Monday, January 29, 2007 | Reason : Commentary | print version

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Atheists in Jail

by Scott Adams / Dilbert.blog

Thanks to Mathias for the link.

Reposted from:
http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/01/atheists_in_jai.html

Have you ever wondered what percentage of prison inmates are atheists? It must be a lot, given that non-believers have no moral center and spend most of their days robbing, and killing, and sodomizing farm animals. That's what you do when you have no morality.

According to Adherents.com, 16% of the world's 6.25 billion people are non-religious. That includes atheists, agnostics, and secular humanists. That's just over 1 billion godless (and Budahless) infidels.

According to http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/r188.pdf, there are 8.75 million people in jail in the entire world. And that includes people who haven't been convicted. Hmm. That seems too low by about, um, a billion infidels that should be behind bars.

But let's add to the people in jail the ones who have already served their time, and the ones who simply haven't yet been caught. Excuse me while I take off my pants and yank that number out of my ass.

Okay, got it.

That's a total of 25 million evil-doers in the world.

Wait, I feel another number in my ass. I think it's the percentage of people in jail who ARE religious. It's at least two-thirds, wouldn't you agree? So that means that the other one-third of the 25 million evil-doers is non-religious. That's a bit over 8 million non-religious people doing evil, worldwide.

In other words, only 8 million of the 1 BILLION non-believers who damned well SHOULD be in prison are actually there. There is only one conclusion that I can draw from this rigorous scientific analysis: Atheists are lazy.

As a non-believer, I can tell you that the only reason I don't kill people is the difficulty in disposing the bodies. First you have to clean up the blood. Then you have to drag the victim to a carpet and roll him up. Then you have to drag it to the car late at night. Then you have to drive the body and the carpet to the mountains and bury it. Then you have to buy a new carpet. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. And that assumes you already HAVE a shovel.

I think I speak for all non-believers when I say that the only reason we limit our sex to human beings is that animals run too fast. Have you ever tried to tap a caribou? I don't care how hot they are with their little furry behinds — it's not worth all of the running. That's why most one-legged women are married to atheists.

I could teach you things like this all day, but frankly I feel a nap coming on.

Posted: Monday, January 29, 2007 | Permalink

Comments 1 - 27 of 27 |

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1. Comment #19784 by Macho Nachos on January 29, 2007 at 11:38 pm

Yeah. At heart, I'm as intolerant as the most fundamentalist Christian, but I can't be bothered going to all the effort of prying into other people's lives, tormenting them, working my way into a position of influence to push my agenda, duping money from the gullible, and molesting small children.

Perhaps instead of Brights we should be called Lazys. Too lazy to believe in God, too lazy to try to control the world, too lazy to do all the horrible things our complete lack of morals allows us to do.

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2. Comment #19785 by Richard Morgan on January 29, 2007 at 11:45 pm

Scott Adams is missing the point. A recent study has shown that the number of carpet manufacturers married to, or in a stable relationship with a caribou is decreasing annually, particularly in the southern States such as Texas, Alabama and Northern Chipping Sodbury.
The resulting emotional stress on both lonely caribous and heart-broken carpet manufacturers tends to provoke digestive disorders in both groups. This increases their belching and farting activities, viz. methane production, methane being one of the gases responsible for the green-house effect that we hear so much about. A warm planet is one of the signs of the end of the world predicted by my Bible.
In my Bible I read about the lion laying down with the lamb, but there is no mention of caribous and carpet manufacturers doing anything at all together. This is a significant omission. Methane is a significant emission. Put the two together and what do you get? Revelation, of course.
Last night, as I was rolling a corpse into a carpet, with my wife, Kari-booboo standing by holding the shovel, everything became clear.
In fact, it is the non-existence of God that is responsible for an alarming increase in Atheism (cloven-footed beasts are notably agnostic)
My Bible predicts that also "The fool hath said with a fart, "There is no God" (N.I.V.)
(A fourth-century error in transcription, retained by many translations gives us "The fool hath said in his heart.." This cannot be true. A day spent at the local abattoir convinced me that hearts contain no organs of vocal production.)
So, Scottie boy, back to the drawing board with a little humility please. Atheists are only as lazy as the God they don't believe in. (cf. Peter Atkins' delightful: "The Creation - in five easy-to-bake steps.) (Ha! There are no coincidences - "peter" is a French verb meaning to fart.)
Where was I?
Ah, yes.
Talking about over-crowding in French jails....

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3. Comment #19790 by CJ on January 30, 2007 at 12:24 am

Figures provided by Scott Adams arse.

6.25 billion people overall
25 million criminals overall (2/3 theist, 1/3 atheist)
0.4% population are criminals

5.25 billion theists
16.6 million theist criminals
0.32% of theist population are criminals

1 billion atheists
8.3 million atheist criminals
0.83% of atheist population are criminals

Therefore atheists are 262% more likely to be criminals than theists.

Evil little atheists ;-)

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4. Comment #19794 by timelord on January 30, 2007 at 12:50 am

Yes, but the criminal that has just robbed your house is still twice as likely to be a theist? Bu wait.. don't these figures come from Mathias's anus? Garbage in = garbage out to quote a computing saying. (No reflection on what Mathias eats!)

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5. Comment #19796 by Old Coppernose on January 30, 2007 at 12:54 am

Perhaps instead of Brights we should be called Lazys. Too lazy to believe in God, too lazy to try to control the world, too lazy to do all the horrible things our complete lack of morals allows us to do.

