Hello, friends, Have you found Jesus? Has he come in to your heart? Is he the captain of your ship and the lighter to your path? Well, we are looking for him today in Mississippi and churches that tend to be a bit more authoritarian if you don't have them, aj has a story aj.
Hi Cynthia, Today we are definitely looking for Jesus. Sheriff Kevin Crook at the Monroe County Sheriff's Office in Mississippi recently posted not one, but two personal messages on the official Sheriff's office page after a man was arrested on charges of mathame, fhatamine and weapons possession, claiming that the only solution that he sees to the county's drug problem
is finding Jesus. The second article that we're discussing, interestingly enough, provides arguments that people with higher church attendance weights and religiosity tend to also have high authoritarian attitudes as well as a higher level of support for conservative political figures. The writers showed with very clear data that white evangelists, Republicans, white Catholics, and Christian nationalists all have a much higher level of authoritarian behavior as well as leaning to support
heavily conservative authoritarian politicians. These articles are from The Friendly Atheists by Herman Metta and Religion Dispatches by Christie's Troop, and they were both posted on September thirteenth, twenty twenty four.
Thank you, aj, And I'm going to come to you with my first question. I want to know how effective or do you see anything in being effective? Can religious belief systems be in addressing systemic problems like drug addiction, especially in regions that already are saturated with religious metaging.
So personally, I don't believe that religion can be used specifically or strictly for resolving any type of drug issue. And Sheriff Crook said in his post that the drug problem in Monroe County was so severe that he didn't really know what the solution was other than quote, we all truly find Jesus, but we've got to get tougher sentences on those who are making their living selling this stuff to our family members, which was actually a very weird thing to say because it claims that his family
members are drug addicts. Have they lost Jesus? I think you know. Later on he actually posted a video on the official Monroe Counter Serance Department Facebook page. It was right after this and he was heard saying, I know Jesus is coming back one day, and we've all got until that day to figure out or on eternities. So on the grand scale of things today, I would rather
be concerned with that than anything else. So that was his quote, right, And this is really concerning to me because it indicates that he is more worried about his eternity than how to solve the root cause of the drug problem, as you ask those religion help with solving this problem, and in this case, focusing so heavily on obtaining heavily heavenly eternity takes away the concern about the problems that we are facing here on earth, because as soon as you find Jesus, you know he's got you,
in this case the drug problem, and it is taking away the sheriff's ability to see past salvation and apply critical thinking to solving the problem of the drugs in his county.
Well, I mean, if we're going to be fair, would a shariff really know how to deal with the systemic issue like drug addiction? Like would they really be the proper person that would be knowledgeable on how to address how institutions and economic issues and things of that nature really would be a thing that would cause issue and
not necessarily looking at those things. Instead, they're going to look at the possibility of reaching heaven or bringing Heaven on earth through Jesus to see about solving that issue.
And Scott, I'm wondering in what ways since we kind of talked a bit about how if, well if religious belief could be something that could quell the drug issue, and I think that we came to the conclusion of net but in what ways could mixing religious process tation with law enforcement duties potentially hinder effective solutions to public health crisis? Is like the drug academic.
Well, setting aside the constitutional issue, I mean, that's kind of the big thing looming over this whole thing is the United States Constitution, you know everything that I'm sure the the sheriff had to swear an oath of office and swear to uphold the Constitution. So but if we set that aside, yeah, I mean there's definitely going to be issues because if if this type of religious indoctrinationly proselytization, there's a word for you, if they if they're if
they're tightly connected to the law enforcement. Then that that's an issue, especially in smaller areas where there's not a lot of those checks and balances in place. Uh, it puts a lot of It gives a lot of power to a judge who basically reigns supreme over you know, a certain district area or a shriff or something like that. It gives them a lot of power to apply pressure to if their personal religious beliefs are that they're supposed to go out and make fissures of men. And here
they have a captive off audience. Very often, very literally, they have a captive audience. And so it it's just rife with with issues. It's it's it's poised to be perfectly set up to be taken advantage of. And and we see that happen very often when judges a sign you can go to if you go to this religious recovery program, then you can you know, shorten your sentence
or variety of things like that. And so it's it's very much it's just, you know, it just muddies the water in such a way that it makes it very difficult to separate. And and so I think it's just uh, you know, we have checks and balances in this country for a reason, and you know this is one of them.
