Why do atheists only represent less than one percent of the prison population............?

Question

....... yet make up about 10 percent of thr general population.

Christians represent 75 percent of the population and also represent 75 percent of the prison population.

This means that atheists are 50 times less likely to offend.

What does this say about the christian belief that their religion makes them better people and that atheists who don't share this belief must be morally bankrupt as a result.

I wonder how many christians who arte desperate to be right at all costs and hate the idea of cold hard facts casting their beliefs in a negative light will use the old "Well they were atheists when they committed the crime but they found god while in prison" excuse.

Source : Federal bureau of Prisons

Catholic 29267 39.164%
Protestant 26162 35.008%
Muslim 5435 7.273%
American Indian 2408 3.222%
Nation 1734 2.320%
Rasta 1485 1.987%
Jewish 1325 1.773%
Church of Christ 1303 1.744%
Pentecostal 1093 1.463%
Moorish 1066 1.426%
Buddhist 882 1.180%
Jehovah Witness 665 0.890%
Adventist 621 0.831%
Orthodox 375 0.502%
Mormon 298 0.399%
Scientology 190 0.254%
Atheist 156 0.209%
Hindu 119 0.159%
Santeria 117 0.157%
Sikh 14 0.019%
Bahai 9 0.012%
Krishna 7 0.009%

Answer 1

More proof that "figures never lie, but liars use figures".

The questioner's premise crumbles when one recognizes that parole boards tend to look more kindly on those who "find religion" during incarceration.

A discerning person notes that the so-called "list" does not mention whether each inmate acquired his professed faith before or after his incarceration, or whether his so-called religious affiliation is formal or merely "self-described". As the saying goes: "There are no atheists in the foxhole", and apparently that is also true in prison.

Learn more:
http://watchtower.org/e/20010508a/article_03.htm

Answer 2

It could be that the statistics for free and prisoned are attained differently. How did they get these statistics?

Atheists represent 10% of the population. Was this from census results? If so, it would be as accurate stat as you could get, because no-one is there judging.

Atheists represent 1% of prison population. When a prisoner is admitted to prison, how do they discover his religious belief? It is not from the census because that information is anonymous. So immediately we have a problem attaining the same result, because the method of attaining it is different? Could it be that they ask what religion were you christened or a similar question?

It is my thought that this is an inaccurate statistic unless you can prove that the same methods are used in general population and prison population.

Answer 3

It means nothing. Atheists have a conversion rate in prisons. Fear breeds belief as it were. There is the fact that most Atheists believe that breaking the law is wrong and they know that they must pay for any crime committed.
Oddly enough I see absolutely no one from the Tianic, Wiccan, or Druid faiths on that list. Most probably because the united states government has yet to recognize them as true faiths. Yet they do recognize the faiths in the work place. And at tax time.

Answer 4

Part of the problem with that data is that religions actively recruit in prisons. So there might be more non believers who enter the system than your stats show, but get converted by the time they leave.

Also it might point to the fact that non-believers tend to be richer than believers, so they are not stealing.

I'm posting this as a warning of jumping to conclusions about the data. Plus the argument that atheists are good and religious people are bad is just a little facile.

Answer 5

i'd be very fascinated about why that fairly is, only as a psychology minor. in case you've responded to the question with ridiculous concepts about how documents paintings, it is the way it is going: - assume illegal activity occurs in a classic distribution in the inhabitants - The occurrence of religion in the final inhabitants ought to tournament those who interact in criminal behaviour (i.e. the ratio or opportunities ought to tournament) - For Christianity, it is authentic. seventy 5% in the inhabitants, seventy 5% in reformatory. - For Atheism, this is pretend:10% in the inhabitants, 0.2% in reformatory. So! Why are we lacking such an excellent type of atheists in reformatory?

Answer 6

Have you ever heard the phrase "there's no atheist in a foxhole". That's why. When you hit rock bottom, there's no way to look but up.
When people live in an immoral way and find they have reason to fear the just judgement of God for their sins, they begin at first to wish that there was no God to punish them. Then, by degrees, they persuade themselves that there is no God. Finally, they set themselves to study for arguments to back their opinion. But that only happens when you are free. When you get locked up, you lose all those foolish ideas.
Paly's argument of the 1700's still holds today. He said that if you are walking through a forest and you find a watch sitting upon a rock, you have 2 possible explanations: 1)It was designed and built by a watchmaker 2) It came about the same way the rock that it is sitting upon came about.....by random chance. Which explantion makes more sense?

Answer 7

Basically Christianity has existed throughout the entire Western
World for ages and yet you expect all these people to be angels. Please.

Most of those people probably don't even think about God much.


Also your numbers are wrong (an Internet hoax),
here are the real numbers

http://www.adherents.com/misc/adh_prison.html

Most of these people are Christians, because most of America is (at least nominally) Yes, many of them convert, how'd you feel like being raped for 12 years? There is actually disproportiate conversion to Islam, and Scientology.
And most of these people had at least preference to whatever church their family went to, so they're technically not converting, just refinding.

And "None/Atheists/Unknown" is 20%, which is more like it.
In fact many of these prisoners are hardened criminals who shoot people, are part of their gang, and genuinely don't give a shlt.

Answer 8

Christians are notorious for making horrible mistakes. I'm a Christian, and I freely admit that I am a horrible person. Jesus Himself said that He didn't come to call the righteous to repentance, only sinners. He also said that those who are well have no need of a physician, only sick people. So maybe everyone but Christians is already righteous and that's why the statistics are like they are. As for me, I need Jesus Christ to make me righteous. I just can't do anything good when I'm running the show, so to speak. Peace.

Answer 9

Well, in fairness... correlation does not prove causation. It may well be that the same things which cause atheism -- education, critical thinking, etc -- also lead to a non-criminal lifestyle. That isn't to say, however, that Christians who convert to atheism would commit FEWER crimes due to the conversion.

However, it does clearly dispel the myth that piousness goes hand in hand with civility. Clearly it does not.

Answer 10

There is a corelation between mental disorder and criminal behaviour.
Illusion, delusion, thinking that invisible being are watching you and influencing your life etc... are all symptoms of a mental disorder called schizophrenia. Religious fanatics tend to encourage schizophrenic behaviour instead of encouraging treatment. This could be an explanation of your interesting statistics.
Ramen !