https://www.medicaldaily.com/belief-hell-predicts-countrys-crime-rates-more-accurately-other-social-or-economic-factors-240882
A study was conducted that showed that societies that generally believed in the existence of hell had significantly lower crime rates.
Religion is often thought of as psychological defense against bad behavior, but researchers have recently found that the effect of religion on pro-social behaviors may actually be driven by the belief in hell and supernatural punishment rather than faith in heaven and spiritual benevolence.
In a large analysis of 26 years of data consisting of 143,197 people in 67 countries, psychologists found significantly lower crime rates in societies where many people believe in hell compared to those where more people believed in heaven.
"The key finding is that, controlling for each other, a nation's rate of belief in hell predicts lower crime rates, but the nation's rate of belief in heaven predicts higher crime rates, and these are strong effects," lead author Azim Shariff, professor of psychology and director of the Culture and Morality Lab at the University of Oregon said in a university news release.
"I think it's an important clue about the differential effects of supernatural punishment and supernatural benevolence. The finding is consistent with controlled research we've done in the lab, but here shows a powerful 'real world' effect on something that really affects people – crime," he said.
Religious belief generally has been perceived as "a monolithic construct," Shariff said. "Once you split religion into different constructs, you begin to see different relationships. In this study, we found two differences that go in opposite directions. If you look at overall religious belief, these separate directions are washed out and you don't see anything. There's no hint of a relationship."
Previous research published 2011 in the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion found that undergraduate students were more likely to cheat when they believed in a forgiving God compared to those who believed in a punishing God.
Interestingly, in 2003 Harvard researchers found that the gross domestic product (GDP) was higher in developed countries when people believed in hell more than they did in heaven.
Researchers said their findings support previous findings that a society's predominant belief in either heaven or hell strongly predicted a country's crime rate.
"Here, we investigate these effects at the societal level, showing that the proportion of people who believe in hell negatively predicts national crime rates whereas belief in heaven predicts higher crime rates," researchers wrote.
"These effects remain after accounting for a host of covariates, and ultimately prove stronger predictors of national crime rates than economic variables such as GDP and income inequality," they added.
Researchers had accounted for factors like nations' dominant religion (Roman Catholic, other Christian and Muslim), income inequality, life expectancy and incarceration rate.
"Supernatural punishment across nations seems to predict lower crime rates," Shariff said. "At this stage, we can only speculate about mechanisms, but it's possible that people who don't believe in the possibility of punishment in the afterlife feel like they can get away with unethical behavior. There is less of a divine deterrent."
Shariff noted that because the findings were based off of correlational data, they do not prove causation.
The data for belief in hell and heaven, belief in God and religious attendance were taken from World Values and European Values surveys conducted between 1981 and 2007, and crime data were based on United Nations records of homicide, robbery, rape, kidnapping, assault, theft, drug-related crimes, auto theft, burglary and human trafficking.
"This research provides new insights into the potential influences of cultural and religious beliefs on key outcomes at a societal level," Kimberly Andrews Espy, vice president for research and innovation said in a statement. "Although these findings may be controversial, dissecting the associations between specific belief systems and epidemiologic behaviors is an important first step for social scientists to disentangle the complex web of factors that motivate human behavior."
The findings are published in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS ONE.
@whodey
You have a lot of Christians who believe that it is faith alone that gets one everlasting life and behaviour or "sin" or crimes do not affect this; there are Christians who are at pains to assert that obeying Jesus' commandments is not obligatory or necessary.
You have a lot of Christians who believe criminals go to heaven if they believe in Jesus and repent.
You have a lot of Christians who believe their "salvation" is assured because of their faith in Jesus.
You have a lot of Christians who believe that the proverbial concentration camp guard can get everlasting life if he starts believing in Jesus in the last few minutes of his life.
You don't have a lot of Christians on this website who 'teach' that you must try to live one's life in a righteous or worthy or morally sound way or that you must actively and consciously obey the commandments of Christ.
Instead, they 'teach' that one is "saved" by belief in Jesus only ~ that is to say, one is not "saved" by living a morally sound life in accordance with Christian pronciples.
How does "Hell" fit into this RHP reality?
@whodey saidWhy are there disproportionately more theists than atheists in prison then?
https://www.medicaldaily.com/belief-hell-predicts-countrys-crime-rates-more-accurately-other-social-or-economic-factors-240882
Puzzling.
But even if this is true ... so what?
What should society do with this revelation?
