Our next article is about an inmate in West Virginia. The article is called
West Virginia can't require incarcerated atheist to participate in religious programmings was by AP News
by Leah Willingham, published on July twentieth of this year. So what's going
on here is there has been a hullabaloo in a prison where Andrew Miller,
an inmate for breaking and entering, was serving a one to ten year sentence.
And now drugs were not part of his issue with the breaking and entering.
As a matter of fact, he'd been seeing a secular psychiatrist therapist for
quite a while and he'd been sober for four years. So this was before
the breaking and entering though, and that was on his record. So when
he went to jail, they said, you're going to have to do our
rehab program. Problem is, the rehab program is one of those twelve step
deals, and those things are remarkably religious. And that is what this judge
found. And because he refused to participate in a situation where they're telling him
that he has to hear about how he's sinful for rejecting God and be encouraged
to give his life to God. And be discouraged from taking personal agency.
His sentence was going to be a lot longer than if he had. So
this effectively has become go to church or stay in jail long. And that's
what this judge has decided. And finally we have some good news here.
This is the right call I think it is. What do you guys think?
What's up? Chris? This is awesome? This is like a really
good ruling. It's it's kind of crazy to me that a the taxpayers have
been subsidizing this sort of a religious program, and it's it's crazy also that
I mean incarcerations ostensibly for the purpose of rehabilitation, and it's hard to be
rehabilitated if part of your requirements to be rehabilitated or to at least, you
know, shorten your sentence via the rules are actually violate your freedom of religion
or freedom from religion. UM. So this is a really good ruling.
UM. I hope this. I hope this helps across the board and in
more states than just just this one. Um, and that at least to
an overall change in the way the prison system works and the way the parole
system works. What do you think, Scott? Yeah, um um,
I agree. I think this is a great Uh, this is definitely a
step in the right direction. Tm. But but but I think it's a
it's a good example of of what I think is one of the themes on
the nonprofits, and that is a religion garner's unwarranted trust from the public.
And it's just based on the fact that it's religious alone, that it's it's
seen as a good thing or you know, you hear the phrase good Christian,
right, Well, those words don't always necessarily have to go together.
We know that Christians can be just as nasty as anyone else. Um.
But but it's just, uh, it's it's unwarranted trust. We see the
same thing happen. And these stories actually, sadly, very sadly, are
are much more common in the news, the about the child abuse, the
child sexual abuse in the church and particularly in the Catholic Church. But families
trust these clergy members with their children because they're religious figures and they're and they're
they're taught from an early age that you know, the religion is good,
Christianity is good, or whatever whatever the religion happens to be. These religious
leaders are trustworthy and to put our money where our mouth is. And it's
almost like maybe a virtue signaling as well, look at us we trust with
our children, you know, our most valuable possession or what should be our
most valuable valuable possession, go, you know, go off and you know,
teach them and do them well, and and you know we've seen what
happens there, and so this is the same kind of thing. Um.
You know, we know that these twelve step programs there's questionable success rates at
best. I mean, there's numbers all over the place, and I think
it's it's really difficult to tie them down on because well, because you know,
many of these programs are anonymous. They're not allowed to gather data.
And I wonder if that is intended or I wonder if that is. You
know, the cynic in me is saying, well, they just don't want
to have to be accountable and responsible. Um, although the skeptic in me
says, well, you know, maybe not, maybe they're just maybe they're
maybe there's good intent behind that anonymity, and you know it's just a side
effect here. But um, you know, but we see that this kind
of this effectiveness of these programs is like I said, uh, variable at
best, and so but it's trusted because oh it says God right there.
Okay, so that means we need to go along with that. Maley,
I know that you had something to say on that topic of success rates.
Yeah. Well, like you said, it's it's very hard to pin it
down. And I tried to look all over the place for results, and
you know, I saw as high as sixty percent, six zero percent and
uh so the Skylance dodes Um. You can listen to his interview on NPR,
get his book about this stuff. But he really looked into the numbers
and did the best he could with the information he had. He's a very
good approach and I forget exactly what he did, but he talks about it
in the interview to check it out, and he estimates somewhere between five and
ten percent. You know, wow, that is definitely not sixty And I
think he talks specifically about that sixty percent figure. Again, I need to
listen to it again to be sure, but it's a twelve minute interview worth
listening to. When it does work though, and this is the key part
it's about. It seems to boil down to being around people with a similar
mindedness to you, you know, being in a community of people who are
trying to better themselves in the same way that you are. You know,
shoulders to lean on encouragement, you know, and you can get that without
the God thing for good and darn sure. But that's that's what's effective when
it is effective. So what are they touting this these kind of programs for.