You know, I'm wondering, and I'm going to come back to you, Aj, because like I think that one of the things that you kind of brought up a little bit as you were talking Scott, is some addiction programs like you know, Alcoholic Anonymous, drug Anonymous, you know, things of that nature DAAA, which have like a more religious belief bend to it in order to deal with a person who happens to have an addiction that they're trying to squash, right, But there may be some data behind
having a higher religious you know, leaning that will lead you to be less prone to addiction. But Aj, I'm wondering, do you really think that the there is a correlation that higher religiosity would be something that would help quell or keep one from drug addictions or any other addictions, or do you think that that is something that is actually kind of skewed.
I have actually heard the same thing before, you know, regarding AA where it is a very heavily a very religious tone to it. And I did look into some studies that show that people with higher religiosity tend to have a lower rate of addiction, and they also recover
from addiction at higher rates. But the more I questioned the reasoning behind it and looked more into it, the more it lined that with the second article that we're actually going to be reviewed later today, and it seems that higher religiosity leads people to become more conservative and more authoritarian and those lower addiction rates. But one may think that this is a positive aspect of religion. However, it isn't a Jesus Healed you situation. The root cause
of their addiction hasn't been dealt with. Rather, the religious method is using fear and dogmatic oppression or you have to get claim because it's wrong, because it's bad. Right. And there's also the case where some people are replacing drugs with Jesus literally right. In the medical field, this is called a process addiction, and instead of a chemical substance let's say cocaine, it is an activity or a
behavior that induces that hike by increasing dopamine. And in this case, it can come from following the rules that are set by authority figures in church, prayer, or any other type of spiritual activity that gives the person that Rush Scott.
I think that you also brought up in some of your research, some studies that you've found concerning religious recovery versus non religious recovery programs. So do you want to talk about that a bit more.
Yeah.
Yeah, we were saying that there is a correlation between a person's higher religiosity and their ability to better cope with addiction issues, either becoming less likely to become addicted or more likely to be able to recover believe it more quickly. So there is some research that seems to support this idea that these religious recovery programs are effective. But there's a couple of things that stand out to me. One is that the particular religious or spiritual beliefs of
the attict don't really make a difference. In other words, the recovering addicts of one religion stick with their recovery just as much as those from another religion. And so that kind of implies to us that it's not necessarily the specific religion, it's more religion in general as an institution, among other things. And so and so, as Aga was saying, it's not that Jesus heals you, or that Allah heals you or whatever, or your ancestors heal you, or however
you want to phrase it. It's that it's that this being involved with that type of activity, that type of community can make a difference. The second thing is that there are non religious recovery programs that are structured similarly similarly to those religious programs, and they turn out to be just as effective as the religious programs. Here's a
quote from addictioncenter dot com. They said that a study found in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment compared the effectiveness of non religious treatment programs WFS, LifeRing, and smart Recovery to other twelve step programs. Researchers found the alternatives were just as effective as the religious twelve step programs due to the following benefits. And they specifically cited four benefits. And I will point out to you that none of these mentioned anything about God.
Here.
First social support for abstinence. Second attendance in a group meeting or group setting. Three sober culture, and four tools to motivate abstinence.
And so.
