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Nimetic · 08-01-2007, 06:47 PM

That's a fairly odd comment that you make make - effectively that the amount of crime is inversely proportional to the religious belief. If this is something you believe, I would suggest you find evidence and post it.

My guess is that there is no evidence to support this, and it's just something you have been told. If so, you are correct to question it, in my view.

Consider for example US vs AU. There is (it appears) much more religious faith in the US than here. However the number of people in prison in the US (per capita) is higher (I believe). This is not the same as crime rate, but anecdotally, crime rate also seems to be higher in the US than here. I'd probably need to double check these numbers.

But then consider Iraq.... there is a strong belief system there. But there's undeniably a reasonable amount of crime.

It seems much more likely that the level of crime is affected by many more factors, including but not limited to moral systems/philosophy in society, economic prosperity (if you cannot eat, you might steal), joblessnes and unemployment benefits (or lack of), drug use, police numbers, drug use, effectiveness of mental health facilities and so on.

Lets leave that aside for now. My understanding is that the level of belief in religion has been falling for a long time. Quite simply - there are alternative belief systems and they are legal whereas they were once banned by the church.

And then too - a significant part of the scientific and philosophical framework we have today arises from view that everything must be questioned, tested and debated. Oddly this seems to have been a teaching of Socrates... so it's an old concept.

But he was sentenced to death for his view... today, some people are employed in part because they take that position.

08-01-2007, 06:47 PM	#2 (permalink)
Nimetic Junkie Location: Melbourne, Australia	That's a fairly odd comment that you make make - effectively that the amount of crime is inversely proportional to the religious belief. If this is something you believe, I would suggest you find evidence and post it. My guess is that there is no evidence to support this, and it's just something you have been told. If so, you are correct to question it, in my view. Consider for example US vs AU. There is (it appears) much more religious faith in the US than here. However the number of people in prison in the US (per capita) is higher (I believe). This is not the same as crime rate, but anecdotally, crime rate also seems to be higher in the US than here. I'd probably need to double check these numbers. But then consider Iraq.... there is a strong belief system there. But there's undeniably a reasonable amount of crime. It seems much more likely that the level of crime is affected by many more factors, including but not limited to moral systems/philosophy in society, economic prosperity (if you cannot eat, you might steal), joblessnes and unemployment benefits (or lack of), drug use, police numbers, drug use, effectiveness of mental health facilities and so on. Lets leave that aside for now. My understanding is that the level of belief in religion has been falling for a long time. Quite simply - there are alternative belief systems and they are legal whereas they were once banned by the church. And then too - a significant part of the scientific and philosophical framework we have today arises from view that everything must be questioned, tested and debated. Oddly this seems to have been a teaching of Socrates... so it's an old concept. But he was sentenced to death for his view... today, some people are employed in part because they take that position.