Do atheists commit fewer crimes than religious people? Is there any evidence for my research project?

Answer 1

Yes, statistically. Look up the crime data for countries such as Sweden, Norway, and Australia, and compare them with countries like Pakistan, America, Spain.

Answer 2

The real answer to this question is that non-belief rises with education and intellegence and there are several studies that back this up. As you go up the education/intelligence scale you are likely to be better off than the less educated less intelligent parts of society and therefore less likely to be criminal, the prisons are full of poor uneducated people.

Therefore you can explain the phenomenon without the causal link many might be claiming.

For my 2 cents worth I also believe that because of the whole education thing atheists tend to commit less crimes anyway as evidenced by differences between countries but its not needed to explain the situation within, say, the USA,

Answer 3

interviewing those who have committed the crime is the best way to know. Your questions have to be designed to separate by defination of religion to the person being asked. You would also need to ask did they become religious after the crime then being locked up or if they were at the time of offensive. Were they someone who acknowledge God or someone who lived what they believed. Passive acknowledgement is not consider religious

Answer 4

I don't really know the answer to your question and can only speak for myself. I believe that I will only exist until I die and therefore do not want to waste any of that time in a prison so to argue that only religious people need to worry about retribution is ridiculous. If I feel that way then it seems likely that many other non believers feel the same.

Answer 5

I remember someone doing research about religion and 2 families. One family went to church and lots of them were ministers, lawyers, and I think doctors. Another group didn't go to church and most of them were in prison. I think this was done on the East coast of the US and in the 1800's. This was showing the $ cost to society. If I find out the name or remember it, I will post it.

You will probably have to limit your research to a small geographical area. You might be able to get police reports. I don't know it they have religious affiliation as part of the questions.

Answer 6

It's difficult to say, because often atheism is an educated and informed belief. It's very easy to say "I'm a Christian" because you were raised a Christian without really thinking about it.

Atheists are often educated people making an informed choice, so they would commit less crime (but possibly more white collar crime).

Those claiming to a religion range from devout Church/Temple/Mosque goers to those who don't practice a religion at all, but still say they are Christian/Jewish/Muslim because that's how they were brought up.

Answer 7

atheist make up a small percentage of the world's population period! so of course crimes amongst them would be lower.but look at Hitler he was an atheist and look at what he did.that is not to say all atheist are like him.but don't think just because someone doesn't believe in god doesn't mean they are going to be anymore peaceful then someone who does.

Answer 8

It is the other way around. Religious people tend not to do as much crime because God is watching. Atheists are "freer" to do things because of this reason, so they do.
I don't have any statistics to provide you on this point though.

Answer 9

I wouldn't know.... but that is the general suggestion.
I don't put much stock in the random words of other people.... but I heard recently from someone here that the proportion of religious people to non-religious in jail is a hell of a lot higher than outside it....

Answer 10

The non religious represent less than one percent of the prison population yet represent 12 percent of the general population.

sample (New Jersey) : "of those executed for murder 65% were
Catholics, 26% Protestants, 6% Hebrew, 2% Pagan, and less than 1/3 of 1%
non-religious."

Now I thought that it was us non religious folk who were the ones with no sense of morality yet we make up a tiny proportion of the prison population compared to our general numbers.

To put it simply

69 % of the US population is christian and 84 % of the prison population is christian yet 10-16 % of the US population is non religious yet they ony represent 0.3 % of the prison population.