This research seems to indicate, or seems to nudge us in the direction of thinking that it's not so much the religion, it's not the content it's the context of that content. It's the way that religious organizations operate there. They tend to encourage friendliness, they tend to encourage mutual support, They tend to encourage relying on each other, calling each
other when there's issues, and things like that. They have these prayer circles which encourage you to be thoughtful of other people within the group, and that kind of thing, reach out if there's a problem, whether you have the problem or somebody else has the problem. And so there's many aspects that I think in statistics we would call
them confounding variables. Basically, it's not the religion that's helping, and I think the evidence is pretty clear and showing that it's not that it's the social environment that happens to be created in a religious institution. I would be very interested I told you that they compared non religious recovery programs that had a similar structure and found that
they were just as effective. I'd be curious if they looked at things like recovering religious addicts that are not necessarily involved in a twelve step program, but maybe are trying to do things like pray the addiction away or something else that might be a different kind of of social setups. So you know, clearly there's more research to be done, but the stuff that I've seen so far is really indicating that it's a social solution or a
social species. That's not surprising at all, but there's a social solution there, and it's not a divine solution.
Speaking of solutions, do you men if I add something to that please? There are many countries that are a lot more secular than the United States, for example Switzerland and the Netherlands, and they are using the criminalization as a method of dealing with drug addiction with pretty good success. They have lower rates of debt by over those because they have implemented several programs that reduce harm. Some of these programs are like the nelogues on Access and Distribution
for opiate addiction, supervisee use sites. Those are especially for injected drugs like heroine, and then more accessible mental healths creen in and treatment programs. Those are also important. In the United States, the only place to try the decriminalization program was Oregon. They tried it in twenty twenty and it worked pretty well, but unfortunately it was during COVID and there were some issues that sort of made it take a step back, and eventually in twenty twenty two
they completely repealed that role. So it's no longer up to.
Yeah, that has a tendency to be more so on clinics and other health organizations that are produced that are pushing harm reduction programs that would have actually things like the data would support that methodology more so then trying to be a bit more restricted when it comes to
like addiction. And I was even going back to I was even thinking about those structures that you were talking about, Scott, especially that secular programs that mirror some of the things that the religious programs does, and I thought that it was very interesting that one of those things that was encouraged and push is abstinent And I was thinking to myself,
like why is that the case? And then it kind of hit me that you know a lot of times that people are taking using any type of like substance and they do it in like social activities, right, and you know, possibly if you are a person that has a tendency to maybe like use with a partner used to induce like you know a more uh helped me out, guys with the worst that I'm looking for a more potent experience when you.
Are you know, and yeah, we follow us on the only thing.
Exactly you can reach us out right link below, right it make sure you give to the patron. But yeah, but like oftentimes, like when you're looking at like what is the behavior that a person is doing in order that's like coupled with you know, substance use, it could be like, hey, well let's see if we can kind of like stop this particular behavior for a while to help you get.
Through your addiction. Right. Yeah, But one of the things that drug not necessarily drug, but one of the things that harm reduction actually teaches is that even though that you may be going through some type of recovery program, it doesn't necessarily mean that you are completely cured per
se of addiction. Your addiction is still there. You just learn how to manage it, right, And I think that that's one of the things that a lot of times that when you're looking at people like the sheriff in Mississippi saying, well, all you need is Jesus and just pray, you know, pray the addiction away, and Jesus will come in into your heart and do things to you. You know, that's that after dark type stuff, guys, then you're you're fine, right, But the problem is is that you are still your
your your addiction is still there. It's just that you just found a way to kind of like cover it, placate it, kind of move the goalpost a little bit away from it because you're focused more on Jesus than actually doing you know, other things. I'm curious to know, because I didn't look this up. What is the the difference or like the data that says if a person actually uses a religious program to deal with their addictions versus a secular program, and what is the rate of recidicism?
Uh with either or I think that would be interesting to see. I would I would think that if you don't necessarily have like proper tools that are reasonable and will liable in reality to deal with things like that, that your the success rate wouldn't be as high. You know that. That would be my that would be my guess. But it's really it's.
