Prison population. Atheists: 1%, Christians: 75%

[sapphi_snake]

Joelcool7 said:

 

So many factor's, I think these stats show clearly that athiests and Christian's , Jews and all faiths are equally involved in crime. When you take population and capita into the equation.

I wouldn't try and claim that athiests or people of any belief are more prone to crime then another group. Go to Saudi Arabia and you'll find the majority are muslim. Thailand and you'll find the majority are buddhist. If their was a country where athiesm was the majority then I'm sure in that country the majority of crimes would be committed by athiests!

 

Thig is, that I'm quite sure that smaller percentages of atheists and Jews are in jail compared to christians. And this is also compared to the overall populations of these groups, which is important: 1% of convicts are atheists, while 10-15% of the total population is atheist; 75% percent of convicts are christians, while 76% of the population is christian. Don't know what the statistics are for Jews, but I don't think they're as likely to commit a crime as christians.

Of course, as it has been said, this is more likely due to socio-economic factors, rather than having any connection to any ideology. Atheist are generally better educated and on average have better financial sirtuations than christians (and the religious in general in the Western world), and I don't even have to mention Jews (in this case it really is due to their religion that they're better off). It would be interesting to know the differences between 'blue collar crimes' and 'white collar crimes' (in the latter I think everyone is equally represented).

Also, jsut because many convicts 'find God' in jail doesn't necesarrily mean they were atheists. It could be possible that they were simply indifferent to religion (which would not be the same as being atheist), or they were too busy doing drugs to practice whatever religion they were brought up in.