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Comment by peter303 | Hacker News Reader

The Bible has many admonishments about being kind to prisoners. https://www.openbible.info/topics/prisoners

Most of the most vocal believers of the bible in America are ironically also the same folks pushing for privatization of prisons, harsh sentences for minorities (obviously not for the likes of Rush Limbaugh though), punishment-instead-of-reintegration, etc.

I dont see why the Bible needs to be taken into consideration here. I understand wanting historical perspectives for policy, but religion shouldn't be needlessly shoved down people's throats.

Because the same people who vote for harsher punishments and pushing costs onto the families of detainees are often only reachable by biblical quotations. If you refuse to talk to people, you're not going to get anywhere. Learning their language--in this case, the bible--is often what is required in order to reach them.

There are a lot of ignorant voters out there. If you want to make change you need to learn how to communicate with them, not just look down your nose at them.

Is a link really pushing religion down your throat?

If it was a Muslim majority country we would were discussing a link to the Quran that gives context would be useful.

Invoking religion in what should be secular discussions regarding public policy can definitely be perceived as pushing religion down people's throats. Imagine the opposite -- if every time a group of people were seen chatting about religion, someone walked up and quoted some famous atheistic reference?

However, I don't see an iterated discussion of this as a useful tangent for the thread to take, so let's discuss instead how religious philosophies of all kinds could or should have informed the believers of those religions in the issue of prisoner treatment. What leads to the dichotomy between religious messages of peace, and the warlike behavior of some adherents to those religions?

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