ISIS are just victims of poor marketing. If they went with the tagline “At least we’re not atheists”, their approval rating would be higher in some parts of the US.
Good point. I guess I was considering the current trend to over-praise and over-reward children and fail to teach them to be accountable for their actions. Appropriate rewards should definitely be in the mix.
ONE
Recidivism in the U.S. is 43% This is much higher than in other countries. (In Canada it’s 35% for men).
TWO
The U.S. is a much more religious country than Canada. You can check the stats, but Canada has many more avowed atheists, and many who are religious in name only.
THREE
Your entire premise is incorrect. Bad acts are not committed by bad people.
People occasionally do bad things.
What you need to do is figure out why people do bad things.
You can probably get a hint in the bible though. Something about stealing bread to feed children.
Certainly not the only cause, but the higher recidivism rate is probably not helped by all the additional penalties given to those who do their time and are released.
For a “Christian” nation, there are very few people in the U.S. willing to give ex-cons a second chance…
People who have religious conversions are generally hypocrites and to be avoided.
EDIT: Hypocrites or extremely mentally ill.
@Barbarian: Right.
As my wife says: “Obama is not a dark-skinned socialist who believes in free health care. You’re thinking of Jesus.”
Damn few US Christians have much Christianity in their “beliefs.” If they had any we’d be living a different and much nicer reality. And I say that as a committed atheist.
American Xianism is to Jesus’ teachings as Stalinism was to Marxism.
I agree. But the established religious establishment will fight that tooth and toenail.
Especially Christians. Christians are the worst Muslims.
The Ludovico Technique seems to fit the bill you’ve lain out.
Is there a way outside of a religious conversion to make people “good”?
Old joke:
How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?
One, but the bulb must want to change.
Depends how you define “good.”
If you mean becoming truly virtuous, religious conversion is the best (if not only) way.
But if you merely mean giving up older, bad ways? Time alone tends to take care of that. A violent young thug is likely to mellow out at some point in his life, even if he never really repeats.
I find just the opposite about those who undergo religious conversion, in most cases.
Successful positive encounters can lead bad people to start being good. Once they figure out that good behavior has rewards and leads to acceptance from people they once considered inaccessible they will start to feed off of that.
I work with juvenile criminals, so this is a question I think about all the time. While I don’t have an answer (duh), I do have thoughts, and here are some:
- Definitions of making someone “good” will vary widely, but some version of the Golden Rule - empathy and reciprocity - is probably a good start. (At least if we have a pluralist definition of “good”)
- Empathy and reciprocity are sort of the opposites of selfishness
- They’re also big parts of what we usually call “maturity”
- One important part of teaching these qualities and associated behaviors is by modeling them
- Conversely, failing to model these qualities/behaviors - even when dealing with bad people who may not deserve them - is probably not helpful in changing people from bad to good
- A big part of having/practicing empathy is recognizing that other people matter, and that what matters to them may be very different from what matters to you
- This realization is to some degree intellectual, a matter of acquiring new knowledge. For example, many of my students have not left their neighborhoods or experienced different ways of life than what they grew up with. To them, the idea that (for example) a Muslim might not be sympathetic to ISIS, or that a police officer might actually be a force for social peace instead of an agent of disruption, is utterly foreign. I don’t think I’m being a bleeding-heart naif in saying that they just don’t know any better - many of the kids I work with really don’t know better.
So, does religious conversion help, and is it necessary? Based on my experience, I’d say sometimes and no.
Bad people who find religion have often taken an important step: they have recognized their own badness, and may be starting to think more broadly about why their actions have been bad.
On the other hand, I don’t think that this is a resting place. We can’t say “now that I’m doing X, or not doing Y, I am good.” And this absolutely happens. Turning good in terms of behavior, if ithe change’s motivations are purely selfish, is a pretty weak guarantee of future goodness. And it’s unlikely to be transmitted to others contagiously: the juvenile delinquent who gets sober and finds God but has no empathy for people outside of his/her religion is likely to raise kids that don’t value empathy and pluralism. Who will be bad kids in turn.
Snoe, that was as thoughtful and understanding a post as I have read in a long time. Thank you.
There is one proven fact: There was never anything taught, thought , said, or read that wasn’t from another human being. So it is really a belief in some human we would like to follow. It helps some people but not all.
Speaking as a conventionally religious person…
I don’t think human beings are naturally good or evil. I think most humans are “nice.” Yes, that’s faint praise. Most people are generous… But only up to a point, until it becomes inconvenient. Most people are selfish… But only up to a point, and don’t want to be TOO greedy. Most of us have a mean streak… But we generally don’t want to be truly cruel or hurtful.
Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg, an atheist, once said, "Good people will always do good things and bad people will always do bad things. But to make good people do bad things, you need religion
I disagree, but I sort of understand what he means. It’s hard to shake people out of their basic inclinations. It’s hard to make bad people good, to make good people bad, or to shake lazy, complacent “nice” people out of their complacent niceness. Religion and ideology (especially political ideology) are among the few things that can shake people up and move them in either direction.
CAN religious conversion drive a bad man to become virtuous? Yes.
CAN religious conversion spur a “nice” person to want to become truly good, and not just non-bad? Yes.
CAN adoption of an idealistic political ideology do the same? Yes.
That’s the plus side. But as Weinberg suggested, there can be negatives too. CAN a good person do cruel, evil things because of religion or political ideology? DUH! Of course.
Religion is one of the few things that can make evil people good or good people evil.
In the absence of those things, most of us tend to the complacent, “nice” group. And over time, a LOT of the genuinely evil AND the genuinely good tend to slide over to that “nice” middle, just because we all get older and lazier. It’s hard to stay angry, violent and transgressive forever. If a young thug lives long enough, he won’t become good but he’s likely to settle down and become “nice.”
And a fiery idealist, whether driven by God or Marx, is also liable to cool off at some point and just become “nice.”