Religion, Atheism and Crime
77
Religion and Peace
What is the relationship between religion and crime? Is a more religious society a more peaceful one? Does non-belief lead to more violence? To answer these questions, we will consider rates of religious adherence and rates of crime in the US nationally, among the US states, and among developed countries.
God and Crime in America: Trends Over Time
The United States has become more secular in the late 20th and early 21st century. We see the following patterns:
- Christians: About 86% of Americans considered themselves Christians in 1990, but by 2008 this number had fallen to between 76 and 78%.
- Nonbelievers: Americans with no religion rose from 8% in 1990 to 15% in 2008. Every state saw a rise in its proportion of nonbelievers.
- Prayer: The percentage of people who ever prayed stood at 95% in 1983, and dropped to about 88% by 2008. Meanwhile, the number of people who reported "never" praying rose from about 4% to 11% in the same period.
- Religious service attendance: In 1972, the majority of people attended religious services once a month or more frequently. In 2008, a slim majority attended several times a year or less often. The greatest growth has been among those never attending. Actual weekly church attendance is estimated at somewhere between 17 and 30%, not the 40% level common in self-reporting polls. This means that at least 70% of Americans do not attend church weekly, or even every other week. And this has been true for several decades.
- Reading sacred texts: In 2007, 41% of people reported reading sacred texts less than once a year, or never.
So America has clearly become more secular in the last 40 years. What has crime done during this time? The data indicates that since 1970, crime has increased, and then decreased (see the chart below that I made in Microsoft Excel, using data from the BJS).
In 2007, violent crime was roughly where it was forty years earlier. And property crime was actually below where it had been. Decreasing religious belief has either had no impact, or a slightly positive impact, on the American crime rate.
God and Crime in America: Among the States
Among the American states, there is a neutral-to-positive correlation between religious behavior, and rates of crime. To see this relationship, I used three measures:
- The FBI's statistics for crime by state in 2006;
- Rates of church or synagogue attendance by state in 2006; and
- The importance of religion in people's daily lives by state in 2009
Religiosity had no significant relationship with violent crime, but it had a notable positive correlation with property crime. To see this, I simply used Microsoft Excel to plot the numbers against each other (see charts below).
If nothing else, this data disproves the notion that less religious belief inexorably contributes to, or is correlated with, more crime. Not only is this completely false, but the opposite--that religion is correlated with crime--is somewhat true.
Property crime correlated with religious attendance
Property crime correlated with religion in daily life
God and Crime Around the World
As a general rule, religiosity is highest among the poorest nations of the world, and lowest among the richest. This Gallup study of global religiosity, asked people around the world if religion was an important part of their daily lives. Unsurprisingly, there is a general correlation between the importance of religion in daily life, and homicide rates.
Less scientifically, we can generally see that the more secular and agnostic societies of the rich world tend to be among the most peaceful, at least in the area of homicides. The US is the most murderous country in the rich world by far, while being one of the most religious. About 33% of Americans indicate religion is not important in their daily lives. For the least murderous societies (which include Singapore, Austria, Norway, Switzerland and Germany), this number is never lower than 40%, and goes as high as 78%.
A similar trend is seen globally, but it is weaker because of challenges in collecting international data, the wide diversity in laws, political issues (including terrorism and war), and a number of cultural and social factors that affect crime rates.
God and Crime: Conclusions
On an international, national or sub-national level, greater religiosity does not inevitably lead to a more peaceful society. Increasing rates of atheism and agnosticism do not and have not correlated with increasing crime rates. In fact, in many instances, the opposite has been true: increased religious adherence is correlated with more violence and social instability.
A number of reasons may be suggested for these results. Religion is caused by circumstances of poverty, lack of opportunities and violence (especially as people turn to religion to find peace). In addition, religion itself often cultivates violence, whether terrorism, domestic violence, or rivalry among religious groups with competing claims to the truth.
Related
vote upvote downshareprintflag
- Useful (7)
- Funny (1)
- Awesome (4)
- Beautiful
- Interesting (1)
CommentsLoading...
Sheesh, if religious belief and ethical behavior went together there would be no sex scandals of church officials. Is there some reason the religionists can't correlate this? But maybe saying some prayers for the poor constitutes redemption in their eyes.
Great job!
Poverty and lack of education are most likely factors for higher crime rates and religious irrationality ... they are both socio-cultural problems!
Thank you, Joyus.
The US is definitely the outlier among rich countries, but it's not just the US. Developed countries like Greece, Italy and Portugal show similar tendencies, relative to other rich countries, although not as pronounced.
Austinstar, yes--the most religious doing the worst things! We would expect the most religious people (church officials) to have uniformly the highest ethics, yet it turns out to be not the case. Great point.
I'm sure they will keep on praying, and I will keep on thinking.
f_hruz, thank you. Yes, the numbers confirm what we all know from anecdotal evidence/ experience--poverty, religion and other social maladies rise and fall together.
Fantastic Hub and very well researched.
As an Australian, it never ceases to amaze me when i hear about gun toting redneck bible bashers in the US and government leaders that are war mungers and go to church every Sunday and will start a war whenever they can. And then theres the lies which are told by the leaders in government which there are too many to mention.
Thanks, Glassy.
The numbers certainly have the power. People can't argue with facts.
It's amazing what some good research can do to shake up those old assumptions.
Yes, the church going, so called honest Christian people would do anything to suppress those facts to make sure they wont come out and if those facts were out in the open, you would get channels such as Fox and the religious channels - twisting and manipulating the truth to suit their needs and the sad truth is, the majority will for for the spin.