What is it? It's not for the effectiveness. Um, it's just
because it's religious, I guess. And the state is mandating this, well,
I guess maybe not quite mandating so much as not giving you because you
know, parole isn't required, you're not guaranteed it, right right, Yeah,
it's mandating, not mandating, but gun to your head you have.
It's it's a difference between the stick and threatening you by saying no carrot for
you. It's effectively the same thing. It's jail or church, take pick
your poison. That's what it boils down to. Yeah, I wonder if
just being um opposed to a program like this, a Christian program like this,
is just dangerous as to somebody trying to get parole out of some places
in this country. Anyway, Mally, before we started the show, you
mentioned the Bible belt. If somebody's down in the Bible Belt, then they're
in prison and they are a known atheist. Is that going to hurt them
on their chances for parole? And I'm afraid it would it? Really,
I really am. One of the things that really stood out to me really
about this program was and I'm going to read this, I'm going to risk
myself sounding like a middle school or talking doing a book report. But this
came from a US Justice Department memo from nineteen ninety four. As part of
their rehabilitation, many inmates are ordered to attend alcoholics anonymous meetings. This practice
is ineffective and maybe a violation of prisoners civil rights. This is from the
Justice Department nineteen ninety four. Prisons should offer a variety of treatment options for
alcoholic inmates. So it surprises me somewhat that West Virginia it took this long
to come on board with this Justice Department memo. This is what like thirty
years later? What were they thinking? You know? And I wonder if
the state legislature has a bill right now how to make teaching intelligent design in
public schools legal now, because I mean, this is this seems so backwards
to me in this state, and I'm really worried about things like this.
Uh, Chris, you have something you'd like to add. Yeah, it
really doesn't surprise me unfortunately, Um, that it did take this long,
especially in a state in this area. M What bothers me is that I'm
very skeptical that, well, this is a good story. I'm very skeptical
that it's actually gonna have a lasting impact because I mean, what are the
chances that people on that parole board that we're making that decision did or didn't
know about the religiosity of this specific program and in the objections I mean,
I believe that he would have had the opportunity to, you know, voice
his objections to that specific program. So they made this decision with the full
knowledge of of the the issue. So I'm just sort of wondering if these
sort of biases are just going to take another form at the end of the
day. Well, I think you're onto something there, because because these parole
boards are people. They're human beings. You know, they're not robots interpreting
the law or executing the law or whatever not yet, but um, but
these are these are human beings. They're from that area. And I think
if what I'm hoping that something like this would do would be to clarify the
decision making process for for these boards so that way they can so a they
have guidance on how to make their decisions and whether parole is warranted or not,
but also be that there's accountability for these people. They're making very important
decisions about these people's lives. This was a decision on whether or not somebody
was going to stay in prison or was going to be set free, you
know, having satisfied the requirement, you know, they're paid their debt to
society, as it were, And so these are big things for these people.
And it's and it's almost it's almost like a flippancy. It's almost like
a like a it's more important to stress the religiosity or it's more important to
make that point than to oh, well, oh it's gonna you know,
this person's going to stay in jail because of my decision. Oh well,
you know, that's the way it goes. You know, it's we need
to take the decision making out out of the out of the dark. Out
of the dark, right, we need to shine light on it, we
need to have clarity of purpose. We have to have clarity of execution.
We have to have clarity accountability, who's done what, and so that way,
if something does happen, then you know, we can go back and
look at it. So I think so hopefully my hope would be that that
it would be something that we could get out of this. If this brings
attention to this type of thing, Like you're saying, nineteen ninety what was
it, nineteen ninety four, that the ninety four, Yeah, that this
had been decided already, and so what we're thirty years later? Okay,
well thirty years is better than nothing, but you know, if it's taking
this long. There are other places. I tried to find out how religious
West Virginia is. I'm not really familiar with that area. What what I
gathered was they were slightly more religious than the nation as a whole. Um.
If anybody knows better than that, then let me know. But don't
I just lost my track train of thought there, So I don't know,
Kelly, take bail me out here. I'm going to send it back to
Chris because I know Chris has something, so no, I just I'm kind
of wondering how they're really going to be able to fix this because there's really
only two options, um, now that this has been ruled unconstitutional, and
that is either to give to give an another option to give some sort of
a program that is a religious So they have those two options, which is
just going to highlight who chooses which one and give them another area to be
biased about, or it's going to lead them to have to remove the religiosity
from the program entirely. Um, And like Scott was saying, to bring
the sort of the decision making out out of the out of the darkness and
into the light and removing the ability to have that sort of a bias.
