Tópico: Cosmologias religiosas e taxas de homicídio entre as nações

[Buckaroo Banzai]

Religious Cosmologies and Homicide Rates among Nations

A Closer Look

Gary F. Jensen, Vanderbilt University

Abstract

Although religion has been viewed as playing an important role in the maintenance of moral order,
the most recent analysis of variation in homicide rates among nations argues that homicide is
facilitated by high levels of religiosity (Paul). That analysis, however, was based on scatter-plots for
eighteen “prosperous nations” and focused primarily on the United States compared to “secular”
nations. Because there are numerous dimensions to religiosity and a variety of alternative explanations
of homicide rates, a more complex analysis is required before more definitive conclusions can be
reached. This study attempts such an analysis for a much larger sample of nations and tests
Durkheim’s hypotheses that religious passion, as a variable characteristic of nations, is a positive
correlate of homicide rates. A multiple regression analysis reveals a complex relationship with some
dimensions of religiosity encouraging homicide and other dimensions discouraging it. The
relationships found not only survive controls for variables proposed in prior research, but also suggest
major modifications to theories focusing on economic variables as characteristics of nations.





http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/pdf/2006-7.pdf