Really tough to compare those kind of things because a lot of the success a lot of the data on success rates is all self reported, and so they might they're have different standards like for many many years, alcoholics Anonymous would would report their information, but they would only count people that stuck with the program. And that's kind
of like most of the battle there, isn't it. I Mean, if people start using, they're asked to stop, they're asked to leave the program, or or you know, they weren't being counted. And so so if we want to have some kind of systematic approach here, which you know, I think would be obviously the wise thing to do, we need to have solid data. And in order to have that solid data, you need to have have it be independent from the organization that is that is being reported on.
And so yeah, so it's it's a sticky, sticky kind of set up there. It's it's tough too. It's tough to make wise decisions when you don't have all of the information, and it's tough to get all the information when it's when it's being clouded by various things.
Because that data is not objectionable. Yeah, it's not objective, objective, object it's not objective. It is objectionable. Actually, yes, yeah, well, you know, like I wanted to, like, I guess we didn't really get a chance to talk a little bit
more about authoritarianism when it comes to religion. But I think that, you know, one of the things that could be a correlation between both articles is this like fear factor, right, And I think that both of you all kind of alluded to it when it came to Hey, if you happen to be in a religious organization where there is this very restrictive way that you have to behave in order for you to be able to stay in it, then of course you're not necessarily going to do certain
things that like, you know, use drugs or you won't have sex before marriage. Maybe you know, because I've been in holiness churches where people were doing all types of stuff, right right, right, yeah, right.
I again I.
Say it's never worked, but I wanted to But I know that we just want to wrap up, but I want to give you to dislike the last lad, like what do you feel and both of you all can actually like hit hit on this, like what do you feel the role of non religious groups play in countering the rise of authoritarianism, whether it be just like in a church in our purview as far as like you know, us being like you know, part of America, and also
like impossibilities of you know, recovery programs that are religiously Ran Scott, you started Naja, you finished us up.
Well, I think that you know, as far as authoritarianism is concerned, you know, there's just tons and tons of data showing that there's a very strong link between authoritarian attitudes and your political position and your religious position, and that conservatism in both religion and politics is indicated by you know, a strong authoritarian bent Age had mentioned something about how being a conservative Christian can lead you towards authoritarianism.
Actually the research kind of hints that it's the reverse, right, It's the people that have these authoritarian beliefs, things like purity, things like loyalty, things like blind obedience and that kind of thing, have a tendency to become more conservative politically, and more extreme and political and conservative rather religiously. And so there's a strong tie there. So you ask what role do non religious groups have in dealing with this
kind of thing. Well, first of all, as far as the the addiction treatment is concerned, I think they provide viable options. And so then, uh, you know, a judge out in the middle of nowhere can't say, well, this is the only thing we got. You know, you have to do a program and all we have is AA and then but then but if there are other options, then it just kind of takes that, it takes that excuse out of the toolbox there, and so I think
it provides options. I think the second most important thing, uh that the non religious groups would would provide is that they give society in general a perspective. They can we can show that no, you don't if you want to achieve this goal, whether it be you know, breaking off your addiction or whatever, you don't necessarily have to go down this road. So it gives it gives the the the legislators and the leaders one less leveraged to
push people into that into that nook. And but it also gives people one less reason that they feel they have to go that direction. And so I think really just option and viability, I think that just makes it a huge difference there.
And what's the you aj Yeah, I think you know, in the first article that we read word Sheriff Crook, he said that he was calling for harsher punishment for addicts and criminals. And I think that that clearly shows what Scott just said, these authoritarian figures here, you have somebody that isn't even a preacher, right, and he was preaching from a position of public authority. He was abused in his power. So I think our job in those situations, as as secular people, we need to speak up and
make sure that we callote them accountable. And on the other hand, we can also do a little bit more to help people understand the root of the issues that we are that we're having. You know, in the example of addiction, right, we can use a humanist approach and help people realize that these are things that are caused by psychological trauma and until you deal with that, there is no way that you're going to be able to
use religion in the context to recover. It's still going to continue to be there.
Well, I would definitely say, dear viewer, that we will continue to be here if you want to watch no profits or nonprofits, right, that's the name of the show.