Freethinker.nl

Atheists Are .07% of the Federal Prison Population, a Threatening Fact for Christian Fundamentalists

A big disruption to the Christian right argument that you need a belief in God to live morally.

Religious fundamentalists often proclaim that if atheists don’t like their Christian America they can leave. It's worth reminding them that if every atheist left, America would lose 85 percent of its scientists -- not that the fundamentalists love science exactly -- and a fraction of one percent of its federal prison population. That's a tricky one for the self-proclaimed righteous ones, because godlessness supposedly leads to sinful behavior. But the facts are the facts.

We have this statistic thanks to a 2013 report released by the United States Federal Bureau of Prisons obtained by blogger Hemant Mehta. The report looks at all the federally run prisons in the U.S. — that makes up about 218,000 prisoners — and the inmates’ religious affiliations. When they say that less than one percent identify as atheist, they actually mean 0.07 percent. That’s right, 0.07 percent. That is way less than one percent.

In reality, that number could be even lower. Seeing as how 17 percent don’t identify with any religious preference, this could mean more don’t believe in God(s) but choose to not identify as atheist. At the very least, they do not identify with any of the world’s major religions.

So how can this be? When the religious right is constantly claiming a moral authority in this country, how can it be that they make up more than half (the report shows 28.7 percent identify as Protestant and 24 percent Catholic) of the prison population?

[LEES VERDER]

Atheists love to tout this statistic and show it gives them ground to claim an upper hand on morality, but this is not so according to James Croft, doctoral candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and blogger at Temple of the Future:

“I do not believe it is a good indication that atheists are more moral. I think we would love to believe that, but it doesn't demonstrate that atheists are more moral as much as it reflects the fact that atheists tend to be better educated, more wealthy, and more white than the general population. In that overall climate, and given the factors which drive people to crime and the structural racism within the criminal justice system, it makes perfect sense that you will see less atheists, proportionally, in the justice system.”