If Atheists Lack Morals, Why Aren’t There More of Them in Prison?

There are those Christians who attest that atheists lack morals. They seem to think that Christianity corners the market on morality. They will even go so far as to accuse us of being Satanists. I don’t know which of the two contentions is the most absurd. To lay one to rest is quite easy. If we don’t believe in God, it stands to reason that we don’t believe in Satan. We cannot be followers of “someone” in whom we do not believe. Laying the other one to rest can be a bit more tedious.

Atheists can and do have morals just as much as a Christian can and do, if not more so. Christians claim that being “good” is a means to an end. That is their ticket into Heaven. They will often ask me “if you don’t believe in Heaven, what motivates you to be good?” Of course, I can never resist answering that question with a question of my own: “Do you mean to say that if it weren’t for God you would be a bad person?” They typically don’t know how to respond to this. They don’t seem to understand that there are sociological reasons, reasons that seem more pure to me, for behaving in a moral way. It has nothing to do with bribery (which the Christian notion seems to me to be about). It makes it false; a lie, thereby, not really moral at all.

Because “morality” can be a subjective concept, I will direct your attention to the most consistent measure of morality that I can think of: laws. Our society places a great deal of importance on the “law.” Laws are what allow our society to keep order. Many of the laws that exist are based on moral standards. With this as our defining criteria, we can use lawbreakers as our examples. Or at the very least, we can look at those individuals who have been caught and convicted of breaking the law.

So if we are to use lawbreakers to illustrate the difference of morality between atheists and theists, perhaps it is best to consider the prison population relative to the population at large. The prison population may be the best way we have of measuring morality. After all, actions speak louder than words. We can all claim to be moral; that doesn’t make it so.
It is estimated that in the Unites States, one percent of all prisoners are atheist. What does this mean? It only means what it says, that one percent of prisoners are atheists. However, when we contrast this to the United States population at large that is when this low percentage makes an impression.

It is reported that between 8 and 12% of Americans are atheist. Compare that to the 1% of prisoners who are atheist. Regardless of which percentage you choose to embrace, 8% or 12%, the difference is staggering. We would expect to see a gap in the opposite direction were it true that atheists were less moral as a whole. As it stands, though, these figures seem contrary to the popular held belief that atheists aren’t moral.

If there were no difference between the two groups, religious and non religious, you would expect the percentages of the prison population to more closely mirror the population of those who are not imprisoned. But, that just isn’t the case. It would seem, following our established reasoning here, that not only do atheists have morals but that they are considerably more moralistic than theists.


Copyright 2008 Trina Hoaks



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