Why are countries who's citizens chose atheism so much more peaceful than religious nations?

Question

For those who insist atheists have no morals, why are Sweden & Norway so peaceful and why do they have such low crime rates?

In both countries, non believers vastly outnumber believers, yet they are among the healthiest, richest and most peaceful people on Earth.

Yet the USA, with it's huge number of fundamentalist christians, has such a high crime rate and a bit of a tendency to march off into wars for questionable reasons (Vietnam & Iraq are the first of many that spring to mind)

Deeply religious Islamic countries don't seem exactly peaceful either as a general rule. Pakistan, for example, dosn't look like the safest place to live right now, and has fought India for years over border issues.

Why does it seem that populations who's citizens CHOSE atheism (as opposed to those who have it thrust on them) are far more peaceful those who's citizens chose theism?

For those who wish to disbute the statistics:
http://www.adherents.com/largecom/com_atheist.html

Answer 1

The percentage of Lutherans in Sweden is 87%
The percentage of Lutherans in Norway is 85.7%

Lutherans ARE believers.

If I were you, I'd do a little homework before coming to unwarranted conclusions.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2122.html

Thanks for the private email Missing Link.

You apparently blocked me from sending you anything right after you sent me mail, so I'll respond here.

As I pointed out to you, Atheists are only a very small subset of that percentage, according to the link you provided. Here is the text:

Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: This is a highly disparate group and not a single religion. Although atheists are a small subset of this grouping, this category is not synonymous with atheism. People who specify atheism as their religious preference actually make up less than one-half of one percent of the population in many countries where much large numbers claim no religious preference.

You guys make this soooo easy.

Answer 2

A. Both the USSR and China replaced religion with communism, both ideologies that lend to fanaticism in their own right. Whatever atrocities occurred are more due to that, than atheism per se. B. Of course, there are always other factors. C. I think the distinction should be made between De Jure and De Facto atheist countries. Most of nations of Scandinavia are effectively atheist, and have some of the highest standards of living in the world.

Answer 3

Yes and also Sweden and Norway are among the most tolerant places for Christians. America is ranked like 60th, which is slightly better than half the rest of the world. North Korea is ranked really bad, so is Indonesia. I saw this list a few years ago.

Answer 4

Religion believes in worship. Each religion tell us the correct way to worship. Does this really make any sense? It takes a lot of money, people and effort to convey the correct way. Why not take the money, the effort, and these people and use it to educate and heal the United States instead.

Answer 5

Because once you believe God is on your side, you get an ego the size of God's. You lose all perspective and are able to convince yourself that all of your decisions are God's will. It washes away all doubt and conscience. Your actions can no longer be questioned or judged, you are reporting to a higher power.

"The cardinal doctrine of a fanatic's creed is that his enemies are the enemies of God."
— Andrew Dickson

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.
— Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906)

I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.
— Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 46

You can safely say that you have made God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
— Reverend Robert Cromey

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
— Blaise Pascal, (1623-1662)

The most heinous and the must cruel crimes of which history has record have been committed under the cover of religion or equally noble motives.
— Mohandas K. Gandhi; (1869-1948)

Faith, the sweetest refuge and consolation, may harden, by perverse miracle, into a sword -- or anyway into a club or a torch or an assault rifle. Religious hatreds tend to be merciless and absolute.
— Lance Morrow

It is usually when men are at their most religious that they behave with the least sense and the greatest cruelty.
— Ilka Chase

It is possible to pull out justification for imposing your will on others, simply by calling your will God's will.
— Ruth Hurmence Green

What mean and cruel things men do for the love of God.
— Somerset Maugham

What is objectionable, what is dangerous, about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents.
— Robert F. Kennedy, (1925-1968)

Religious tolerance has developed more as a consequence of the impotence of religions to impose their dogmas on each other than as a consequence of spiritual humility.
— Sidney Hook, (1902-1989)

The doctrine which, from the very first origin of religious dissensions, has been held by bigots of all sects, when condensed into a few words and stripped of rhetorical disguise, is simply this: I am in the right, and you are in the wrong. When you are the stronger, you ought to tolerate me; for it is your duty to tolerate truth. But when I am the stronger I shall persecute you; for it is my duty to persecute error.
— Lord Macaulay, (1800-1859)

It goes with the passionate intensity and deep conviction of the truth of a religious belief, and of course of the importance of the superstitious observances that go with it, that we should want others to share it -- and the only certain way to cause a religious belief to be held by everyone is to liquidate nonbelievers. The price in blood and tears that mankind generally has had to pay for the comfort and spiritual refreshment that religion has brought to a few has been too great to justify our entrusting moral accountancy to religious belief.
— Sir Peter Medawar

I have observed that the world has suffered far less from ignorance than from pretensions to knowledge. It is not skeptics or explorers but fanatics and ideologues who menace decency and progress. No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever.
— Daniel Boorstin

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
— Jonathan Swift, 1711

Answer 6

because they don't have the psychological f*ckery that religions such as xtianity and islam cause. They don't burden their psyches with having to obey ten commandments or make sure their women are veiled. artificial things as such are poisonous to the human imperative, and ppl under the grips of such act out inhumanely: priest abusing kids, women getting stoned for having premarital sex, ppl getting shot for disrespecting others' gods, evil in the name of man-written books, and other 'crazinesses.'

atheists generally take the world for what it is, kick back, enjoy their span of existence and fade to dust.

Answer 7

Looks can be deceiving. What may appear as a utopia to atheists listening to the hype about these countries being so wonderful, because they have rejected God and gone their own way (if that is even true), does not necessarily make it true. And if it is true, then I suppose Satan need not bother them, they are already doing exactly as he wants. But it will not be worth it in the end. It makes sense that those countries who are divided over Christianity would have the most problems---there is a spiritual battle taking place for the souls of man.

Answer 8

I think that theists feel threatened by challenges and take them as attacks where as athiests accept challenges as debatable topics that are settled by logic and facts. By this nature theists are inherently defensive and reactive, while an atheist is more likely to absorb the information being put forth to them (individually or collectively) and then find rational solutions rather then reactive ones.

I like this little joke,
http://www.nearingzero.net/screen_res/nz251.jpg
it reminds me of Christianity's reaction to Galileo's logic and is a good example of this combative rather then rational nature.

Answer 9

I am not really sure. As a guess, atheists are less likely to get brainwashed into believing that another country poses a significant threat to them and so are less likely to be the aggressors in a war.

The USSR was not a country whose people chose atheism. It was forced on them.

Answer 10

You probably won't get much but people who show hate or ignorance as answers. Sad that it's true. Those who preach peace rarely ever follow it.