Thread: Heaven, Hell, and Crime

Originally Posted by mapleleafalumnus

Taken from the accompanying article:
"The researchers found that the degree to which each country’s citizens believed more strongly in heaven than in hell predicted higher national crime rates. It seems that believing more strongly in the forgiveness of sins than in punishment in the after-life may help pave the way for further transgressions."
Thus, in a nutshell, the more likely a society is to believe in deities, the higher the crime rate.

I would say that your deduction is correct. If you look at the current state of religion in the United States and the number of individuals that we have incarcerated :
US is 1; Europe is 4 ; left to right(yes it didn't copy completely)
You can conclude that religion in the US doesn't seem to have a positive societal relationship to crime.