Is there a causal link between Christianity and crime?

Question

Yesterday a fellow from Holland posted the claim that there is,citing Justice department statistics that demonstrate that 98% of all prison inmates in the U.S. note some religious affiliation upon entry. But what would comparable statistics from Holland say? Since the country is almost entirely atheistic,isn't a matter of common sense - even without figures from the Dutch government - that almost all incoming inmates are atheists? Would this suggest a causal link between atheism and crime? Or take India as another example. Surely prison statistics there would indicate that almost all prison inmates cite Hinduism as their religious affiliation. Thus,for Markyy's logic to hold up,we must argue that in the Low Countries and Scandanavia,there exists a direct link between atheism and crime - surely almost all criminals are atheists - and we must argue in India there exists a direct link between Hinduism and criminality. It seems obvious this is shoddy logic. What are your views? Serious.

So far no one has cited reliable sources as to to this alleged "disproportion" between the supposed number of atheists percentage in the U.S.,other than an obviously biased atheistic web-site. This gimmik positively reeks of what is called a "factoid". Where are atheists getting reliable - government-source or otherwise objective - figures for this percentage of American atheists? Please cite a serious source.
Crime would be lower - technically - in the Low Countries since there is little that is illegal. Both hard narcotics and organized prostitution are legal; obviously that circumstance would affect crime statistics. it's hard to get busted for dealing heroin in a country where it isn't illegal. The majority of our inmates are there for dealing narcotics.
As my "attitude' to the Netherland et al,we have two atheist hard-sell promoters from there who incessantly try to force their views on us,relentlessly badgering us with their claims of national superiority due to atheism.

Answer 1

I think this goes hand in hand with the Moral Relativism question. Different countries have different cultures, but they all have crime. You can't say that anyone country or religion is caustic of more crime.

Answer 2

I only point out the disparity between atheists and theists in US prisons when addressing fundamentalists who'd tell us that atheists are morally corrupt. It's an effective end all. Do I really believe that Christians are inately rotten people? Of course not. But you need to recognize why these statistics are so often cited by non-believers.

They're sick and tired of undeservedly arrogant zealots (mostly Chistians in The US), pointing fingers at atheists and assorted "heathens" as the cause of all the worlds woes. It seems the hell-fire crowd is guilty of throwing stones in glass homes. I think the decidedly bloody history of the world's most prolific religions does a far better job of illustrating this than the over used US inmate stats.

And of course America will naturally have a high population of Christian inmates because we have a high population of Christian citizens. I think the bigger question might be: if The US makes up only 4.5% of the World population, how on Earth do we have 25% of the World's prison population?

We're supposedly the only "free" country in the World but we imprison more of our citizens (by sheer numbers and per capita) than any other nation. Most prisoners (60% to 80%) are in for non-violent offenses, many of which are classic "victimless" crimes.

So does the problem lie with religion in America? I think our "justice" system is more highly suspect.

-Then we've got ask: how much does religion influence our justice system? Full circle- maybe religion is a part of the problem.

Answer 3

Those statistics prove little in my opinion. People who commit crime probably have mostly not given a whole lot of thought to religion at all, and when asked, just list whatever religion their parents or grandparents loosely associated with, whether that religion is Christianity, Hinduism, or Atheism.

If Atheism is the norm in Holland, then one has to be a thinker to go against the norm. So perhaps the thinkers there are Christians, whereas in a society where most are Christians and take that for granted, the thinkers are non-Christians. Who really knows!

Answer 4

I wonder how many if asked BEFORE they did the crime would have said Atheist, and then after the trauma of being caught, put on trial, sentenced, and coached by lawyers found enough Religion to "Note some religious affiliation" upon entry to the big house?

I would think that going through all that would make most people seek out some kind of faith, even if they had none before.

Peace!

Maybe they could do a study to see how many crimes are committed by people that attend Church every Sunday?

Do you think they would then advocate that we all attend Church every Sunday to keep the Prison Population down?

That would actually work.

Peace!

Answer 5

Well, truth be told, in the low countries, their crime rates are much lower. Gun deaths are a fraction of ours, robbery, assualt, you name it.

Take from that what you will.

Your point is valid however, it is bad reasoning. In the fifties all the kids in Juvinile Halls read comic books, so people got up in arms and said comic books cause crimes! No one stopped to think that EVERY kid, good bad or indifferent read comic books at that time. Same theory was put forth in the 20's and again in the 70's about black people. Prison was predominatly black, so they must have a RACIAL prediliction to crime! It's so obvious! The only thing is, because of the social systems, black people were kept poor, which is the one and only real causal effect of crime. Want to stop crime, give people good jobs and good homes. Consequently this is why the Low Countries have such low crime rates, they also have some of the highest per household incomes in the world, free healthcare and good, safe jobs. Poverty causes crime, anything anyone else wants to jump wildly to is just a red herring.

Answer 6

Crime is a human nature, not a religious one, unless of course your religion tells you to. For example, in The Seduction of the Innocent, Fredric Wertham thought that there was a link between juvenile delinquency and comic books. He took a survey, and he found that many young criminals did indeed read comic books. However, what he didn't take into account was the far greater number of comic book readers who didn't do crimes. Same with religion.

Answer 7

I think you've got something against Scandinavia and the Netherlands... because you seem awful obsessed with it.


Not all the citizens of the USA are Christian but a disproportionate number of inmates are. Again the numbers are disproportionate when it comes to atheists in the US prison system, there's a lot less atheists in jail then there are in contrast to the general population of atheists.

Answer 8

The point is, the proportion of theists in jail is greater than the proportion of the country as a whole. Correlation does not mean causation, however, and it may just mean that atheists are smart enough to commit crimes for which they won't get caught or serve time...

Answer 9

In the US you have to take into consideration that only around 9% confess as being atheist, which means the majority of the US believe, not so much practice, but believe some kind of religion.

Answer 10

Atheists represent approximately 12 % of the US population, yet only .2 % of the prison population.

Per capita, atheists are clearly either less likely to commit a crime, or less likely to get caught.

Otherwise, 12% of prisoners would be atheists. Get it?

(That is why it is not shoddy logic. It is a proven fact)


Edit - I love the fact that I get thumbs-downed for simply stating a fact. You may not like to hear the facts, folks. But they simply are. I'm curious how you can justify to yourself that I have given a bad answer. :) See Gazoo's link and do the math for yourself.

Edit - a document from the Department of Justice is not a reliable source? You're reaching, my friend. But here: Here's a link to a Christian site that acknowledges the report's authenticity, then pulls arguments out of their *** as to why it doesn't support Markyy's assessment. (IE - they say 12% of Americans are not atheists. Well, sorry to say, but... yes they are. :)

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

Not sure of the percentage of atheists in this country? Hmm... would you trust a Gallup poll? I'm trying to figure what you consider a reliable source:

http://facsnet.org/issues/faith/liberty.htm#1

A clearly unbiased poll - and even they don't agree with 12 %. They say 9%. But regardless, even that proves his point. Come on, just face up to it.