(September 14, 2010 at 10:55 pm)padraic Wrote: Of course I may be completely wrong. I'll be thrilled to see any evidence of a causal relationship between say atheism and intellect,morality or criminality.I'd also like to see such evidence for any of the major religions..
Well of course there's hardly any evidence of such a relationship because apart from anything else there is so much popular confusion about the terminology of atheism, as has already been said in this thread. The only thing that would provide some evidence is a serious research study, but that idea was derailed by a daft comment about researchers getting raped. Any research study would need to make the distinction between prisoners who don't believe in god and prisoners who believe there is no god. It would probably also need to define god. It would also need to separate those who engage in religious rituals from those who don't. The "ATHEISM SIMPLY MEANS..." contingent would have to stand aside in favour of some serious research that clarifies the distinctions, and so the word atheism itself would probably have to be dropped in favour of some actual explanations of each position. It's hard to see how such a study could be practical, but in its absence the evidence for a causal link between believing there is no God and criminality is weak. It's still worth discussing though, as a theoretical idea, and there's nothing wrong with people having opinions about it.
