Since we know morals come from the bible could someone please explain these statistics to me.?

Question

Appendix: 1997 Federal Bureau of Prisons from Denise Golumbaski, as formatted in Rice/Swift
Note that in this version, the names of a couple of religious groups remain non-standardized, and self-identified "Atheist" remains separate from "Unknown/None."
Response Number %
---------------------------- --------
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%

Since most Christians here say that a) morals come from the bible and b) that Atheists have no morals....please explain

Perhaps I worded it wrong, I am an atheist I am asking this of the christians who say we have no morals.

Answer 1

I have to agree with those who say that this probably represents similar percentages to those of society in general.

However, the idea that morals come from some sort of religion or the bible would logically lead to the assumption that atheists commit more crimes than religious people.

In this case the figures then should show that if the general population is say 1% atheist you should have a higher than 1% representation of atheists in jail.
I am guessing from looking at these figures that this is not the case.

I guess what I am getting at is that though these figures do not show that any particular religous group is more predisposed towards crime, it also does not show that atheists are - which is what you would expect it to show if all morals came from the bible. ...which means thAt atheists have morals too...

wow----what a long winded way to 'rationally' argue what I already knew...sorry....I am tired & not as coherent as I could be....I hope this made some sense....

The more interesting statistics to me are the ones that show that more predominantly secular countries (the UK & parts of scandinavia for example) have much lower crime rates overall.....

By the way I do not think you worded it wrong at all...I think several people assumed certain things & did not read it properly....

Answer 2

Well, first of all I found the site you quote and noted that it is by people trying to disprove certain pastor's teachings. They are not exactly an unbiased source.

Secondly, the percentage of prison population is meaningless. I checked the census bureau and discovered that Christians are 159,506,000 in this country. Atheists are 902,000. Therefore the %age of the Christian population that is in jail is less than .1% The same is true of the atheist population. Neither group seems to have a real problem with crime.

Also remember that the Christian figures may be inaccurate. Many persons identify themselves as Christian though they neither practice nor believe Christian tenets. It is also possible that some of these people became Christians in jail through prison ministries. While a person may become atheist in jail after committing the crime, it is not likely that they would profess atheism without indeed not believing in God.

Thirdly, as has been stated before, no one has asserted that atheists are without morals or values. In some cases their values come from religious sources and in some cases they come from societal sources. Sometimes they come from their own unique circumstances and decisions. As an example, both Christians and Atheists believe that killing is wrong. The atheist who grew up in America may have first learned that from rules and traditions that are originally Judaeo-Christian.

Pastor John

Answer 3

The explanation is easy. You must also look at these groups in their percentage to the total population in the US. Catholics and Protestants are dominant, so it would make sense they have the most representation. The other groups make up a very small minority, so their representation would be less. You know you could take the same groups and find out the percentage of them that watch baseball on TV and the numbers would look pretty much the same. And remember just because someone says they are a Christian does not mean they are, Jesus said you would recognize His disciples by their fruit. God bless.

Answer 4

You are begging the question. First you have to establish that morals come from the Bible and there is overwhelming evidence that they don't. Every society has morals and ethics which are determined so that humans can live together in harmony. They are not tied to any particular religion. Most have similar rules regarding killing, stealing and sleeping with someone else's wife. This has nothing to do with the Bible.

Answer 5

What makes you think that morals come from the bible? What was there before the bible? What is moral about a "holy war"? Were the native americans, australians, africans, asians, early europeans, etc, immoral? Religion is just a bunch of politicians in sheeps clothing trying to monopolize and sell their version of morality, for power and profit.

Answer 6

Morals comes from what is called moral philosophy.
Aristotle's book called ethics is another.

Amazing that catholics are at the top of the list and Atheists are less than 1%....

Answer 7

Do YOU believe that moral behaviour only developed 6-8,000 years ago when humans have been roaming the earth for some hundreds of thousands of years?

Answer 8

First... Very roughly the same as the nonjailed population

Second... People can claim to be something without really holding to it's ideals

Third... We don't 'know' that in the first place. Though I think you knew that perfectly well.

Fourth... Political stances don't make good questions. Nor do rhetorical ones.

Answer 9

People had morals long before religion and way before the Bible. The religious myth came from those morals (though slightly different in different cultures), not vice versa :)

Answer 10

Atheists is pretty far down there. Looks to me like atheists are less likely to break the law.