Convicts and Christianity

Atheists like to point to surveys that indicate that convicts in maximum security prisons are less likely to be atheists than the population at large. That might very well be true. It may also be true that convicts in maximum security prisons are more likely to attend chapel services than the population at large is likely to attend church services. Some of these are trying to impress parole boards. Others are making a genuine effort to rehabilitate themselves.

I have a question, and I honestly do not know the answer. If anyone does, and can document it with a credible source, I would appreciate it. What effect does regular church attendance have on criminal behavior? Anyone can say that he believes in God. When other things are equal, such as income, age, education, race, and so on how does the crime rate of regular church attenders compare with those who do not attend church regularly?

It should be a fairly simple matter to learn the percentage of convicts at maximum security prisons who attended church regularly prior to sentencing, and compare it with the percentage of the population at large who attend church regularly.

As I have already said in this thread, by my definition a Christian can be evil, but a person has to attend church with a certain amount of regularity to be considered a Christian.

Once again, these are not leading questions. I do not know the answer. I would appreciate if someone could supply the answer, and document the answer. Thank you.

 

Violence and Atheism in North Korea

The government of North Korea is officially atheist. 64.3 percent of the population are listed as non religious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_North_Korea

North Korea has the highest per capita number of adults in active military service and in the reserves in the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_military_and_paramilitary_personnel

North Korea also has the highest murder rate of any Oriental country. At 15.2 a year per 100,000 inhabitants is is over three times the murder rate of the United States.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

 

What about when he says

“I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so”

[Adolph Hitler, to Gen. Gerhard Engel, 1941]

If being a Christian means you must go to Church, there are a lot let Christians in the USA, than we are led to believe. Or that the Church likes to take credit for.


And the debate here is not about about Christianity. It is about religion. Hitler often gets lumped in as an atheist. When he was not, in any sense of the word.

 

What the research shows is that on average (You like averages remember) the more atheists as a percentage of population, the more peaceful the country is.

 

North Korea is not non religious. Their leader is the dead but eternal Kim Il-sung who is also their god. And Kim Jong-Un is a demi god.

North Korea is a communist country. As a result, most people live in severe poverty. You will find if you look around the world, that the correlation between wealth and crime, is more tightly bound than race and crime.

 

At most Hitler was an agnostic. He did not practice any religion. He may have pandered to Christian sentiment on rare and public occasions. He thought about restoring Germany's pagan religion based on the worship of Wotan and Thor, but he did not put much effort into it.

 

Do the North Koreans believe that Kim Il-sung enjoys eternal life, and is looking over them? I doubt it.

You seem to be defining "religion" as any strong collective belief that you don't like.

 

Hitler very clearly believed in at very least, a creator, which would make him a Deist not agnostic, if it weren't for the fact he was a Christian.

Yes they do, if we take the official word from the country. Do you have a source that says otherwise ?

You are the one that is redefining religion. Religion is an organized collection of belief systems, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. North Koreans are religious. And Hitler was a Roman Catholic and a Nazi. Those two things are not mutually exclusive.

Atheism is not a religion. Atheism is an absence of a belief in god or deities.
Humanism is a religion, albeit one that is mainly made up of atheists.
Hitler believed in a creator. Thus he was a theist (at the very least a deist). Given the number of times he claimed he was a Christian, I shall take his word for it.

 

And is not the point of this thread "Religion is the trigger of most the hate in this world"?

Fact is, Hitler would have never have got the support he desired without the backing of the Catholic Church, whether or not he manipulated, or poisoned the Catholic religion for political gain is irrelevant to the point. Religion was used to trigger the hate. It was the anti-semitic views of the Roman Catholic church which made jews such an easy scapegoat for the Nazis.

A famous quote. In the world you will have good people doing good things, bad people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. 1930's Germany being the perfect example.

 

It was a question, not a point; and the answer is "no." Religion has never been a trigger for hatred, only an excuse. Groups of humans have hated each other since before you could reasonably call them human, millions of years before religion was ever invented.

 

There were certainly some Nazi Party members who really were "devout Roman Catholics." By that I mean that they attended confession and mass regularly.

Adolf Hitler was not one of them. To call a man who said this, "The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew," a "devout Roman Catholic" is to distort the meaning of words.

Hitler also said, "It is sufficient for [humans] to conform to the laws of nature. Let's seek inspiration in these principles, and in the long run we'll triumph over religion."

 

Give that man a gold star next to his name.

Those who hate are hurting people. Occasionally they hate the causes of their pain. If they are hostile because they have failed to achieve their goals in life they are more likely to respond to a more diffuse need to hate. Those with large reservoirs of hostility may be attracted to religions that seem to justify their hatred, but they do not hate because of the religions. The hate comes first.

 

During Hitler's rise to power the Roman Catholic political party in Germany was the German Centre Party. Once Hitler obtained power the Roman Catholic Party was more acquiescent than most Catholics wish, but it cannot be said that it supported Hitler.

 

You are confusing religion with political ideology. A religion believes in a super natural power. A political ideology does not, although adherents may.

Religious beliefs and political beliefs can become fanatical, but the great majority of people who practice a religion, or who adhere to a set of political beliefs are not fanatics.

 

Tell that to the families of those that died on 9/11. Those Hijackers proclaimed they love death more than we could ever love life. They blew themselves up not because they hated the victims(although they did), But because they thought they were doing the greatest conceivable thing a man could do in the name of their god. They were awaiting the ultimate reward, Gods company in paradise, and something about virgins.

 

Find me what it says in the dictionary please. I think you will find no where does it say religion exclusively requires a god.

By your definition Buddhism would not be a religion.

 

How's your argument with the forum dumbass going Dave? You tiring of his dullness yet?

 

No. I don't mind discussing, debating and arguing with DL.

I think it's safe to say I disagree with him an awful lot, Perhaps most strongly on economics, politics, science, religion and history. However, he doesn't resort to personal insults, at least with me. Therefore I am quite happy for the argument to continue.

 

Politics, religion, economics, history and science huh?

Not much left to argue about. Art?

 

They think they get 72 virgins but I've always been curious about
something. If a Muslim suicide bomber was Siamese twins would
they get 144 virgins? It would also be BORING! I'd take 72
women who knew what they were doing ANY day and twice on
Saturday.:excited: