So, I have jury duty last Friday. I didn’t get picked but the weeding out process (I am sure there is a legal name for it but alas I don’t know what it is) took forever. Okay, six hours, but you get the idea, and they wouldn’t let us break for lunch. At least I got $6 for my trouble 
The case was a sensitive one, which would explain 200 of us needing to be selected to get to 12 jurors. Without going into detail, basically the charge was sexual penetration of a minor. What made it more than an average trial was apparently the perpetrator is the son of a police chief or captain in a nearby city. I didn’t know the suspect or the father, but a few people did and were eliminated.
In the middle of the process, after they had given us the minimal facts stated above, the prosecuting attorney asked individuals to raise their hands if they would have problems being fair because perhaps they or a close relative had some type of abuse or assault. This went on for some time and a number of jurors were added to “the list” to be excused. When the defense attorney finally came up, one of her first questions was how many of us wanted to get up and beat the defendant as soon as we had the charges explained to us. An older gentleman with a baseball cap telling us he was a veteran stood up and said something to this effect:
I have two grandchildren and I must say this whole country has went downhill because people do not have bibles in their right hands any more and no one is obeying the laws of the bible. I don’t know if this young man is guilty but I bet he wouldn’t even be in this mess if he was reading the bible every day like we used to!
And of course the amazing thing is you could hear sighs of agreement everywhere in the room. Now I am all for whatever we need to do to make our country better, but is reading the bible going to solve criminal issues? And did our country’s supposed banning of prayers and bible study in school start the decline of western civilization?
A few google searches later and my intuition appears to be correct. According to the American Atheists website, in the 1950’s when there was a large religious uprising in the US, one which caused God to be put in the Pledge of Allegiance and “In God We Trust” was reinserted on our money, the US crime rate was on a very steep increase in comparison to the 1940’s. In 1963, when prayer and religious teaching were banned from public schools, the crime rates remained relatively similar. Since 1963 the crime rates have fluctuated greatly, but this can now not be considered due to or because of people “carrying bibles in their right hands.” The key to the entire article, of course, is that many seem to remember the “Good Old Days” as being much better than they really were, and thinking that it must have been that way because religion was required, and now the country world has gone to hell in a hand basket because we don’t pray in school.
I am neither a sociologist nor an expert in criminal behavior. Yet I have a feeling that if children are taught (and enforced by example) respectfulness, compassion, and love, that whether this is taught because of a religious belief or just because it is the proper thing to do, that then your children will grow up to do the right things.
December 5, 2007 at 2:14 pm
You have my sympathy re: jury duty (and aren’t the chairs comfortable?).
Was the bible thumper dismissed as a juror?
It galls me when a christianist says, gee, everything would be great if we just did what was in the bible. Uh, the same bible that says we (we being the OT jews and NT christians) have the right to kill and rape any defeated enemy? that slaves may be used sexually? that we need to beat our children?
When I was in 6th grade we moved from a small, professional town in Arizona to Maryland. I was in shock. I went from a town where 2/3 of the households (permanent residents) had at least a BS or BA to a bible-belt backwater. There was one girl in my class (or she may have been a year behind me (I spent 5 years in high school) which would have put her in my graduating class (if she had graduated)) who came to school on numerous occasions with black eyes, fat lips, bruises on her arms and thighs (visible in gym class). We all knew that she was being beaten (and we assumed it was her parents).
I learned years later that some of the teachers had reported the suspected abuse (in the late 70s early 80s I don’t think it was mandatory). The investigators were told that it was none of their business if the family wanted to follow biblical teachings (and supposedly threatened to sue the county for violating their religious rights (and violating separation of church and state)). The county backed off. She left school my second sophomore year (we were in the same class by that point) to get married. The man she married was in his thirties. In Maryland, to get married that young, you had to have your parents permission (her older sister also got married at age 15 to a much older man).
I don’t know what ever happened to her. Part of me wants to believe that she found happiness with a loving husband, etc. The problem with belief is that you can have it with no proof. The more likely scenario is that she ended up with an abusive husband who used the bible as proof that he could ‘discipline’ his wife and kids. Depresssing.