@whodey saidI just did a little browsing at wikipedia:
A study was conducted that showed that societies that generally believed in the existence of hell had significantly lower crime rates.
Six of the worst “high crime rate countries” and their percentage of Christians...
El Salvador ~ 82%
Venezuela ~ 88%
Honduras ~ 88%
Brazil ~ 91%
Guatemala ~ 87%
Colombia ~ 93%
Six of the “most atheist” countries and their crime rate ranking [230th would be the lowest crime rate in the world]...
China ~ 203rd out of 230
Japan ~ 219th
Czech Republic ~ 206th
France ~ 171st
Australia ~ 194th
Iceland ~ 188th
@wolfgang59 saidI have a feeling that there is a big fat juicy No True Scotsman fallacy lurking behind this easily-rebutted blather, and its potential for underpinning deceptive assertions may be why whodey gives it credence.
Why are there disproportionately more theists than atheists in prison then?
Puzzling.
But even if this is true ... so what?
What should society do with this revelation?
@fmf saidWow, only 82% of El Salvador identifies as being Christian? That's amazing to me. I also would have guessed Honduras & Venezuela would have been higher, but maybe not so much Venezuela, because of the creeping Communism.
I just did a little browsing at wikipedia:
Six of the worst “high crime rate countries” and their percentage of Christians...
El Salvador ~ 82%
Venezuela ~ 88%
Honduras ~ 88%
Brazil ~ 91%
Guatemala ~ 87%
Colombia ~ 93%
Six of the “most atheist” countries and their crime rate ranking [230th would be the lowest crime rate in the world]...
China ~ 203rd out of 230
Japan ~ 219th
Czech Republic ~ 206th
France ~ 171st
Australia ~ 194th
Iceland ~ 188th
@whodey saidThese are truly troubling statistics.
https://www.medicaldaily.com/belief-hell-predicts-countrys-crime-rates-more-accurately-other-social-or-economic-factors-240882
A study was conducted that showed that societies that generally believed in the existence of hell had significantly lower crime rates.
Religion is often thought of as psychological defense against bad behavior, but researchers have recently found ...[text shortened]... te human behavior."
The findings are published in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS ONE.
It seems that Christians' behavior is way more selfish than I thought.
@philokalia saidChristianity and communism are in no way exclusive.
Wow, only 82% of El Salvador identifies as being Christian? That's amazing to me. I also would have guessed Honduras & Venezuela would have been higher, but maybe not so much Venezuela, because of the creeping Communism.
@whodey said1) the author of the study acknowledges “no causality” in his particular research, which incidentally was a laboratory correlation of other surveys going back to 1981 and not direct field work.
https://www.medicaldaily.com/belief-hell-predicts-countrys-crime-rates-more-accurately-other-social-or-economic-factors-240882
A study was conducted that showed that societies that generally believed in the existence of hell had significantly lower crime rates.
Religion is often thought of as psychological defense against bad behavior, but researchers have recently found ...[text shortened]... te human behavior."
The findings are published in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS ONE.
2) fear is an excellent deterrent, always has been always will be.
3) hell doesn’t exist so should we make it up and lie to children in order to make them afraid?
@fmf saidThe study author acknowledges “no causation”.
I have a feeling that there is a big fat juicy No True Scotsman fallacy lurking behind this easily-rebutted blather, and its potential for underpinning deceptive assertions may be why whodey gives it credence.
All the results are lab number crunching work based on surveys across decades and not controlled field work ~ the correlations are riddled with assumptions and controls in order to pull out trends which would most likely not be replicated in a field based independent study.
Muslim counties in Asia didn’t follow the trends.
@divegeester saidMuslims certainly purport to believe in "Hell".
Muslim counties in Asia didn’t follow the trends.
@fmf saidIndeed, and almost equally in heaven, but in the actual study the author was not able to find the same trends correlating to crime rate and belief in Hell when they controlled for belief in heaven, as they did in the data correlations across other countries.
Muslims certainly purport to believe in "Hell".
@whodey said
A study was conducted that showed that societies that generally believed in the existence of hell had significantly lower crime rates.
whodey quoted from the article:
“Although these findings may be controversial...”
What is so controversial about allegedly finding that if you threaten to burn someone alive for doing X, that incidents of X diminish...?
@suzianne saidThey tend to be in practice, though.
Christianity and communism are in no way exclusive.
Hence the murder of 300,000 Orthodox clergy at the hands of Communists in the Soviet Union.
...
But yes, I get it:
BuT ThAT'S NoT ReAl CoMmUniSm...