National belief in hell correlates with lower crime more than belief in God itself.

Evidence

Mean gods also appear to make people kinder neighbors. 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

• QUESTION: Cross-national crime correlations are confounded by development; worth checking whether this survives controls for wealth and state capacity.