9/7 Is God's mercy to blame for crime?

Many have thought so, but now their may be hard data to support the suspicion that religion has a causal relation to crime.

Researchers at Oregon Universty, led by Azim Shariff, examined crime data and beliefs from 67 countries. After controlling for other factors like GDP, national crime rates were still typically higher in countries with strong beliefs in heaven and weak beliefs in hell.

Sharif notes "Belief in a benevolent, forgiving god could license people to think they can get away with things." and that correlation is not causality.

Source

   New Scientist

   PLoS DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0039048

What do you think?