Atheism, Religion, and Crime

[Charlemagne_II]

Charles Darwin

Name the countries and name your source?

And would you like to live in those countries? Which ones in particular?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

anEvilAtheist
*
I guess all of us atheists must be lying to you when we say that we donate our time and money to charity. I must really just enjoy spending all my free time killing people.*

I also am glad to hear you are doing this. The face of Christ is on every one of us, even when we don’t recognize it.

Have you considered joining or forming an atheist prison ministry, to help offenders find a better moral code for their lives? And if you did so, what book would you bring to discuss with the offenders (obviously not the Bible)?

 

[j1akey]

Charlemagne II:

Name the countries and name your source?

And would you like to live in those countries? Which ones in particular?

There’s more here than I could possibly cut and paste without taking up several posts but this is a very good article (in my opinion of course) that reflects a study that was done a few years ago by Gregory S. Paul and published by the Journal of Religion and & Society called Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies: A First Look
If you think the title is long winded then just wait until you read the artile. It has of course come under heavy fire by some but I think it’s a good read either way.

moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html

Also another article called The Definition of Atheism

moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2009/2009-4.html

 

[Angel7]

Why does God have to grant me a miracle?

And why do you think being normal is saintliness? what are you like or would be like without your God?

A heap of ash, or nothingness, G-d created us, so with out G-d, we would be nothing.

 

[Angel7]

Explain to me why the countries with the lowest crime rates on earth are all atheist countries?

Secular countries (when TOO secular) live in sin, so eventually sin becomes law, and is legal. EX: Abortion becomes legal when people believe it is legal. Euthanasia is legal when enough people see it as legal.
If enough people see an action through a certain lenses (however clouded) they see it as normal, and no biggy. They live in it and surround themselves by it, so it would warp the legal system eventually.

You can take the Theology out of Goverment, making it Secular, but the MORALITY of the People and goverment is harder to extinguish, impossible really.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

anEvilAtheist
*
I guess all of us atheists must be lying to you when we say that we donate our time and money to charity. I must really just enjoy spending all my free time killing people.*

I also am glad to hear you are doing this. The face of Christ is on every one of us, even when we don’t recognize it.

Have you considered joining or forming an atheist prison ministry, to help offenders find a better moral code for their lives? And if you did so, what book would you bring to discuss with the offenders (obviously not the Bible)?

No, because I don’t think prison ministries are effective. I think that providing people with an education so they don’t have to return to crime is far more valuable. But even that probably wouldn’t be my kind of thing. I think it would be important to inspire respect from the prisoners so they would learn from you. I don’t think I have the life experiences or physical presence for that.

However, as atheist organizations expand, they are getting a lot more involved with charity work. If there’s a local atheist group doing charity work I’d be interested in helping.

 

[Charles_Darwin]

Charles Darwin

Name the countries and name your source?

And would you like to live in those countries? Which ones in particular?

Sweden, Japan, Norway etc and sure why not.

“In 1990 the police identified over 2.2 million Penal Code violations[citation needed]. Two types of violations—larceny (65.1 percent of total violations[citation needed]) and negligent homicide or injury as a result of accidents (26.2 percent)—accounted for over 90 percent of criminal offenses in Japan[citation needed]. In 1989 Japan experienced 1.3 robberies per 100,000 population, compared with 48.6 for West Germany, 65.8 for Great Britain, and 233.0 for the United States; and it experienced 1.1 murder per 100,000 population, compared with 3.9 for West Germany, 1.03 for England and Wales, and 8.7 for the United States that same year[citation needed]. Japanese authorities also solve a high percentage of robbery cases (75.9 percent, compared with 43.8 percent for West Germany, 26.5 percent for Britain, and 26.0 percent for the United States) and homicide cases (95.9 percent, compared with 94.4 percent for Germany, 78.0 percent for Britain, and 68.3 percent for the United States)[citation needed]. This is connected to the fact that prosecutions are less likely to be successfully challenged compared to the above mentioned countries, a fact that has caused human rights concerns and has led to a change in the law which will take effect in 2009[citation needed].[3]”

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Japan

 

[Charles_Darwin]

Secular countries (when TOO secular) live in sin, so eventually sin becomes law, and is legal. EX: Abortion becomes legal when people believe it is legal. Euthanasia is legal when enough people see it as legal.
If enough people see an action through a certain lenses (however clouded) they see it as normal, and no biggy. They live in it and surround themselves by it, so it would warp the legal system eventually.

