Otolism again

One in English this time.

I was asked by a very dear student whether I was an Atheist or what my belief was. I tend not to answer to that question (or to answer in ways like "I don't want to talk about religion" or "it's none of your business"), this time I answer "I'm an Otolist".

I often forget not everybody knows I'm Otolio. So there were questions. Let's try to give some answers.

The basic principle is the non-universality of any belief. There is a different travel plan for each person on Earth. Sure, some of us can go on the same vacation using the same means of transport, staying in the same hotel, doing the same activities, eating the same food at the same time and place, and do so year after year; but that does not mean our circumstances or personality or needs are different. We may disagree on the best option for the next holidays and that is nothing personal against anybody. In fact, the best one can do is go on the holiday of his/her dreams—and the rest of the world has to respect that. They are my holidays.

Sure, growing spiritually is not the same as going on holiday, but it shares features, like the fact it is a journey. And it is a personal one.

In other words: it is up to each one of us how (or whether) we will grow spiritually. If there is God or any other kind of "facing our deeds" at the end of this life, it is going to be each of us for himself/herself, not our judges for us. I am trying to find what my travelling plan is; and sometimes, I need to improvise, because I wasn't born with an instruction booklet and the ones I've been offered so far were other people's.

For me, this brings up the need to develop not only respect but also acceptance: I accept my travel plan, I accept others have different ones, I respect their right to do what they have to do and I defend my right to follow my own travel plan—which is not necessarily (and often isn't) an easy or pleasant one.

I recognize the Golden Rule: be to others like you would like others to be to you if you were in their circumstances. Sure, if someone likes being physically tortured every day before breakfast, go find somebody else, I am not available for that, personally.

Following the Golden Rule, in my opinion, implies ecology: I like being in a clean, safe, preserved area of the world whenever possible and I wish the same to future generations—of people, but also animals, plants and other Kingdoms of Life. Yes, that is something that makes my life more complicated on a daily basis: only classifying the trash means I have 15 different sections/bins, at least while I learn how to improve my system; but I don't like the Planet, as a living organism, to suffer because of me.

Yes, one person can make a difference, in my opinion; and even if it didn't, I have to follow what is correct for me, and not what others reckon to be pointless.

Related not only to ecology is the idea of moderation (mesura in Spanish) or self-control: I don't buy everything I want even if I can afford it, I don't order all the food I fancy without thinking of the capacity of my stomach.

There are many other principles I try to follow that are not directly connected to the ones above. Sure, I am far from perfect and I don't always eat with moderation (to mention but one example of moderation). Sometimes I struggle to accept unpleasant events in life, like the too early departure of a friend. Sometimes I act before I think.

Oh, and yes, this system of beliefs or whatever you want to call it—it is my own and if others are called after those who presented them to the world, then this should be called Jorge-Otolism. Yet it is rather my alter-ego, the second part, the Artisan, the individuum, trying to defend it against mockery, rolling eyes, despite, etc, rather than the more conventional Jorge, therefore I call it Otolism.

Whoever you are, I probably won't accept your belief as mine either; but I love talking about ways of growing spiritually, provided they are open-minded and not impositive/imperative. So... want to talk?

Confusion on the net

Okay, it's been a while since I last wrote a post in English. Allow me to do an exception. Today I found this on a status on the net:

"[...] religious people vs. Atheist in US prisons (in 1997) from the Federal Bureau of Prisons is : Religious 99.791%, Atheist 00.209%. [...] That's a very disproportionately low total of Atheist in prison. In 2013 nearly 20% of US Citizens are currently non-religious. That's up from around 10% in the mid 90's. In 2013 %32 of people under 30 years old are non-religious. The non-religious US population has increased by 10% in the past 20 years. That's an average of .5% per year and it looks to be "snowballing". These figures indicate that as religion drops so does crime. Percentage of religious people in US prisons: http://www.holysmoke.org/icr-pri.htm Non-religious population in the US at 20% in 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_the_United_States".

Sorry to contradict you, but these figures alone indicate nothing, unless you are totally biased. Let's look at the second link, where we have a table indicating that, in the US, irreligious people make up to 20% among whites, 16% among lations and 15% among africans. Considering the majority of the population in the US is still the whites, or the fact that:

"On June 30, 2006, an estimated 4.8% of black non-Hispanic men were in prison or jail, compared to 1.9% of Hispanic men of any race and 0.7% of white non-Hispanic men. U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics"

it is not so easy to see a correlation. A graph may be more self-explicit:

Why are not black, or african, more than doubling the percentage of hispanics/latinos, when there's only 1% more of believers among blacks? If a 1% makes such a difference, why is not such a difference with the 4% between the Hispanich population and the White one? Just wondering.





Something else that I couldn't help doing was comparing the following maps:

(percentage of religious people in European coutries)

 (World prison population per 100 000 people, per country)

According to these wiki sources, the US lead the prison population per 100 000 people (more than 700) with the 20% of irreligious people mentioned above. The same wiki sources atribute to Spain a 7.6% atheists (24.1% if you count them together with the 16.5% of non-believers) - yet Spain has a prison population in the 100-150 frame. Then you have the Czech Republic, one of the least religious democratic countries in the world (if not the absolute first), with a 37% of "believers in nothing at all", whose prison population ranks in the 150-200 frame. Can someone explain this lack of correlation to me?

Another comparison worth making would be between the highly religious Turkey and the relatively mid- or low religious Baltic Republics. According to the original inference, Turkey should have a higher prison population than any of the three Baltic Republics. However, it is the other way round. Further more, out of the Three, Estonia has the lowest percentage of believers (10-20% - which is, again, one of the lowest worldwide), but has the highest prison population in the European Union. What can one easily infer there, if one would not mind the possibility of maybe having incomplete information? And remember - now we have more data than we had at the beginning. Still, I refuse to accept the easy option that the less believers, the higher the jail population. Things are not that easy.

A last example: if we move to other places in the world than just the EU, let's compare India, with a 19% of the population describing themselves as atheist, not religious or not sure (click here for the source - again, wiki). It's jail population is less than 50 per 100 000 people, one of the lowest in the world. The US, with a similar percentage of non-believers, is on the other end, with the highest jail population in the world, as it was mentioned before.

It seems to be a correlation between prison population and belief in the US as a whole. However, our sources, which come from the same source as the ones provided in the original status, prove this correlation is not universal - not even in the US. We could just as simply infer that religious people don't mind paying with freedom for their crimes, while non-religious pay with money and remain free. But seriously, provided the given sources by either of us are reliable in their "wikiness", the only thing that we can infer deduce is that believing in something or belonging to a religion is not going to make a criminal out of anybody.

Live and let live. Give respect and you'll get respect back. If you connect religion with those that abuse religion, don't be surprised the day someone connects atheism with those that abuse atheism - hell, they exist too!! Surf the net and find them. Be serious.

My sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_the_United_States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism

And for an extra map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion