Inside the Walls: Captive Audience
Photo by Roel Dierckens on Unsplash I am currently a prisoner of the State because I believed something that was not true. In terrified delirium, I shot a dear friend who was, in reality, only trying to help me. As such, I am passionately committed to empiricism in my ethics and behavior. So you can imagine how disturbed I was to realize the extent of the incessant religious (particularly Abrahamic) delusional propaganda in our tax-funded prisons.
There are entire bookshelves of Bibles and endless religious ‘study guides,’ daily proselytizing pamphlets, and weekly indoctrination events. As a first generation immigrant, and a war-veteran of the United States, I am all for freedom of (and from) religion, but I cannot conceive of a worse doctrine to foist upon convicted rapists and murderers than ones that (not only excuse but) endorse slavery and genocide. Yet in the current justice system, a confession of fealty to such beliefs actually makes one more eligible for early release!
As a prisoner working toward my rehabilitation, I went to a class titled “Starting Over on the Inside,” advertised as a course in learning good decision-making skills. From the first, I felt that I must have made a mistake because I did not recall it being called “Starting Over WITH JESUS”. I suppose I expected a lesson on some basic psychology. Instead we fell for a bait-and-switch into one of the worst sermons I’ve ever been subjected to.
The following are some excerpts emphasized in the slideshows and workbooks:
- First Principle – “I admit that I am powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing and my life is unmanageable.”
- Mathew 5:3 – “Happy are those who know they are spiritually “
- Romans 7:8 – “I know that nothing good lives in “
That is some seriously demoralizing, toxic stuff. I am all for taking personal responsibility, not embracing powerlessness.
The teacher then spoke about how, when he had a falling out with his old ministry, he planned on becoming a suicide-bomber (or maybe just a homicide-bomber?) and wanting to destroy their church but, “Thanks to God’s wisdom,” he saw the light and didn’t go through with it. So…Halleluiah, I guess? This is the guy that the prison selected to teach prisoners about ethics? To not harm people only if the voice in your head says so? Not exactly a solid basis for rehabilitation.
Finally, the two-hour psychic torture-session concluded with a recitation of his Lord’s Prayer, in which of course I did not participate. To summarize, I would have expected such nonsense to have been properly advertised as explicitly religious, and Christian specifically. Instead, it was a trap—complete with a reinforced, locked door.
Since I am personally quite secure in my (let us say) spirituality, I will simply not be returning to those emotional abuse sessions, but I sincerely worry about people of other beliefs (even other Christians) feeling pressured to adopt such disturbing, dishonest, and dangerously harmful ideas.
Secularism is the foundation of this country, and I am loathe to see people’s freedom from religion being violated. Beliefs are not harmless: What we believe dictates what we do, and impacts others. It is therefore imperative to cultivate critical introspection and believe only the (empirically) True and the (ethically) Good. Neither can be found at any service in that chapel.
After repeatedly failing to receive relief from any of the staff, I have submitted the requisite signatures from several of my fellow secular captives for assistance from our friends at the American Humanist Association, and am in the process of petitioning them to help facilitate humanist proceedings at Colorado’s Fremont Correctional Facility.
For more of my reveries, visit EmpiricalEthicist com.