You can take the Theology out of Goverment, making it Secular, but the MORALITY of the People and goverment is harder to extinguish, impossible really.

Guess we should still be stoning each other then?

 

[anEvilAtheist]

• Originally Posted by Charlemagne II
  If you were walking down a street sidewalk and on one side of the street coming toward you there was a group of young men toting bibles and on the other side there was a group of young men in black leather jackets wielding bats and chains, on which side of the street would you rather be?*

anEvilAtheist answered:

Well obviously I’d try to stay away from people brandishing weapons. But that’s because of the weapons, not because of the religion. But if there were two groups that looked the same except one was obviously religious, I don’t think I’d be any more afraid of the non-religious group.

Please answer the following two questions:

In which group would you expect to find more Christians? In which group more atheists?

Bibles are usually a good sign that people are Christian, just as Korans are a sign that people are Muslim. They could be coming back from an atheist bible study, but that’s pretty unlikely. So I think that there would be more Christians in the group with Bibles.

Would you expect to find Christians wielding bats and chains and wearing black leather jackets?

Well I don’t come across many groups of any religion like that. But yes, there are a lot of very violent criminals who believe in God.

From which group would you expect to see more members end up in prison?

I think people who carry around weapons are more likely to end up in prison.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Charles Darwin
*
Sweden, Japan, Norway etc and sure why not.*

You don’t have to worry about being hit with a baseball bat or a chain in Sweden or Norway. They just tax you to death. I know. I have relatives who live in Stockholm, and have visited there several times myself. Tightly controlled state from the top down, certainly more oppressive than the Catholic Church in modern times. From what I have read about Japan, you don’t want to live there unless you have won the lottery … or you’ll be worked to death.

Again, if you think crime can be controlled by an oppressive state, that’s not true. Instead, the criminals join the state machinery and make slaves of the people, robbing them blind. It’s happening in this country as well. As Chesterton once said, it’s downright amazing that more politicians aren’t hanged.

These countries I agree with you are dominantly atheist, but so was East Germany under the Soviet Union, and it had one of the highest crime rates in the world and was previously the part of Germany from which the Nazis got the most votes.

Under Hitler those same Nazis committed horrendous crimes against humanity (mainly against Jews, Catholics, and Protestants), crimes that would have been unthinkable a hundred years earlier when atheism was a blip on the cultural radar screen. By the 1930s, however, Hitler was hailing the atheist philosopher Nietzsche as a national hero. He can be viewed in a photograph where he posed beside a bust of Nietzsche when the Nietzsche Archives building was dedicated.

bing.com/images/search?q=nietzsche+hitler+photo+filterui%3aimagesize-large&qpvt=nietzsche+hitler+photo&FORM=IGRE9

 

[j1akey]

Charles Darwin

Sweden, Japan, Norway etc and sure why not.

You don’t have to worry about being hit with a baseball bat or a chain in Sweden or Norway. They just tax you to death. I know. I have relatives who live in Stockholm, and have visited there several times myself. Tightly controlled state from the top down, certainly more oppressive than the Catholic Church in modern times. From what I have read about Japan, you don’t want to live there unless you have won the lottery … or you’ll be worked to death.

Again, if you think crime can be controlled by an oppressive state, that’s not true. Instead, the criminals join the state machinery and make slaves of the people, robbing them blind. It’s happening in this country as well. As Chesterton once said, it’s downright amazing that more politicians aren’t hanged.

These countries I agree with you are dominantly atheist, but so was East Germany under the Soviet Union, and it had one of the highest crime rates in the world and was previously the part of Germany from which the Nazis got the most votes.

Under Hitler those same Nazis committed horrendous crimes against humanity (mainly against Jews, Catholics, and Protestants), crimes that would have been unthinkable a hundred years earlier when atheism was a blip on the cultural radar screen. By the 1930s, however, Hitler was hailing the atheist philosopher Nietzsche as a national hero. He can be viewed in a photograph where he posed beside a bust of Nietzsche when the Nietzsche Archives building was dedicated.

I didn’t realize this was a discussion on how high taxes were in other countries or how many hours other people work in a week, which by the way has nothing to do with atheism in any way.

