Heaven, hell and crime

A study has found that, controlling for each other, a nation's rate of belief in hell predicts lower crime rates, but the nation's rate of belief in heaven predicts higher crime rates. A country where many more people believe in heaven than in hell is likely to have a much higher crime rate than one where these beliefs are about equal. It has previously been reported that undergraduate students were more likely to cheat when they believe in a forgiving God than a punishing God. The new findings fit into a growing body of evidence that supernatural punishment had emerged as a very effective cultural innovation to get people to act more ethically with each other. In 2003, Harvard University researchers Robert J. Barro and Rachel M. McCleary had found that gross domestic product was higher in developed countries when people believed in hell more than they did in heaven. Supernatural punishment across nations seems to predict lower crime rates.