On a more positive note, I have two children (14 & 17 (and I cannot believe (there’s that word again) I am old enough to have a child heading for college)) who have been raised in a free-thinking manner. When they asked uncomfortable questions, my wife and I did not try to hide the answers under myth or fairy-tales. They have gone to church (a Unitarian church in Maine (so it doesn’t count as organized religion)) and have at least a passing knowledge of many different ‘holy’ books (though they, like me, could not get through the translation of the Book of Hopi I found). They were educated in public school, are honors students, and now I sound like I’m bragging.
My wife’s brother and his wife believe that public schools breed reprobates (never mind that my brother-in-law attended public school). They are furious that we let our kids attend a cult-church. Yet their daughter (seven) is mean, abusive, manipulative and just plain unpleasant. She hasn’t told any of my family that we’re going to hell, but that will probable come. Oddly, my wife’s parents are, well, the best way to describe them is areligious christians.
The girl from Middle and High School was raised in a ‘bible-based’ family. My neice is being raised in a ‘bible-based’ family (there’s some other problems there and I suspect her intollerance is merely a symptom). My kids describe themselves as atheist (and no, I never pushed it) or agnostic (depending on their mood), they do not regularly go to church, they don’t study the bible, yet I think they are turning out pretty damn good, if I do say so myself.
They rarely swear (and when they do, it is in an appropriate situation). My son gives time to many charitable causes (some secular, some religious). Both want to pursue careers of service (teaching). Not bad for people who aren’t “obeying the laws of the bible.”
Good post. Provoking.
Sorry for the long post. Occupational Hazard.
December 6, 2007 at 5:25 am
Billy, you’re a good man. It is not religion, or lack of it, that has moulded your children. I believe it was you who set the example, and it is your innate goodness that has played a significant role in the maturity your kids are displaying.
When religion is stuffed down one’s throat there can be a backlash. Enforced religion does not breed discipline or character. Rather, it breeds resentment and anger. I was educated in a Roman Catholic school where the headmaster, a Bible-thumper if ever there was one, would question those of us who failed to receive Holy Communion. It was his contention that those who did not go up for Communion were sinners (sinners are not supposed to receive Communion). He would then order us, under the pain of corporal punishment, to confess our sins to the school’s inbuilt priest. Mind you, this was a daily routine — we were expected to receive Communion during mass in the school chapel every morning ! Quite often, the really stubborn boys (ones who rejected the Communion concept) were subjected to corporal punishment by the headmaster.
I cannot speak for the other boys, but I stopped attending church the day I finished with that school. I had had enough ! While I did not become an atheist, I nevertheless lost all respect for organised religion. And that headmaster was not the only fly in the ointment. There were others, including men of the cloth, whose actions drove me farther and farther from the church. And yet, my children have grown up to be decent human beings who know right from wrong and act accordingly. They are not in the least bit religious — a fact which has done no harm to any of them.
I look at them today, and I silently pat myself on the back. You should too, Billy, because, from your comments, I know you did a wonderful job with your kids. Congratulations. And God bless !!
December 11, 2007 at 9:34 am
We are what we are taught! If someone who claims to be a Christian and yet is taught hypocrisy, they learn that behavior. If an atheist is taught to be true to himself and take care of others, they learn that. There are always exceptions and abberations but it is the simple truth that you become what you are taught to be.
December 11, 2007 at 4:21 pm
loopyloo (and carlton)–I 100% agree. It just seems that some people think that because some of us are atheist that we don’t have morals. Yet most of us can think of a person who claims they are religious but does not lead a clean life in relation to what the bible would preach. Of course many religious households also have fine upstanding people in their families. As do many atheistic or agnostic households. It all depends on the parents raising their children and the VALUES they teach, whether they use a 2000 year old book or just their own teachings really doesn’t make a difference in that respect, IMO.
January 26, 2008 at 12:32 am
Please don’t confuse Fundamentalism with Christianity. They are not the same thing.