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Are theists more violent than atheists?

Are theists or atheists more violent?

  • Theists are more violent

    Votes: 6 15.4%
  • Atheists are more violent

    Votes: 2 5.1%
  • Theists and atheists are equally violent

    Votes: 9 23.1%
  • I don't know

    Votes: 13 33.3%
  • We can't possibly know one way or another

    Votes: 4 10.3%
  • This poll does not reflect my thinking

    Votes: 5 12.8%

  • Total voters
    39

Dawnofhope

Non-Proselytizing Baha'i
Staff member
Premium Member
Or are atheists more violent than theists?

How can we know? Can we know?

What is the evidence one way or another?
 

Unveiled Artist

Veteran Member
Or are atheists more violent than theists?

How can we know? Can we know?

What is the evidence one way or another?

If going by online, I wouldn't know. I can only go by my experiences being here. Both atheists and theists (without generalizing) tend to have their biases over each other. The thing that makes me wonder is how can one be violent and love jesus at the same time and on the other side, how can one be violent and then say they have better morals than that of their "opponent." It's one thing to be frustrated and violent at the heat of the moment and it's another for it to be a actual value or moral that judging others and even being violent is highly justified.

I think the issue comes more in what we do when we have time to think than automatic violent reactions before we have a chance to. The former shows our character and the latter just shows we're human.

Offline I wouldn't know who is an atheist and those christians I do know, the only christian thing they'd say is "god bless you" unless you open up a conversation for them to be more jesus-oriented, I guess.

Evidence based on whether one believes god exist or not and how that impacts how violent they are to others?

Someone whose morals are built from self-experience and others from god-experience tend to clash because the former feels they have more freedom to treat people in their own definition of good while it can be just as detrimental for a theist to treat someone else as god tells them but never seeing that violent behavior counterproductive than their overall goal (and acknowledging it).
 

Dawnofhope

Non-Proselytizing Baha'i
Staff member
Premium Member
FWIW I don’t know if one group is any more violent than the other and it would be a difficult question to objectively answer. One method could be to look at the religious affiliation of violent offenders when incarcerated. There seems to be few if any good studies that do just that. So its possible we can’t know due to lack of good research. Maybe someone can provide links to studies that comprehensively study this issue. Until then I’m disinclined to draw any conclusions.
 

danieldemol

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
I voted i don't know, although I suspect what @Rival said may be true.

But I think that regardless of the theist/atheist divide, the more important to me religious/non-religious divide is that if a non-religious group makes mistakes they can be learned from, however if a member of a religion makes a mistake that is perceived as being ordained through infallible revelation - that makes it hard to learn from the mistake, or even to admit that it is a mistake in the first place.
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
Human nature is human nature, Adrian. The violence I criticize in you is a potential in me just waiting for the right circumstances in which to bloom ever last bit as beautifully as that I criticize in you.

That truth, however, is often quite obscured by an equally powerful humane instinct to see ourselves and our own group as superior to others and their groups. In our heads, we create mountains of differences between one another.
 

JustGeorge

Not As Much Fun As I Look
Staff member
Premium Member
I think those that tend to gravitate towards violence have a very strongly held belief or beliefs, a temperament towards intolerance that leads them to see those who are different as being a threat. After feeling 'threatened' for too long, they start to act out in violent measures.

Sometimes the 'threat' is material or physical, sometimes the threat is against a worldview, and sometimes its simply against the ego, or one's superiority but it seems to end the same.

The belief that a violent person can hold could be a religious one, but is by no means limited to it. Anyone with an inflated ego and an intolerant attitude, combined with fear or a superiority complex is capable of it.
 

JustGeorge

Not As Much Fun As I Look
Staff member
Premium Member
If religion can not result in a discernible change in behaviour for the better then what is its value?

I think some people use it as part of their identity, though I tend to agree with the outlook that if it isn't helping one exercise positive behavior or to bring meaning to their lives, its probably not valuable. (The same can be said for a strongly held non belief.)
 

Dawnofhope

Non-Proselytizing Baha'i
Staff member
Premium Member
I think some people use it as part of their identity, though I tend to agree with the outlook that if it isn't helping one exercise positive behavior or to bring meaning to their lives, its probably not valuable. (The same can be said for a strongly held non belief.)

Perhaps part of the value of religion is whether we believe applying its principles makes a difference in our lives, those around us and our relationships. A personal example is that I don’t consume alcohol due to the Teachings of my faith. Yet a close member of my family regularly consumed two bottles of wine each night, contracted liver and died. I doubt I would have become an alcoholic if I hadn’t become a Baha’i but its one less thing to complicate my life.

I’m not a violent person by nature and never strike my children (its illegal in my country now anyhow). I feel my faith has given me some strategies for dealing with conflict and made it easier to do so. I suspect some religions may incite violent responses under some circumstances rather than advocating peace.

In short, the question of the value of religion in our lives or not is a personal one for each of us to contemplate.
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
Are some people more violent than others? That seems pretty likely, based on fairly casual observation.

So what makes some people more violent than others? Religion, polictics, psychology, taste in music or theatre? Ain't got a clue.
 

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
If religion can not result in a discernible change in behaviour for the better then what is its value?

Behaviour which way though? Surely you've met folks who've become worse people by getting religious.That same person who thinks he's become a better person might very well be seen as a jerk by old friends. My acquaintance who allowed his gay son's gay friends to use his house as a safe after school hangout got better by becoming less religious.

It's complicated.
 

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
Are some people more violent than others? That seems pretty likely, based on fairly casual observation.

So what makes some people more violent than others? Religion, polictics, psychology, taste in music or theatre? Ain't got a clue.

Upbringing? Inherent nature? In a rural place like where I grew up, there were folks that enjoyed butchering animals, and those like me who abhorred it. Who knows? is an accurate assessment I think.
 

epronovost

Well-Known Member
The only thing I can say about the subject is that non-religious people are underrepresented in US and Canadian prisons compared to their weight in the population, but so are sikh and hindu. Though are far better hypothesis as to why, for example wealth and education, that better explains this phenomenon than religion. People's religious beliefs or lack of them probably has only the smallest of all impact on a person's violent or criminal behavior.
 

epronovost

Well-Known Member
So what makes some people more violent than others? Religion, polictics, psychology, taste in music or theatre? Ain't got a clue.

The most often cited factors in the development of violent behaviors are the following (no particular order) according to criminal statistics and studies:

Being a man;
Being between 14 and 28;
history of child abuse or neglect;
exposure to lead or mold in the breathing air;
social isolation;
scoring high on the social dominance scale of personnality;
certain mental illnesses like psychosis;
lack of employment;
history of substance abuse;
contact with violent political ideologies (jihadist, neo-nazi, etc)

I probably forgot a few ones, but I'm pretty damn sure that religion isn't there unless it's a very weird cult or some bad mix of religion and violent political ideoloy. Criminality in humans seems to be a strange mix of economical problem and healthcare problem.
 
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