Why Doesnt Religion Prevent Crime? Lol

Author: Best.Korea

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#1
Best.Korea
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The theory was simple.
1. Teach a person about God.
2. Belief and fear of God will prevent the person from doing evil, committing crimes...ect.

So...

Why didnt it work?

Christian countries have about as much crime as anyone else.

Japan has much lower crime rate than USA, despite USA being very religious and Japan being very non-religious.

Atheists in USA make 3% of the total population, but only 0.1% of the prison population.

It seems that religion does nothing to prevent crime.

Why is this so?

One theory is that criminals believe that what they did is what God wanted them to do.
It wouldnt be the first time someone uses religion to justify a crime. People justified wars with religion, so justifying crimes with religion is even easier.

For example, if your wife was cheating on you, she would be committing adultery. Therefore, religion can even be a reason for committing a crime, since adultery is punishable in the Bible.

I remember the story of a priest who raped a boy, saying he was trying to cure him of homosexuality.

So apparently, religion is no obstacle whatsoever to committing a crime.

Another theory is that religion is a form of child abuse, and children exposed to religion at early age are more likely to become violent.
Since Christianity is a very violent religion, teaching children that there is a place where people burn alive, it seems obvious that it has no positive impact on mental development of a child.

In fact, you are teaching a child that they must worship a literal psychopath.
#2
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If the religion is the law itself, then the "religious crimes" will be allowed. Simple as that.
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@Best.Korea
I mean. Christianity actually has a model for government and civil society and a welfare system built right into it.

The problem is that the USA is not a "Christian nation" as in a theocracy but a Christian nation, by self-admittance of its population. But so many people simply "say" they are Christian but, when they go about their day-to-day lives, live a different reality.

The U.S. was certainly founded by Christians (and Deists and Freemasons and Illuminati) but it did not force conversion to Christianity to be a citizen. This is actually a Christian principle, I think, but the thing is, for Christianity to work, people need to act like Christians.

The State is supposed to seek justice for the oppressed, hold the rich accountable when they steal, and be an impartial judge in civil matters. The U.S. is nothing remotely close to this.

The Christian society is supposed to provide housing and jobs to people with no house and no jobs. But at the same time, those people with no house and no job must work, either for the house they are living in directly, or at some other job that pays all the bills and life necessities. In other words, just sitting around collecting government money and being a vagrant are not allowed. Neither is not accepting your friends and neighbors as room and board unless you do not trust them.
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Best.Korea
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@Public-Choice
but the thing is, for Christianity to work, people need to act like Christians
Okay. 

Well...

Its been 2000 years...

How much longer do we need to wait for "true Christians" to appear?

Satan forbid!
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@Best.Korea
So, in the early church, the system actually worked. They all found various ways to implement those things. One of them was through people selling their belongings when others were in need.

But, consequently, there was ever really only one time in human history where Christians ran the government via theocracy, and that was under Comstantine. But, even so, many question just how committed he was to the cause. 

So, to answer your question, a Christian government, much like an anarcho-capitalist society, has never actually been tried (that I know of).
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@Best.Korea
Welp, come to think of it, Europe was technically ruled by theocratic monarchs for a while. But I'd argue they didn't stick to the program and instead used the church as a business to enrich themselves.
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@Best.Korea
The theory was simple.
1. Teach a person about God.
2. Belief and fear of God will prevent the person from doing evil, committing crimes...ect.
Religion exists for its own sake.  Yielding particular societal benefits is just a nice bonus.
That being said...

Why didnt it work? Christian countries have about as much crime as anyone else.
Might I suggest you're looking at this from too narrow a perspective?

First of all, the culturally and intellectually developed world religions have moral codes and they're not all that different from each other. In fact it's surprising how Hinduism and Buddhism, with minimal pre-modern contact with Christians or Jews, organically arrived at similar ethics. So you're not comparing "Christian countries with irreligious countries" but "countries informed by Christian moral traditions with those informed by similar moral traditions."
From here the question becomes: do countries where such traditions are totally absent have less crime? And this can't be proven, because the only case studies we have are vestigial pagan corners of Africa where albinos get raped to cure AIDS and whatnot.

