Ready Always to Make a Defense

Over at Ales Rarus, we get a post offering questions from an atheist buddy. Clearly the questions are intended to dispute Christianity. The claims:

1. "Countries with high levels of atheism are also the most charitable both in terms of the percentage of their wealth they devote to social welfare programs and the percentage they give in aid to the developing world."

2. Why is the United States alone among the developed Western nations both in its religion and its violent crime rates?

3. Why do the so-called 'red states,' where Christianity is more popular, have higher violent crime rates?

4. Why are the percentages of atheists in prison so low?

Where do these claims come from? On what are they based?

1. What makes a country one with "high levels of atheism"? Pick one. Define "high levels of atheism". Of course, for some reason the numbers don't seem to bear out the claim even if it can be defined. According to Johns Hopkins University, the United States ranks 3rd out of the top 34 countries in volunteering and giving as a function of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In this study done in December, 2005, the United States ranked #1 in terms of giving. One has to ask where the claim comes from. It would appear that the claim is an outright fabrication.

2. The United States is alone among developed Western nations in its religion. I wonder why that would be true? Could it be that it was a nation founded on a religious premise? Could it be that the nation is rooted in religion? Indeed, this nation required a religious morality to become a great nation. (And if, as the atheist's assertions are trying to say, religion makes for bad people, why did this nation at its most religious succeed so well, along with lower crime rates and higher giving?) Note, however, that while the U. S. may be alone in its religion among Western nations, it is not alone in the world as far as entrenched religious beliefs. Thus, the question makes presumptions regarding the value of "developed Western nations". Moving on, there is the claim that the United States is alone in "violent crime rates". Now, according to CSDP.org, the claim is false. While the U. S. may lead in numbers of crimes reported, the "violent crime rate" isn't as high as other nations. Russia, for instance, weighed in with a 22% crime rate and South Africa had a 55% crime rate, while the U. S. had a 5% crime rate. And it should be obvious to the casual observer that documenting and proving such an allegation would be extremely difficult.

3. What makes "Christianity more popular" in the so-called "red states"? And on what is the claim that their violent crime rates are higher? According to the 2005 crime rate statistics, it appears that the "blue states" are equally dispersed in the rankings of violent crime rates. Of course, there are 22 "blue states" (if you include the District of Columbia) and 29 "red states", so does that affect the numbers any? It appears that this is a claim without defense. For instance, the District of Columbia ranks #1 in violent crime, Maryland as #5, Delaware as #7, and Michigan and Illinois as #11 and 12 respectively. Note that the difference in crime rate between South Carolina (#2) and Illinois (#12) is 761.1 per 100,000 to 551.5 per 100,000. The District of Columbia tops the list with 1459 per 100,000 while North Dakota (a "red state") bottoms out at 98.2 per 100,000. That ought to tell us something ... that "red state" and "blue state" are no indicators of 1) whether or not they are "Christian" or 2) who has the higher crime rate between the two.

4. On the percentage of atheists in prison: One site provides the suggested number of 0.2% atheists in the prison population (compared to 8-16% in the general population). I'm sure this site is unbiased, since it includes the comment, "Let's just deal with the nasty Christian types." I'm confident that there is no agenda being driven here, no axe to grind, no reason to skew numbers. The fact that nearly 20% gave no answer for their religious affiliations is surely nothing to notice. The fact that other similar studies offer different numbers really ought to be ignored. Or, am I making too many assumptions?

Bottom line, the arguments are just as wrong as the popular argument among Christians that American morality has declined since they eliminated school prayer. The variables are too vast, the truth statements too skewed, and any real causality is too distant to call these valid arguments. As an example, Barna reported that while 96% of Americans claim to believe in a god, the numbers decline radically from there. Some 75% call themselves "Christians", but only 15% go to church, and only 5% say that their beliefs make any difference in their lives. In fact, the same percentage that call themselves "Christians" also hold that there is no such thing as "absolute truth", a simple contradiction of logic. (There cannot be a God and no truth.) So while anti-theists are tossing these highly questionable arguments at us, we're not even admitting that the U. S. is a "Christian nation", since our definition of "Christian" is much more narrow than the more common, vague "if you call yourself one, you are". If we used Barna's 5%, it would appear that real Christians are in a severe minority in this country and would not be expected to have a major impact on the nation's crime rates, giving, or politics. So before we feel the need to toss out religion altogether, perhaps we ought to examine whether or not there is a valid argument for the causal implications of the objections offered.