Belief in Hell lowers crime rates

[Pb]

The study is five years old, but I find it interesting, and a bit unexpected.  I'm shocked the correlation is as strong as it is.

Generally, more people believe in Heaven than Hell.  The authors subtracted the percent of people who believe in Hell from those that believe in Heaven.  This indicates the strenght of a people's belief in Hell.

They found that "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."

The Economist article:
https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/09/daily-chart

The paper:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0039048#pone-0039048-t001

Here's the chart:

[Perd Hapley]

But believing in Hell is so backward! It makes God look like such a big meanie!

[Fitz]

Not super shocking. those who believe their actions have eternal consequences tend to watch their actions ;-)

[just Warren]

But what is Hell?

Is it still the old fire n' brimstone place or has it been updated and perhaps customized for modern generations?

Because if I find the afterlife consists solely of vegan restaurants where every night is free-verse poetry night and all of Aaron Sorkin's shows are on endless loops I'm going to be very, very angry.

[230RN]

I don't believe in either Heaven or Hell and I operate as legally and ethically as I can based on an internal code of ethics.  There is no external monitoring entity's reward/punishment scheme involved except for some technically illegal civil matters, viz.:

I don't rob liquor stores because it's wrong, not because there's a prison term associated with it.

On the other hand, I don't own full auto weapons because it's civilly wrong without proper credentials, not because of my code of ethics.  (Whose picture is on this coin?)

Terry, 230RN

[Perd Hapley]

Heh.  I don't believe in either Heaven or Hell and I operate as legally and ethically as I can based on an internal code of ethics.  There is no external monitoring entity's reward/punishment scheme involved except for some technically illegal civil matters, viz.:

I don't rob liquor stores because it's wrong, not because there's a prison term associated with it.

On the other hand, I don't own full auto weapons because it's civilly wrong without proper credentials, not because of my code of ethics.  (Whose picture is on this coin?)

Terry, 230RN

And they say religious people are self-righteous. 

[230RN]

 ^ Good one ! 

[Pb]

Ok, looking at the chart I am starting to wonder if this holds- Does Nigeria have less crime than Sweden?  I kind of doubt it.  I wonder if their crime rate stats are inaccurate.  Countries don't always keep accurate records of crimes...  Hmmm...

Here is how the determined "crime":

Mean standardized crime rates were computed from the 10 crimes for which the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) [14] had reliable statistics: homicide (N = 67 countries), robbery (N = 51), rape (N = 48), kidnapping (N = 46), assault (N = 48), theft (N = 47), drug crime (N = 47), auto theft (N = 28), burglary (N = 43), and human trafficking (N = 39). These data were compiled by the UNODC from national government sources, including police and court records, national statistics ministries, and other national government bodies. For each individual crime, the annual data from 2003–2008 were averaged to form a single 5-year measure, except for homicide data, which were taken from the latest available single year (range 2004–2010).