by Laura Strebel

Created on: October 29, 2008   Last Updated: November 03, 2008

Lessons on the purpose of belief in God are deeply ingrained and many. We're taught, groomed, indoctrinated from "cradle to grave" to be good, God-fearing people. In the United States we hear it from discussions, lectures, classes speeches in church and sometimes schools, in the newspapers and magazines we read, the television stations we watch, the radios we listened to, the web sites we visit, the money we earn and spend, it's all around us, constantly.

What is good about religion and a common belief in God, is the community one is in. The friendships, the support and even the pressure to do good, to do right, according to the religious rules and the individual community. The praise, acknowledgements and accolades for being one of God's chosen is worth it to most.

On the down side is the fear taught of those that do not believe. We've been schooled and told and preached to about the non-believers. They are the ones with no belief in God to give them a moral compass. They are the ones that rape, pillage, slaughter, gamble, lie, cheat, steal, drink, eat forbidden foods and carouse, because they do not "have God". These are the hated, feared and abhorred, if they do not believe; if they do not have true faith; if they have not given their lives to Jesus or Allah or some other God.

Questioning the purpose of a belief in God will bring stories of those who had lost their God, lost their pathway to being good. Later, coming back into the religious fold, they supposedly become "good" again. The purpose of belief, being to help someone be good and do good to others, is a lesson that is so deeply ingrained that when one discovers that they know an Atheist, their feeling run the gamut from morbid fascination to outright fear.

Oddly enough, the percentage of people incarcerated for crimes that claim they have no religion usually stands at about 1% of the prison population. Many will play the game and claim to have discovered God while doing their time, but for those that are adamant, the number is incredibly small. That means that 99%, the remainder of the prisoners, are at least pretending to be good, God-fearing people. It's one of the first questions asked by a parole board.

According to the Pew Poll on religion, the United States is among the highest in church membership but we have the most people incarcerated of any country in the world. That doesn't make me feel very trustworthy of the religious. Is it that they just didn't believe hard enough? What reasons might

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