Well conceived, well researched and well written...and what's more, you never make any spelling mistakes. You're a role model for hub writing secs. Great job.
Thanks, Jane. That's very kind. I wouldn't be able to live with myself with the kinds of mistakes I see on some hubs, lol. (Insider's tip: Safari automatically underlines misspelled words. I've always been a more or less perfect speller, but it does make the job much easier and quicker :)
The true test of a writer, though, is proper grammar and punctuation, while maintaining a consistent voice.
Anyway, this hub was a lot of work because of all the sources involved. Still very rewarding, though, as it always is.
The Global Peace Index is another international measure that correlates strongly with secularism/ non-belief.
http://www.visionofhumanity.org/wp-content/uploads
The GPI incorporates a variety of indicators that affect peace, including violent crime, political instability, exports of weaponry, likelihood of violent demonstrations, and prison population.
Secs, For some reason Safari keeps freezing and I don't know how to fix it. I had to download Firefox. I wonder what it could be...?
All those who claim that only Christian believers can be moral should read this :)
Jane, not sure. Might have something to do with your operating system. I'm definitely no computer expert, though.
Trish--Exactly! Especially since the stats for the United States deal with a predominantly Christian population (at least in name). Plus Christianity is the dominant religion in many poorer countries that are studied in the international surveys.
Even aside from the numbers, just the existence of a single peaceful/ stable society of millions of people who are not religious at all (at least not in the traditional sense) is enough to completely disprove that notion. And there are several such societies in the world.
Very interesting. I'll have to look into this further :)
A very good read, and well written as others have pointed out.
The comments are informative too!
A great piece of work.
Thanks, Earnest. Appreciate it.
Glad you enjoyed it.
I do not know about the crime rate in religious countries as compared to countries who are not religious. However, i do know that a lot of religious people tend to say one thing and do exactly the opposite of what they preach.
Shirley, well the data show that more religious societies tend to have more social problems, including crime, than less religious ones. So there is a correlation there.
Hypocrisy is indeed very common among the religious. I think this is largely because the values and beliefs of most major religions were created eons ago in very different cultural and political climates from what people experience today.
So their beliefs and ideas end up clashing with the reality they experience in their day-to-day lives. This is also a major reason why religion is dying in the most prosperous societies.
Thanks for visiting.
Higher levels of social problems lead to more religiosity. People in troubled societies turn to religion as a means of coping with uncertainty. Here is a good article that deals with this: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-human-beas
Very true, gobangla. The article mentions the interesting effect of social welfare programs--this helps to explain why religiosity is more common in the US than in other developed countries, since in the US the social programs are less developed and more limited.
In a way, religion often functions as a kind of alternative social program for people, especially psychologically and emotionally. The importance of sports and other entertainment activities in the decline of religion is also very important.
This is quite an interesting hub. Well written, and well-supported with facts.
Thanks, Chasuk. Glad you liked it.
Sure thing, Charlie. It is easy to take two sets of numbers with similar characteristics and assume a matching relationship exists. It is another thing to establish the relationship. This you have failed to do.
Years ago,someone noticed that when women's hemlines in the fall fashion shows were shorter, the stock market went up. And when hemlines got lower, the stock market went down. Does that mean that there really is is a co-relation between the two things? Can you draw the conclusion that stock investors a re a bunch of Male Chauvanist Pigs who like looking at women's thighs"?
Other factors may be at play here. Such as improved policing,, incarceration rates and longer sentences keeping criminals off the streets, improvements in home security systems, etc. Drawing a conclusion by carefully selecting your data is a fools errand.
Mark Twain said it best: "There are three kinds of lies, lies, damned lies and statistics."
Well, I don't know who Charlie is. If you actually read the article, you will note the word "cause" does not appear anywhere except in the last paragraph where I talk about what religion is caused by--which are the same kinds of things crime is caused by.
The word "correlation" does appear several times, though. And I do not believe religion causes crime per se, but overall the relationship is clear.
Yes, there is (or at least was) a correlation between skirt length and the stock market: they went in the same direction, as you mentioned. Does this mean that skirt length CAUSES the stock movements? Of course not.(Although, as someone who lives and works in New York City, and who has known plenty of financial guys, I can tell you that yes, they tend to be high on the testosterone scale!).
The reason that correlation exists (we can assume) is that they are both tied to economic circumstances. Briefly, the idea is women wear shorter skirts when they have more confidence, they feel more liberated, safer, and are more willing to take risks, all of which are closely tied to their economic well being. And increasing economic well being is obviously tied to a rising stock market.
Correlation is easy to establish, causation is much more difficult.
This article just clarifies the correlation. And in doing so, makes clear that many religious people's assertion that a decline in religion leads to an increase in crime is completely false.
Sure statistics can be manipulated. That is why I openly welcome anybody who has more comprehensive data indicating the opposite--that less religion is clearly correlated with more crime--to show it.
You could just as easily determine that there is an inverse correlation between rising sea levels in Fiji and Crime in the United States, or a direct correlation with the decline in smokers in the general population with the apparent decline in religion. Both would be fairly simple exercises with a spreadsheet. Neither would establish anything of particular merit.
The difference is that we know religion and religious belief influences people's behavior, values, lifestyle, life choices and ethics. These things have clear implications for crime. Sea levels do not.
Joyus Crynoid Level 3 Commenter 13 months ago
Well done secularist10! I think the key correlation is with poverty, which attracts both crime and religion. The USA is a bit anamolous, but then we were founded by puritans. Thanks for busting the erroneous myth that religious belief is needed for ethical behavior.