God, Hell and the Law?

[Atheist-Lite]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2 ... rates.html

Is God's mercy to blame for high crime rates?
A. Purcell

There's nothing like the fear of eternal damnation to encourage low crime rates. But does belief in heaven and a forgiving god encourage lawbreaking? A new study suggests it might – although establishing a clear link between the two remains a challenge.

Azim Shariff at the University of Oregon in Eugene and his colleagues compared global data on people's beliefs in the afterlife with worldwide crime data collated by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. In total, Shariff's team looked at data covering the beliefs of 143,000 individuals across 67 countries and from a variety of religious backgrounds.

In most of the countries assessed, people were more likely to report a belief in heaven than in hell. Using that information, the team could calculate the degree to which a country's rate of belief in heaven outstrips its rate of belief in hell.

Even after the researchers had controlled for a host of crime-related cultural factors – including GDP, income inequality, population density and life expectancy – national crime rates were typically higher in countries with particularly strong beliefs in heaven but weak beliefs in hell.

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[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

Couldn't be arsed reading. Long signature too annoying.

[Rum]

Couldn't be arsed reading. Long signature too annoying.

Ditto

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Ditto

tl;dr