at Damascus, and the slow melting of Augustine, where the conversion is like an intellectual process and a healing. In my case it was the latter and took place over the entire Eighties....
In solitary he read Cardinal Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua and Ronald Knox's A Spiritual Aeneid, but most of all it was G K Chesterton who brought him "into the light", as he recalls, turning him away from what GK called "the solemn fools of Teutonism".
Although Chesterton was a great critic of fascism and Nazism, and hated racism, his Catholic social ideas of distributism, which argues for the maximum spread of property between people, appeals to reformed fascists. His philosophy, with its focus on community and obligation, and its appeal to honour and faith, attracts many people unsettled by what they see as a vacuous, immoral and unjust world.
Pearce rejoined an increasingly irrelevant NF upon release and a second, longer prison term would follow in 1985. But he was already on the road....
I am suggesting that there are non - religious ways of doing this. That is, the argument that we must have religion for social reasons, even if it wasn't true, would not have force.
I remember seeing examples of some kids frankly heading the wrong way were given an interest. Fixing and racing cars. And I just loved 'Orchestra United'. They did a darn good job on 'Mars'. Not that they were delinquents, but how it brought them together!
Religion can give a sense of focus and doing something worthwhile and the additions promise af an afterlife as well, but I think...well, I am thinking of so many community efforts where all sorts of people co - operated in doing things together and developing interests. Perhaps that wouldn't take much longer than a conversion - job.
I briefly looked over the first link but didn't note any info on how study participants were selected. Perhaps, I missed it but I believe the appendix was missing. I'm asking because I read a blog at The Atheist Experience where a similar study was called into question. A book titled 'The Faith', written by Chuck Colson, was reviewed by Kazim. The book discusses a prison ministry study performed by Colson. He claims an 8% re-incarceration rate for those that completed his program compared to a 20% re-incarceration rate for the control group. This sounds impressive; however, Kazim noted problems with the study:
What I discovered was that when you claim a re-incarceration rate of only 8 percent, you are not describing all people who took your program. Instead, you selectively defined a graduate of your program to be someone who remained with the "boot camp" until their release, and then got and held a job outside of prison. In other words, someone could go through the program, be paroled, attempt to re-enter society, and STILL not be considered in your statistics if they failed to find a job.
Colson replied that the state would not allow him to select participants for the study; therefore, they would not be able to self-select motivated participants. Based on this fact, they decided to exclude drop outs. What???? In his blog, Kazim also noted that the real recidivism rates were 24.3% compared to 20.3% for the control groups. It appears that Colson was willing to manipulate the data in his favor.
I'm not really surprised that he was willing to fudge the numbers. After all, the ID movement has no problem with making stuff up to support their claims. This seems to be a common tactic among some religious groups and I've become highly skeptical of their 'studies'.
This is an interesting argument, and one of the favorite arguments of one of my devout Theist friends (Jewish) who is also a political activist. I've thought about it a lot. I'm not sure I agree with her on it. I agree with you to the limited degree that this argument in general, and the Pearce example, does not prove it.
2. Religion can give a sense of focus ...well, I am thinking of so many community efforts where all sorts of people co - operated in doing things together and developing interests
You make a very valid point, Thomistic almost. I think, however, your alternatives will work for some people but not others. From what I have read of Pearce, learning how to master the fixing of cars or becoming an apprentice bricklayer, for example, might have helped him, but I don't think they would have transformed his soul (or whatever you non-theists call that "thing", LOL) , which was clearly in a wretched state. There was a much deeper "hunger."
This is an interesting argument, and one of the favorite arguments of one of my devout Theist friends (Jewish) who is also a political activist. I've thought about it a lot. I'm not sure I agree with her on it. I agree with you to the limited degree that this argument in general, and the Pearce example, does not prove it.
After a while (20 years of debate which must put the 16 year old college - girl Urban myth to bed ) I get to know which theist argurnents are, as I so delicately put it 'Hogwash', and which stand up better. The argument that religion makes people behave better is one of the latter. It has, of course, nothing to do with whether religion is true or not and there is the counter - argument that religion can also cause a lot of grief, both in the literal and metaphorical sense.
There is also endless dickering about what the stats actually show, as maia mentioned above.
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2.
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Religion can give a sense of focus ...well, I am thinking of so many community efforts where all sorts of people co - operated in doing things together and developing interests
You make a very valid point, Thomistic almost. I think, however, your alternatives will work for some people but not others. From what I have read of Pearce, learning how to master the fixing of cars or becoming an apprentice bricklayer, for example, might have helped him, but I don't think they would have transformed his soul (or whatever you non-theists call that "thing", LOL) , which was clearly in a wretched state. There was a much deeper "hunger."
Interesting to think about though.
"a very valid point, Thomistic almost."
I'm not worthy. Yes, but don't give up on eating just because liver doesn't work for you. The deeper hunger may require more than just polishing crankshafts, but what I'm suggesting is that there could be other ways of tackling the problem than just by religion.
I don't want to get into the morass of debating the rival effectiveness of theist v non - theist individual or social reform. But for me, the conviction that religion is teaching tall stories means that I can't accept continuing to tell tall stories even if it does make people behave better.
This is under the ..no..I won't give the generic title, but the package including the 'great atrocity count' and it also contains the Santa Claus and tooth fairy analogies.
True, kids may be made to behave (for a while, anyway ) for fear of Santa not bringing them their playstation, or they may face up to a dental job with martyr - like fortitude in the expectation of a dollar left by the tooth -fairy. But we expect grown -ups to be able to act nice or take the bum deals of fate on the chin without being fed such kiddy stories.
As I see it, the same should apply to god - beliefs.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 08-23-2010 at 03:52 AM..
Reason: into rather that ino..and 'than' rather than 'that'
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Yes, but don't give up on eating just because liver doesn't work for you. The deeper hunger may require more than just polishing crankshafts, but what I'm suggesting is that there could be other ways of tackling the problem than just by religion. 
) for fear of Santa not bringing them their playstation, or they may face up to a dental job with martyr - like fortitude in the expectation of a dollar left by the tooth -fairy. But we expect grown -ups to be able to act nice or take the bum deals of fate on the chin without being fed such kiddy stories. 
