Moral superiority: Seculars vs Religious

[Zenith]

...what our resident theists have to say on the matter. I find myself wishing there were more around here for these kinds of conversations

Perhaps you should also try a christian forum, non?

So I was reading "Non-believer Nation" and the writer brought up a number of very good points about the correlation in national population percentages between secularity and religiosity in regards to crime. I knew about the studies in the US, but apparently it's not just in the US; the higher the ratios of secular individuals to religious individuals, the lower the rate of violent crimes, particularly murder and sexual assault.

This is a topic trail that we've walked many times before, or at least most of us have, but I'm interested in hearing what our resident theists have to say on the matter. I find myself wishing there were more around here for these kinds of conversations, believe it or not, largely because I'm interested in hearing the explanations of religious people as to how they feel about this. I'm not asking for refutations of the statistics; they exist, and the closest thing I can call absolute truth is that of numbers, and given how the statistical trends are always in favor of this outcome, my mind is all but concluded in the regards of whether or not this is a fact. I just wanna know what theists think about this.

If one says that "good wholesome Christian values" are a good strong moral backing, how does one explain how the less a national population adheres to those values, the lower the crime rates are?

If it went the other way around, that the more secularization of a population, the more violent the society, I personally would find myself hard-pressed to explain it other than to say "religion must provide peace of mind and culture," but such is not the case.

I have my own philosophy regarding this. I live in a quite religious country, though I'm hoping in time it will become more secular.

All / most religions have the rather unusual attribute that they preach about great values that no one lives up to. For instance, within a church it is so 'fashionable' to talk about honesty, love, giving, etc. that it is almost a demand: it is how GOD demands you to be, therefore you have no choice but to ACT as if you are like that, so as to be accepted by the group. Many religious people, I believe, don't even realize that they're mere hypocrites. Besides, a lot of standards that are impossible for men to live up to turn into low self-esteem (they feel guilty before God), hating those who do not try to live up to those standards (e.g. atheists), and cause a twist of the priorities on moral issues: e.g. it is more important to go to the Church frequently and gaze upon the pictures of the saints than to actually be altruistic; it is more important to pray to God and show that you 'love' him by whatever rituals you do than being fair. Also, the religious leaders, being very much trusted by their followers are more likely to manipulate them and to use their money to fulfill their own dreams: expensive cars, big houses, churches covered in gold, etc. A country led by such religious leaders becomes poor, there remains less money for institutions (health, education, etc.) and backed up by a lot of people living in poverty, this leads to crimes. In countries where the Church / the religion can freely demand money from the state (from the people's taxes) and where the priests are being paid from state taxes, I'd say that religion practices a form of 'legal' corruption.

Secularists, on the other hand, do not have that many rules and impossible standards to live up to. No one asks or demands people to fake love or altruism or whatever. No church has such a great power, so the country can become prosperous and people can live decent lives and receive proper education. They do not feel forced to live in a certain way, so they don't live in frustrations and do not hate the 'others' for being different / freer.