If people believe in heaven but not in hell, crime rates increase.
Although Tom Rees questions the methodology, I thought this intriguing and noteworthy nonetheless:
The result, shown in the figure, shows a clear relationship. Crime rates are lowest in nations where equal numbers of people believe in both heaven and hell.
As belief in hell drops away, so that more people believe in heaven but not in hell, crime rates go up.
Now, if you look at the figure closely, you will see that there are some trends here – poor Muslim countries have high belief in hell and low crime rates, while wealthy Christian nations have low belief in hell and high crime rates.
Tags: Religion Society
June 30th, 2012 at 12:10 pm
Oddly enough the MORE religious a society often goes hand in hand with a higher crime rate (not to mention political and economic corruption). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate shows that it tends to be predominently RC countries that have the biggest problems! Secular liberal democracies tend to score best…
June 30th, 2012 at 10:45 pm
In hoc signo vinces†
“Muslim countries have high belief in hell and low crime rates, … “
Blah, blah, blah …
July 1st, 2012 at 2:17 pm
Oddly enough Muslim countries have a high belief in Hell, yet mega corruption – and of course Muslims are massively over represented in British prisons, despite the fact many are dragged off to Madrassah every evening and Saturday morning and have ‘Hell’ drummed into them (though I suspect as a place for the infidel, rather than the criminalised Muslims!). True Muslim countries score much better when it comes to sexual markers (e.g. on the whole (with a few exceptions) the more Christian an African country the higher its HIV rate; the more Muslim the lower); but I think it is true to say Muslims cram into the UK because they know Muslim societies don’t come up with the goods. It would seem looking at Christian history and the Muslim present, that religiously authoritative means of governing societies just don’t produce what they’re suppose to produce! Which I think says more about religion per se than individual religions.