Legend A = Australia
C = Canada
D = Denmark
E = Great Britain
F = France
G = Germany
H = Holland
I = Ireland
J = Japan
L = Switzerland
N = Norway
P = Portugal
R = Austria
S = Spain
T = Italy
U = United States
W = Sweden
Z = New Zealand
Hey guys check out this interesting article: http://humaniststudies.org/enews/index.html?id=219&article=7
The gist of the article is that secular (non-religious) societies have much lower rates of violent crimes and teen pregnancy than religious ones.
Top of the class, in both atheism and good behavior, come the Japanese. Over eighty percent accept evolution and fewer than ten percent are certain that God exists. Despite its size – over a hundred million people – Japan is one of the least crime-prone countries in the world. It also has the lowest rates of teenage pregnancy of any developed nation.
(Teenage pregnancy has less tragic consequences than violence but it is usually unwanted, and it is frequently associated with deprivation among both mothers and children. In general, it is a Bad Thing.)
Next in line are the Norwegians, British, Germans and Dutch. At least sixty percent accept evolution as a fact and fewer than one in three are convinced that there is a deity. There is little teenage pregnancy , although the Brits, with over 40 pregnancies per 1,000 girls a year, do twice as badly as the others. Homicide rates are also low -- around 1-2 victims per 100,000 people a year.
At the other end of the scale comes America. Over 50 percent of Americans believe in God, and only 40 percent accept some form of evolution (many believe it had a helping hand from the Deity). The U.S. has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy and homicide rates are at least five times greater than in Europe and ten times higher than in Japan.
All this information points to a strong correlation between faith and antisocial behavior -- a correlation so strong that there is good reason to suppose that religious belief does more harm than good.
So that's the data. The rest of the article goes on to interpret what this data "means." The article's interpretation is intelligent and well reasoned, but I'd like to offer my own commentary:
Of course, I need to point out that correlation is not causation. It's definitely possible that crime and teenage pregnancy (both of which cause poverty and are caused by poverty) and religious belief are all the result of poverty.
This is certainly true in 3rd world countries which are some of the most religious people. However, I doubt this applies in America's case, the richest country in the world.
Here's my explanation: each of the former British colonies has its "birth defects" that they're sorta "stuck with." Canada has the French. Australia has the prisoners. The US had two things: slavery and religious nuts (in the form of Puritans, Quakers, Shakers, Mormons, Amish et al). That's why, in my opinion, America has been so stubborn in it's faith in religion and creationism while the rest of the developed world has "grown up."
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Stats are taken from Nation Master, an aggregate of the CIA's World Book Stats:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita
Can't just take half the story =P. Saudi Arabia and Qatar beat Japan in murders/capita with Japan having 4x the amount of murders/person compared to Qatar. Both are also heavy followers of Islam. There is no religious freedom in Saudi Arabia, meaning 100% Sunni Muslims and in Qatar, they banned pokemon for religious reasons...so they're more serious than the Saudis. Also, if you check other stats, like crime/capita, japan is not around the top. Rape/capita, Japan is not only beaten by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijin...but also India and the Christian states of Armenia and Greece.
Essentially, sure Japan does ok crime wise, and one would like to say...Japan is the image of the paradise representing atheistic state. Problem is, what about all the other predominantly atheistic states?
South Korea: no affiliation 46%, Christian 26%, Buddhist 26%, Confucianist 1%, other 1%
S. Korea's murder/1,000 is .019
Taiwan: mixture of Buddhist, Confucian, and Taoist 93%, Christian 4.5%, other 2.5%
Taiwan's murder/1,000 is .087
Yet they are above France (86% Roman Catholic alone) and the aforementioned Islamic states (10x less for Qatar and Saudi Arabia when compared to even South Korea, which is 4x less than Taiwan). I see no correlation here between religion and crime if you do not filter countries that don't include the name "America" in them for this analysis.
Also, I think the article is pulling a fast one. Somehow it lumped Britain into the non-religious community when they have been the seat of countless religious wars. How have they done this? The question is "convinced" versus believe. A survey that asks convinced means 100% sure while believing that there is a God (notice this looser term is used for America) is usually asking "Do you think there could be a God". Instead, the World Book from the CIA states that the UK is: Christian (Anglican, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist) 71.6%, Muslim 2.7%, Hindu 1%, other 1.6%, unspecified or none 23.1% (2001 census).
Odd isn't it, how much one can twist stuff around...there was a sudden 50% conversion from Christianity to atheism when Britain happened to have a low crime rate. Ridiculous.
the 10x less for qatar part is talking about murders/capita
btw, I am Taiwanese, so if you're korean, I'm not bashing you guys...
China would have been another example, but the government doesn't allow any murder/capita info to leak out on the internet...probably cuz it's so low it's not worth publishing =P
Joey,
I think the study was comparing the Western/developed nations. In other words, the countries that are both rich and free. I'm not sure how "free" Qatar is, but it's not really fair to compare police states and theocracies to democracies when looking at crime rates. You know, under Saddam Hussein, Iraq also had a really tiny crime rate because they had really harsh punishments. And I'll bet North Korea has a tiny crime rate too.
Specifically, the study was looking at:
A = Australia
C = Canada
D = Denmark
E = Great Britain
F = France
G = Germany
H = Holland
I = Ireland
J = Japan
L = Switzerland
N = Norway
P = Portugal
R = Austria
S = Spain
T = Italy
U = United States
W = Sweden
Z = New Zealand
More info on "how free" countries are.....
http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=363&year=2008
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