Belief In Hell Predicts a Country's Crime Rates Better Than Other Factors 471
An anonymous reader writes "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."
So religion is an evolutionary strategy (Score:1, Funny)
Therefore, the only logical choice is to believe in religion as an evolutionary strategy to advance the human race!
Ha! Suck it fundamentalist atheists! You're on the losing side of the evolution fight this time!
Re:So, Judeo-Christian areas, then? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So, Judeo-Christian areas, then? (Score:5, Funny)
As an atheist, I didn't used to, but then I spent a few weeks in Arkansas. If that's not hell, I don't know what is...
Re:So religion is an evolutionary strategy (Score:5, Funny)
Ha! Suck it fundamentalist deists! You're on the no statistical significance side of the evolution fight this time!
Re:Huh (Score:4, Funny)
They were going to include Jedi, but after some hand-waving they "forgot" to.
Re:Savvy study author ... (Score:2, Funny)
Where can I get hired to turn our crap like this and never have to produce on solid thing that can be measured against the real world?
Washington, D.C.
Detroit (Score:5, Funny)
People who live in Detroit? All they have to do is open a window and look outside.
Re:Savvy study author ... (Score:2, Funny)
2.4 + 2.4 = 4.8 and depending on the rounding used it can translate to 2 + 2 = 5
Re:Savvy study author ... (Score:3, Funny)
Wall Street should have just about no crime, then.
Re:Savvy study author ... (Score:5, Funny)
Where can I get hired to turn our crap like this and never have to produce on solid thing that can be measured against the real world?
Trick is, you can dig at the softness of the soft sciences all you want; but it's a knife-fight-in-a-telephone-booth to get a decent tenure track job in them. For every one who gets to bullshit in public, there are probably 20 or more grading freshman philosophy papers for $12,000/year.
How's that for true hell? A brutal, dog-eat-dog competition, with no real world metrics against which to measure yourself? An endless, inter-subjective void, with nothing but brutal struggle for the few jobs that exist, and lots of Derrida. Flee crying back to the hard sciences while you still can, grasshopper...
Re:Savvy study author ... (Score:5, Funny)
Wow, way to miss the point and look like a pompous ass.