*significantly more than fundamentalists
White Add Health respondents (sample size = 3,489) were asked, "Do you agree or disagree that the sacred scriptures of your religion are the word of God and are completely without any mistakes?" The above table shows the percentages who have committed a specific crime at least once in the past 12 months. "Fund" is short for fundamentalist.
You can see a tendency of fundamentalist teenagers to be more law-abiding than youths who don't believe scripture is inerrant. Keep in mind that fundamentalists have the disadvantages of lower average IQs and socioeconomic status. They are not less violent, just less prone to commit property crime. Perhaps conservative religious people are the same as others on attitudes toward violence, but are more respectful of property.
Knee-jerk theory: violence is an emotional crime and property violation is generally cold-blooded. Fundamentalists are less likely to commit crimes in cold blood.
ReplyDelete(Maybe they lack the ability to rationalize the action.)
Fundamentalism is actually an upper classes phenom in the US, not lower class.
ReplyDeleteMiddle and Upper tiers are far more churched than the lower tiers.
It might be more a matter of social class than faith.