Religion boosting crime

[Blind groper]

Juicy little tidbit in the 30 June New Scientist.

I quote :

"Azim Shariff at the university of Oregon in Eugene and his colleagues compared crime data from 67 countries with people's belief in the afterlife. Even after controlling for crime related factors including GDP, national crime rates were typically higher in countries with particularly strong beliefs in heaven but weak beliefs in hell."

So it would appear that the classic religious nonsense about a loving God who will welcome you to heaven, if not counter-balanced by really nasty promises of eternal damnation, will actually lead people into crime. After all, if that wonderful deity is gonna give you heaven after death, why not screw your neighbours while you are alive?

As always, atheists overall have lower criminal offending than the religious.

[JimC]

Juicy little tidbit in the 30 June New Scientist.

I quote :

"Azim Shariff at the university of Oregon in Eugene and his colleagues compared crime data from 67 countries with people's belief in the afterlife. Even after controlling for crime related factors including GDP, national crime rates were typically higher in countries with particularly strong beliefs in heaven but weak beliefs in hell."

So it would appear that the classic religious nonsense about a loving God who will welcome you to heaven, if not counter-balanced by really nasty promises of eternal damnation, will actually lead people into crime. After all, if that wonderful deity is gonna give you heaven after death, why not screw your neighbours while you are alive?

As always, atheists overall have lower criminal offending than the religious.

Fundies will use this finding as a weapon against wishy-washy liberal christians...

[maiforpeace]

Juicy little tidbit in the 30 June New Scientist.

I quote :

"Azim Shariff at the university of Oregon in Eugene and his colleagues compared crime data from 67 countries with people's belief in the afterlife. Even after controlling for crime related factors including GDP, national crime rates were typically higher in countries with particularly strong beliefs in heaven but weak beliefs in hell."

So it would appear that the classic religious nonsense about a loving God who will welcome you to heaven, if not counter-balanced by really nasty promises of eternal damnation, will actually lead people into crime. After all, if that wonderful deity is gonna give you heaven after death, why not screw your neighbours while you are alive?

As always, atheists overall have lower criminal offending than the religious.

Fundies will use this finding as a weapon against wishy-washy liberal christians...

While patently ignoring the fact that atheists are the group that have the last criminal offenses.

[JimC]

Juicy little tidbit in the 30 June New Scientist.

I quote :

"Azim Shariff at the university of Oregon in Eugene and his colleagues compared crime data from 67 countries with people's belief in the afterlife. Even after controlling for crime related factors including GDP, national crime rates were typically higher in countries with particularly strong beliefs in heaven but weak beliefs in hell."

So it would appear that the classic religious nonsense about a loving God who will welcome you to heaven, if not counter-balanced by really nasty promises of eternal damnation, will actually lead people into crime. After all, if that wonderful deity is gonna give you heaven after death, why not screw your neighbours while you are alive?

As always, atheists overall have lower criminal offending than the religious.

Fundies will use this finding as a weapon against wishy-washy liberal christians...

While patently ignoring the fact that atheists are the group that have the last criminal offenses.

True, but in some ways, I suspect wishy-washy christians offend them more than we do...

[Tyrannical]

Juicy little tidbit in the 30 June New Scientist.

I quote :

"Azim Shariff at the university of Oregon in Eugene and his colleagues compared crime data from 67 countries with people's belief in the afterlife. Even after controlling for crime related factors including GDP, national crime rates were typically higher in countries with particularly strong beliefs in heaven but weak beliefs in hell."

So it would appear that the classic religious nonsense about a loving God who will welcome you to heaven, if not counter-balanced by really nasty promises of eternal damnation, will actually lead people into crime. After all, if that wonderful deity is gonna give you heaven after death, why not screw your neighbours while you are alive?

As always, atheists overall have lower criminal offending than the religious.

Fire and Brimstone Baby!
Nothing like instilling a healthy belief in burning in Hell for all eternity to get people to behave themselves

[tattuchu]

Fire and Brimstone Baby!
Nothing like instilling a healthy belief in burning in Hell for all eternity to get people to behave themselves

Christfags like to say that without the threat of damnation, that we can do anything we want. But I find the opposite to be true. Christfags tend to do whatever they please because they know all they have to do, in the end, is whip out their get-out-of-Hell-free card. Say you're sorry, accept Christ as your savior*, and Bob's yer uncle.

*Whatever that means exactly, but I guess you don't have to know exactly what it means. All you have to do is say it, because God is stupid like that and can't recognize understanding from ignorance or sincerity from insincerity.

[rasetsu]

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."

— Aleister Crowley, 1904 (Frater Perdurabo)

[amused]

Fire and Brimstone Baby!
Nothing like instilling a healthy belief in burning in Hell for all eternity to get people to behave themselves

Christfags like to say that without the threat of damnation, that we can do anything we want. But I find the opposite to be true. Christfags tend to do whatever they please because they know all they have to do, in the end, is whip out their get-out-of-Hell-free card. Say you're sorry, accept Christ as your savior*, and Bob's yer uncle.

*Whatever that means exactly, but I guess you don't have to know exactly what it means. All you have to do is say it, because God is stupid like that and can't recognize understanding from ignorance or sincerity from insincerity.

Same experience here. I especially avoid businesses with the little fish symbol as part of their advertising because it's a sure sign of a crook.

[cupper3]

Fire and Brimstone Baby!
Nothing like instilling a healthy belief in burning in Hell for all eternity to get people to behave themselves

Christfags like to say that without the threat of damnation, that we can do anything we want. But I find the opposite to be true. Christfags tend to do whatever they please because they know all they have to do, in the end, is whip out their get-out-of-Hell-free card. Say you're sorry, accept Christ as your savior*, and Bob's yer uncle.

*Whatever that means exactly, but I guess you don't have to know exactly what it means. All you have to do is say it, because God is stupid like that and can't recognize understanding from ignorance or sincerity from insincerity.

Same experience here. I especially avoid businesses with the little fish symbol as part of their advertising because it's a sure sign of a crook.

I hope you don't mean this one:

[Atheist-Lite]

Do anything wrong in this simulation and the next will compensate by making your life a fucking misery. Now stop mocking religion and lets get science sorted out. Too many geeks working in the 'defence' industries and not enough on the real problems we face like the bloody icecaps melting.

[Jason]

[Atheist-Lite]

I tell you all now and I'll say it once only. Quit making weapons of any kind, get to task on the climate and the mass extinction, or I'll see to it the memory dump at the end of your simulated existence will be kept completely intact and used to put you through a life of hell, whilst knowing why you are there.

[rasetsu]

I tell you all now and I'll say it once only. Quit making weapons of any kind, get to task on the climate and the mass extinction, or I'll see to it the memory dump at the end of your simulated existence will be kept completely intact and used to put you through a life of hell, whilst knowing why you are there.

[Atheist-Lite]

Yep, now, you all got uploaded whilst the measurement freaks were measuring the wrong thing. Welcome to limbo. It could get worse.