People keep bringing up Hitler and Stalin like they represents atheist around the world or something. Is that really what you’re saying? I hope not. Those guys don’t represent atheists any more than George Bush represents Christians.

 

[Charles_Darwin]

Charles Darwin
*
Sweden, Japan, Norway etc and sure why not.*

You don’t have to worry about being hit with a baseball bat or a chain in Sweden or Norway. They just tax you to death. I know. I have relatives who live in Stockholm, and have visited there several times myself. Tightly controlled state from the top down, certainly more oppressive than the Catholic Church in modern times. From what I have read about Japan, you don’t want to live there unless you have won the lottery … or you’ll be worked to death.

Again, if you think crime can be controlled by an oppressive state, that’s not true. Instead, the criminals join the state machinery and make slaves of the people, robbing them blind. It’s happening in this country as well. As Chesterton once said, it’s downright amazing that more politicians aren’t hanged.

These countries I agree with you are dominantly atheist, but so was East Germany under the Soviet Union, and it had one of the highest crime rates in the world and was previously the part of Germany from which the Nazis got the most votes.

Under Hitler those same Nazis committed horrendous crimes against humanity (mainly against Jews, Catholics, and Protestants), crimes that would have been unthinkable a hundred years earlier when atheism was a blip on the cultural radar screen. By the 1930s, however, Hitler was hailing the atheist philosopher Nietzsche as a national hero. He can be viewed in a photograph where he posed beside a bust of Nietzsche when the Nietzsche Archives building was dedicated.

bing.com/images/search?q=nietzsche+hitler+photo+filterui%3aimagesize-large&qpvt=nietzsche+hitler+photo&FORM=IGRE9

Hitler was not an atheist, and he was also a dictator, and hes DEAD, so you comparision is irrelevant. Lets stick with the present. So are you saying that these atheist countries are only more moral than the religious US of A because they have higher taxes, which you coinsider to be oppressive??? Ok tell me an first world atheist country that has higher crime than the USA.

 

[PJM]

=Leela;5487615]I don’t know that atheists are the most moral group alive or try to make themselves out to be so, but I do know where thet get their moral formation. It is the same place that everyone gets it, from their parents. And the atheist parents teach their kids morality in the same way that the believer parents do. They ask their children, “how would you feel if someone did that to you?” They try to get their children to empathize with others by asking them to imagine what other’s perspective is like. If the child is not a sociopath, compassion will naturally arise out of empathy.

What seems completely irrelevent to me to the development of morality in children is belief in God, since even religious parents do not want to teach their children to be good out of fear of the wrath of God but ratyher out of compassion for others.

*Their is wisdom and truth in what you say. As sort of a “post-script” I would add “peer pressure.” As a young dad some years ago * I was shocked to discover the overwhelming influence of peer pressure and school teachers

Love and prayers,**

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Charles Darwin

Hitler was not an atheist, and he was also a dictator, and hes DEAD, so you comparision is irrelevant. Lets stick with the present.

Hitler was an atheist.

What Martin Niemöller said, a Lutheran pastor in Germany who spent several years in one of Hitler’s concentration camps, appears in the Congressional Record, 14, October 1968, page 31636, as:

“When Hitler attacked the Jews I was not a Jew, therefore I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the Catholics, I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists, I was not a member of the unions and I was not concerned. Then Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church — and there was nobody left to be concerned.”

This from Hitler:

“The religions are all alike, no matter what they call themselves. They have no future – certainly none for the Germans. Fascism, if it likes, may come to terms with the Church. So shall I. Why not? That will not prevent me from tearing up Christianity root and branch and annihilating it in Germany.”

If Hitler was not a Christian, given his liking for Nietzsche (the “God is dead” philosopher), what else could he be but an atheist? Please cite a quote from his writings, including Mein Kampf, if you like, that prove he was a Christian.

… he was also a dictator, and hes DEAD, so you comparision is irrelevant. Lets stick with the present.

What I have noticed about some atheists is that they want to talk about the Catholic sins of the past, such as the Crusades and the Inquisition, and they want to condemn the Church for those sins, but when Christians want to talk about atheist sins of the past, those are off limits and not relevant. This is very convenient logic, don’t you think?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Charles Darwin

*Ok tell me an first world atheist country that has higher crime than the USA. *

This is a very good question and deserves an answer. But it’s loaded with ambiguities. If you could narrow down the scope of your question, we could get into it in more depth.

