Horse shit. I'm from Louisiana. The Warden, being a fundamentalist Christian, attributes the drop in violence in the prison to the church services, but my family lives less than 30 miles from it, and my mom works with Christian groups who go in to the prison to work with the prisoners there... even she, an Evangelical of the fiercest type, attributes the radical drop in violence to the fact that there were few-to-no programs (education, entertainment, crafts, etc.) in the prison under the decades-long reign of the previous Warden. The violence levels under those conditions would surprise no one, nor should the drop in violence once the prisoners had things to do besides get into arguments in their tiny, caged world.
I assure you that I know A LOT MORE about prison than you do, and I know from personal experience that the more religious a prisoner claims to be, the more you should fear them, because they use religion (as do many non-prisoners) to justify their hatreds and bigotries and violence in the name of Gawd. And the question is not who has the right definition of Christianity in the polls, but who thinks they're Christian versus the number willing to state that they're agnostic or atheist. The simple fact is that atheists are very hard to find in prison, and given that we nonbelievers represent between 10% and 20% of the population (again, depending on how one defines the term), they should represent 10-20% of the prison population, as well. But they don't.
I assure you that I know A LOT MORE about prison than you do, and I know from personal experience that the more religious a prisoner claims to be, the more you should fear them, because they use religion (as do many non-prisoners) to justify their hatreds and bigotries and violence in the name of Gawd. And the question is not who has the right definition of Christianity in the polls, but who thinks they're Christian versus the number willing to state that they're agnostic or atheist. The simple fact is that atheists are very hard to find in prison, and given that we nonbelievers represent between 10% and 20% of the population (again, depending on how one defines the term), they should represent 10-20% of the prison population, as well. But they don't.
A Christian told me: if you were saved you cant lose your salvation. you're sealed with the Holy Ghost
I replied: Can I refuse? Because I find the entire concept of vicarious blood sacrifice atonement to be morally abhorrent, the concept of holding flawed creatures permanently accountable for social misbehaviors and thought crimes to be morally abhorrent, and the concept of calling something "free" when it comes with the strings of subjugation and obedience perhaps the most morally abhorrent of all... and that's without even going into the history of justifying genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, religious intolerance, and suppression of free speech which has been attributed by your own scriptures to your deity. I want a refund. I would burn happily rather than serve the monster you profess to love.
I replied: Can I refuse? Because I find the entire concept of vicarious blood sacrifice atonement to be morally abhorrent, the concept of holding flawed creatures permanently accountable for social misbehaviors and thought crimes to be morally abhorrent, and the concept of calling something "free" when it comes with the strings of subjugation and obedience perhaps the most morally abhorrent of all... and that's without even going into the history of justifying genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, religious intolerance, and suppression of free speech which has been attributed by your own scriptures to your deity. I want a refund. I would burn happily rather than serve the monster you profess to love.
