Note: The articles linked below do not necessarily reflect my opinions, but they presented some interesting statistics for me to contemplate. If you, dear reader, regard the Bible as the moral basis of Western civilization, you may strongly disagree with the positions presented in the articles to which I’ve linked (and, in fact, may be offended at their content). However, I’d encourage you to correct inaccuracies if they exist, rather than shoot the messenger 🙂
I came across an interesting statistic regarding the numbers of various religious types in prison, and this statistic contrasted with the likelihood of an atheist being incarcerated.
The article suggests than an atheist is forty times less likely to be incarcerated than a Christian, but caveats:
We should not read too much into this large number, however, since it is influenced by many factors. One consideration is that atheism is positively correlated to such things as educational attainment, higher scores on intelligence and achievement tests, and higher income, while crime is negatively correlated with these things.
A follow-up article also shows how the statistic was derived:
The number 40 was calculated from the following data: 1) atheists make up 0.209% of the US prison population, and 2) atheists make up 8-16% of the general US population. (The referenced Holysmoke article did not say why there was such a large range for the percentage of atheists in the general population, but it probably has to do with how the question was asked. A survey that asks “Are you an atheist?” will give very different results from a survey that asks “Do you believe in a conscious being that created the universe and that listens to our prayers?”)
Using the lower figure of 8%, the fraction of atheists that are in prison is (0.00209 N)/(0.08 M), where N is the number of prisoners and M is the number of people in the general population. Similarly, the fraction of theists that are in prison is ((1-0.00209) N)/((1-0.08) M). The desired result is the ratio of these numbers, which is about 42. If we had used the mean value of 12% for the percentage of atheists in the general population, we would have found that theists are about 65 times more likely than atheists to end up in prison.
Do you think this relationship is just chance, a misreading of statistics, or possibly a misrepresentation? Or, could it be that education, intelligence, and higher income are a more sure indication of avoidance of a life of crime than any other factors — including religion?
Misrepresentation?
Without looking at the link and reading in depth, I’m already thinking that there could be misrepresentation. From what I gather watching late-night movies on TNT, don’t most criminals find religion in prison and use such new-found religion as a means to feel hope within confines?
If so, then this would skew the # of religious who are “convicted and sentenced”, which is probably a more appropriate field to sample data for this purpose.
Get In Groove, Sammy G
good point
I’m interested in the statistic telling how many of the prisoners who claimed a religion actually worshipped before incarcerated. (I have not read the link.)
You can’t say that atheists are more intelligent, more educated and make more money than religous people. That just doesn’t hold water.–
Christy
Atheists and intelligence
You’re right, that doesn’t hold water, and wasn’t what I said. However, there are some very interesting correlations between education, intelligence, and religious pluralism. I’ve chosen not to cite the statistics I prepared, but in general, the better-educated a person is, the more likely that person is to tolerate, or be indifferent to, alternative religious views.
Anyway, my original statement was:
This was a reference to the fact outlined in the article that education, intelligence, and high income are negatively correlated with incarceration, and positively correlated with atheism. That doesn’t mean that atheists are better in those ways compared to theists. It does mean that those in the lowest intelligence, income, and educational brackets (ergo the most likely to be incarcerated, statistically) are far less likely to be atheistic than those at the other end of the scale. It could be this correlation that partially explains the disproportionately small minority of atheists in prison, and not the fact of their atheism itself.
I hope that makes sense; I’m trying to learn statistics better. You can do some amazing things for humanity analyzing statistics, and you can also twist the truth. One fun hobby is figuring out which is which, which is what I’m trying to figure out here :).
—
Matthew P. Barnson
heavy stuff
–However, there are some very interesting correlations between education, intelligence, and religious pluralism. I’ve chosen not to cite the statistics I prepared, but in general, the better-educated a person is, the more likely that person is to tolerate, or be indifferent to, alternative religious views.–
Well, it’s more basic than that, actually. Studies have shown that fundamentalists of any stripe are lacking in higher levels of cognitive reasoning – the levels which enable people to see gray area, to express doubt. People who are more intelligent and more educated are therefore more likely to be able to reason on those higher levels of cognition, and are therefore more likely to question deeply held religious beliefs. There are always exceptions, of course, but the ability to question one’s religious beliefs is generally what leads to alternative religious beliefs or atheism.
I’d like to address a point in one of these articles, which may lead to a bigger discussion:
“The Moral-Knowledge Argument for Atheism 1. If God exists, then he is a being who is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. 2. If God exists, it would be in God’s interest and within his capacity for all human beings to know his ethics perfectly. 3. All human beings do not know God’s ethics perfectly, which is shown by their disagreeing about many moral values. Therefore: God does not exist.”
Well, I disagree with numbers 1 and 2. They are leaps to conclusions that have no basis in logic. If God exists, then there is no possible way for him to be omniscient, omnipotent, AND omnibenevolent. Otherwise, he would never let bad things happen to good people. Therefore, God must either not care that bad things happen to good people (and is therefore NOT omnibenevolent) or is unable for one reason or another to prevent bad things from happening (and is therefore NOT omnipotent). Personally, I side with the belief that God (in whatever form) is not omnipotent. I think there are a number of factors at play in the universe which effects what happens to people, and one of them is the old adage, “S*** Happens.” Some of the bad s*** in the universe is simply beyond God’s control.
And number 2 assumes that God has ethics of any sort that we puny humans could even comprehend.
— Ben Schuman Mad, Mad Tenor
Want.. to.. argue..
too.. sick.. to argue..
grr..