For example, what list of first world countries would you be working from? If we are working from different lists, there will be no end of disputes about whether this or that country is first world, second world, or third world.

Also, what list of atheist countries are you working from? Assessments of whether a country is atheist or slightly atheist, or half atheist, or overwhelmingly atheist, vary from one chart to another, and even from one decade to another. For example, the stats for East Germany before it was re-united with West Germany (East Germany was overwhelmingly atheist, overwhelmingly oppressed, and overwhelmingly poor) would be quite different from what they are for a united Germany today. I hope we could agree to use the same chart, so that we can talk without getting forever sidetracked comparing different sources.

Finally, which list of international crime rates would you be looking to work from? As an aside, would you be interesting in rating which type of crime … homicide versus theft versus rape, etc. or would you prefer to compare the total stats for all crimes?

If you could provide me with websites for all of the above that you would accept, and that are reputable, that would also allow others in the thread to follow the discussion and participate. But I suggest we not use stats from either atheist or Christian websites, because then we will never be comfortable with each other’s sources.

Otherwise, I don’t feel like flailing about in a fog of statistics. O.K.?

 

[j1akey]

Charlemagne II:

What I have noticed about some atheists is that they want to talk about the Catholic sins of the past, such as the Crusades and the Inquisition, and they want to condemn the Church for those sins, but when Christians want to talk about atheist sins of the past, those are off limits and not relevant. This is very convenient logic, don’t you think?

The difference is that Catholics / Christians had armies and groups of people specifically geared toward killing people off in the name of their god. The church for all intents and purposes war on anyone that didn’t fall into line and the church represented itself in this way.

Hitler was just a jackass that happened to be atheist and was a smooth enough talker to get people to follow him, he did not represent any atheists except for himself. Atheists do not belong to any “groups” in the way that Catholics belong to the church. Atheist is simply a label that we have been given. We all may think along similar lines but we don’t band together for the common goal of killing in the name of spreading non-belief. That is the difference.

 

[reggieM]

So then why not end it all and hope God has mercy on you and you spend the rest of eternity in heaven?

Because in ending it all, one is committing murder against oneself – no mercy can be expected for a person who is not sorry for that kind of sin.

One can choose their own purpose and meaning for life. You can also choose someone else’s. Saying that suicide goes along with atheism shows a complete complete misunderstanding of it.

You’re asserting something, not addressing the questions I posed.

Theism will not make happiness last any longer.

No, you’re missing the most obvious point about theism.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Hitler was not an atheist, and he was also a dictator, and hes DEAD, so you comparision is irrelevant. Lets stick with the present.

Hitler was an atheist.

I don’t think we can know for sure what his innermost beliefs were. However, there are certainly plenty of quotes of his which make it seem like he was not an atheist. Here are some examples:
atheism.about.com/od/adolfhitlernazigermany/tp/AdolfHitlerFaithGod.htm
atheism.about.com/od/adolfhitlernazigermany/tp/HitlerNazisAtheismSecularism.htm

 

[reggieM]

Just because there is no God-given value or purpose to life doesn’t mean that we can’t value our lives and establish a purpose for ourselves. I care more about what’s true than about what is comfortable. I would rather believe the truth than that I am the single most important person in the existence of the world and my life is as purposeful as everyone else’s put together.

Ok, but the challenge is to explain to the suicidal person what the purpose is and why the person should care about anything. You may have found some personal meaning, but this does nothing for the person who finds no meaning and wants to kill himself.

This is a part of atheism - it cannot propose universal meaning and purpose to life in general. As in your situation, when counselling a suicidal person, I don’t think you would tell that person that you are the most important person in existence (thus reducing the suicidal person’s value in the process).

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Hitler was an atheist.

In an earlier response to one of your posts, I said that “one thing I find really interesting is that Catholics are very quick to say that if you’re baptized a Catholic you’re always a Catholic, except when it’s someone they don’t like. Even if Hitler didn’t believe in God, wouldn’t he still have been considered a Catholic?”

Do you agree that it’s a little inconsistent for Catholics to label everyone who was baptized Catholic as a Catholic except when they disagree with them?