That's what I That was my That's the point that I forgot that would lost
track of that was it? Thank you Chris for reading my mind and for
putting that period right at the end of that sentence for me. I appreciate
that we need to have Chris around Bore. I guess, yeah, no
kidding. Can you come and hang out with me in the classroom sometime?
And you know, I to follow up on that. Though these programs are
usually voluntary, they're run by volunteers, they're not they're not funded by the
state. And if we are going to offer another program, a secular program,
we need to get the volunteers for it. I'm always talking about volunteering
for a good cause. This is a good cause. I'm not saying it
telling everyone they should go out and do it. But if you are going
to do something, this might be something that you want to think about to
change the world into a better place. So um, that's what I'd like
to see is to see more volunteers come out to run these programs. And
I don't think we're going to be able to change this until we have that
ability to provide these other programs to people. Without being able to provide the
program, the people like our defendant here are going to be stuck. They're
just going to be stuck. So I don't I don't know where to go
without that. So, Mally, what what do you got for us?
Well, you know, I don't know that it would be that difficult to
take the religiosity out of it. The framework's there, The camaraderie that solves
the problems, when the problems get solved, is there. You know that
you have the high I'm you know, Malle, and I'm an alcoholic.
I actually, well, no, I'm not. Well, it's there,
so there's not a whole lot that needs to be subtracted. The major points
are things like, you know you'll die in alcoholic hopeless death without God.
Maybe take that out. And you know you are irresponsible in lack of agency.
Maybe take that out. And you know there's um, there's not a
whole lot more to be done. I don't think you know, you could
have two tracks in this program, you know, one where you know you
are responsible for yourself and you're gonna learn the coping skills, and another one
for the people who feel too helpless to do anything without a daddy involved.
It's just a thought. I mean, I don't know that. I's it's
not a bad thought. If that was the case, the Christians would probably
withdraw the funding. My dad ran an Alano club. That's the club the
AA sets up an Alano club. He ran his local Alano club for like
fifty years, and he was not a believer. And I when he passed
away, and they had a memorial service for him there, and I went
there and it went on for six hours of people coming up and talking about
how he had changed their lives and got them out of alcoholism. And he
did it being an atheist. I mean, he did it with the alcoholics
anonymous, with the twelve step program, but he did it as an atheist.
So I know it's possible to do it. And I know that,
like I have heard that again, like it was mentioned before, five to
ten percent success rate, My dad seemed to have a lot bigger better success
rate than that. It seemed like anyway, at least that's six hours of
people coming up there. I can't say how many people dropped out of the
program, but maybe maybe that they need to get rid of God. Maybe
that might be a key to making more people successful in the well. There
are other options too besides uh, you know, talk therapy or group therapy,
that kind of thing. There's medication out there. There's was it now
trek Zone is that the anti addiction drug. I mean they've had great success
with with NAL trek Zone and there's uh, there was a good uh Malle
mentioned Lance Dode and that reminded me of this article that I saw in the
Atlantic many years ago, and they did a big review of all the different
types of programs and they found that the AA was the worst and that the
most effective, uh treatment was just take a pill and and and it affected
the uh you know, the pleasure centers in the brain that are triggered by
this addictive behavior. And you know, that's that's attacking the problem. But
but you know that doesn't have God, and so you know, I don't
know how that would go. But there are options. I mean, there
are options, that's the thing. And so they're they're kind of um and
I you know, I maybe making this full circle back to that unwarranted trust.
You know, if they have options that that are effective and that do
work, they're putting this this unwarranted trust in this program just because it says
that maybe they just do a word search for God and the document and any
you know, oh, it mentions God forty eight times there and only two
times over here. God can solve all of our problems. So exactly right.
Of course, God would also be the source of all of those problems
too, is the source of all right. But uh but that's you know,
that's a that's that's I'm taking that out of context. I guess I
forgot one thing to add, and that is ya, science exactly definitely,
Yes, yeah, we can figure out what works and what doesn't if we
apply the right methods to what we look out crazy, you know, all
right? Um, I guess we'll wrap it up there then, And if
you like continue this conversation, you can check out some of our ACA fan
run social media like the Facebook groups and the Discord servers. So if you'd
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