Belief in a punishing afterlife predicts lower crime rates than belief in heaven does.

Evidence

Given these experimental findings, Azim Shariff and Mijke Rhemtulla wondered whether belief in hell (supernatural punishment) and belief in heaven (supernatural benevolence) have different consequences for a nation’s crime rates. They compared national rates of various crimes, such as burglary, homicide, rape, and human trafficking across countries. They then looked at the percentage of the population that believes in heaven, hell, and God. They found that, all else being equal, countries with high percentage of believers in God had lower crime rates. But what kind of God people believe in was ultimately more consequential than whether or not they believed in God. Nations with the highest levels of belief in hell and the lowest levels of belief in heaven had the lowest crime rates. In contrast, nations that privileged heaven over hell were champions of crime. These patterns persisted across nearly all major religious faiths, including various Christian, Hindu, and syncretic religions that are a blend of several belief systems. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 171

Categorization

• XREF: Directly operationalizes the Big God / omniscient-punisher mechanism from Norenzayan’s own broader argument; contrasts with Baumer-style partner-choice where benevolence would matter.
• QUESTION: Which specific countries or indices produce the strongest hell-vs-heaven crime gap, and how causality is defended past correlation.