Second, moral traditions created by religions can outlive the religions themselves, and introducing a religion to an area won't immediately quell prior, long-established traditions. For example, while Europe is rather irreligious today, it was Christian for a solid 1,500 years before that and has been extremely peaceful as a general post-WWII rule. And before and during WWII, Europe had high rates of government-committed violence but low rates of private individual violence.
The majority-Christian regions with the most crime, namely Latin America and Africa, are mostly inhabited by indigenous peoples who largely weren't Christian until maybe 100-200 years ago (maybe a bit longer for the Latin Americans, but still). In the United States, the big outlier among Western countries, crime is disproportionately driven by our black minority, whose ancestors were also pagan until just a couple hundred years ago.
So we can't just look at current religiosity but also historic religiosity. Likewise, we don't know what the future religiosity and crime rates of these respective areas of the globe will look like; it may resemble what it is now or current trends might eventually reverse outright.

Third, from a Christian perspective, religious acculturation is an inferior kind of behavioral change. Christians believe that those who have a close relationship with God are sanctified and made righteous, whereas those who don't will not move beyond their default tendencies.
The question of "Who is sanctified and who isn't sanctified" cannot be answered at the polls. An area which on paper is 100% Christian may in practice have low numbers of people who are sanctified, since only God and the individuals in question can know for sure.
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@Best.Korea

Remember that Hitler gave out belt buckles to his troops that said "God Is With Us".
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Japan has much lower crime rate than USA, despite USA being very religious and Japan being very non-religious.
Japan is culturally Buddhist and Confucian. It was common for them to worship their emperor as a literal god until 1945. Shinto might be called a form of paganism but if so it was also tamed by its coexistence alongside more mature religions.

Atheists in USA make 3% of the total population, but only 0.1% of the prison population.
First, there are a lot of people in the US who, though never having formally renounced the existence of God, quietly have doubts strong enough to let them ignore religious commandments in their day-to-day conduct. We can't know what percentage of the prison population these people constitute.

Second, people who do make the formal commitment to atheism are more likely to be rich, well-educated, and so on. Factors which correlate to lower rates of crime. That doesn't mean your average Joe would suddenly become rich and well-educated if he renounced God; he would still be who he was before.

One theory is that criminals believe that what they did is what God wanted them to do.
Doubtful, given that Christians have the Bible, which expressly discourages a dissolute antisocial lifestyle. If they claim God has condoned their actions, then this is nothing more than self-deception in service to their own desires.

It wouldnt be the first time someone uses religion to justify a crime. People justified wars with religion, so justifying crimes with religion is even easier.
In the day when religion justified atrocities, it was largely as an expression of politics. In the 20th century when this ceased to be the case we still saw politically motivated atrocities, such as communist regimes killing "counter-revolutionaries", anti-communist regimes killing believers in Marxism, etc. The US could well have a civil war in the next 50 years motivated by Democratic Party and Republican Party voters hating each other.

For example, if your wife was cheating on you, she would be committing adultery. Therefore, religion can even be a reason for committing a crime, since adultery is punishable in the Bible.
Most Christians accept that the Mosaic Law is no longer applicable, and this interpretation is backed by many New Testament verses. A person who murdered their adulterous spouse while genuinely believing in this justification would display levels of religious illiteracy atypical of, say, those who attend weekly Bible studies, suggesting faith wasn't their core motivation.

I remember the story of a priest who raped a boy, saying he was trying to cure him of homosexuality.
And there's no possible reading of Scripture that would support this action, as the priest in question would be guilty of sodomy and fornication. If the priest claimed this justification then he was being manipulative and dishonest.
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@Swagnarok
Second, people who do make the formal commitment to atheism are more likely to be rich, well-educated, and so on.
Well stated.
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@FLRW
Remember that Hitler gave out belt buckles to his troops that said "God Is With Us".
It seems that anyone can use religion to justify crime.
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@Public-Choice
In the early Church if you didn't do as you were told you were burnt at the stake.
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@Best.Korea
Why Doesnt Religion Prevent Crime?

Who said it does?
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@zedvictor4
Christian love and tolerance, right?
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@Stephen
Who said it does?
Well, Christians did all the time until they were disproven into oblivion.