Works for me. However, I prefer to talk of Rationalists rather than Atheists, as this includes Agnostics (of which I, like Darwin, am one). This could be abbreviated to Rats - we declare ourselves "I'm a Rat." or "I'm Ratty". This is amusing, and self-effacing, unlike Bright, and is only three letters, like Gay.

However at present any such term is quite superfluous in Europe,where Rats are probably the majority. So let the USAnians make their own minds up. In 50 years we're going to be publicly persecuted as 'Kuffaar Pigs' by majority Islamist fuckaars, and then we can start calling ourselves "Pigs" and "Piggy" to defy them as they destroy our freedom, our lives, and return Europe to the Dark Age.

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6. Comment #19797 by roach on January 30, 2007 at 1:06 am

The term "agnostic" doesn't really make much sense in the context of God/religious faith given that it deals with belief and not knowledge. It's true that no one, from a devout believer to a positive atheist, can technically be anything other than an agnostic.

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7. Comment #19804 by wice on January 30, 2007 at 2:36 am

i'm agnostic about agnosticism (as well as gnosticism). i don't know whether we can or cannot know if there is or is not one or more god/gods.

or maybe i'm just too lazy to find out.

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8. Comment #19809 by the great teapot on January 30, 2007 at 3:07 am

What keeps me out of prison is not morality or laziness, but fear.
Fear of prisons and those in it.
I am a good prison fearing citizen.
Every evening when I go to bed I pray to The Prison and thank him for his Fear and his love.
Prison is Love.

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9. Comment #19817 by Luthien on January 30, 2007 at 4:15 am

Lazy???

Nah, I just ain't been caught yet ;-)

Perhaps most of us don't get caught (we are supposed to be cleverer)? Do the statistics on unsolved crime match the size of the unaccounted for atheist population? :-P

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10. Comment #19819 by Deoradh on January 30, 2007 at 4:32 am

God is just as lazy, he didn't even finish his creation and made a pretty botched job of it as well. We have nebula that he didn't turn into systems, planets that should have been suns but forgot to light. Some of the suns he did light blew up. There are asteroids smashing into planets ruining the décor. Galaxies colliding and too much stuff is disappearing down black holes. What a slipshod job
If he were a plumber would you employ him?

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11. Comment #19826 by jeff_n on January 30, 2007 at 4:54 am

God is just as lazy, he didn't even finish his creation and made a pretty botched job of it as well.

And when designing the male body he left the testicles on the outside! Surely any designer worth his salt could have found a bit of room near the kidneys? Sheer lackadaisicalness.

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12. Comment #19829 by Blue Monster 65 on January 30, 2007 at 5:46 am

I think you're all missing the point here: instead of disposing of the bodies, you can find all sorts of uses for them: as a child, we not only ate our fill when Mom & Dad would come home from hunting, but we also made clothing from the skin, tools and furniture from the bones, toys from the testicals (clackers, anyone?) and much, much more. These days with all the pre-packaged, microwavable foods and McDonalds, I often miss Mom's homecooking. I can just smell the roasting missionary now ...

Woof! - Scott

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13. Comment #19830 by Old Coppernose on January 30, 2007 at 5:51 am

Comment #19797 by roach on January 30, 2007 at 1:06 am

The term "agnostic" doesn't really make much sense in the context of God/religious faith given that it deals with belief and not knowledge. It's true that no one, from a devout believer to a positive atheist, can technically be anything other than an agnostic

English is not a precise language, and probably most atheists and almost all devout blievers would deny being even technically agnostics. It's a question of emphasis. The athest wishes to emphasize the absence of belief, the agnostic the lack of knowledge.

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14. Comment #19860 by poppythinks on January 30, 2007 at 10:23 am

the cat sets the pace here, and is the living being,essence of laziness.
too lazy to summon up a higher power, i follow
her ways, and hibernate all winter.
otherwise i do as little as possible, managing
a polite growl when i hear anything to do with
'religion'.
love the humour on this page - big purrs......
more, more, more...........

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15. Comment #19862 by perkyjay on January 30, 2007 at 10:28 am

Richard Morgan - comment no:19785: I couldn't decide whether your comment was a take-off of The Goon Show or the sketches from Monty Python , but I found it hilarious - thanks for making an old man laugh out loud.

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16. Comment #19877 by TheDarkestStar on January 30, 2007 at 12:12 pm

"Excuse me while I take off my pants and yank that number out of my ass."

How on earth can an article like this be taken in the slightest bit seriously if the numbers are admittedly fabricated? How about just running with the data at hand and drawing preliminary conclusions from that rather than making up numbers to suit a point?

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17. Comment #19878 by the great teapot on January 30, 2007 at 12:26 pm

"How can an article like this be taken seriously"

The same occured to me.
Why it is almost as though he is trying to display a sense of humour (humor)rather than make a wholly scientific argument.
I hope this is not the case.
That would be most illogical captain.

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18. Comment #19892 by Electric Monk on January 30, 2007 at 1:41 pm

Maybe we should be Apathists instead of Atheists?

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19. Comment #20170 by atheisticism on January 31, 2007 at 5:33 pm

Every christian I have ever known speaks of "struggles" with their faith. Translation: they are agnostic at best. It has always been my position that, deep down inside, we all realize the god story is nothing more than wishful thinking. This is why "believers" get so upset when anyone questions their faith. Most don't even want to talk about it, their self delusion rests on such a weak foundation.

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20. Comment #20179 by Russell Blackford on January 31, 2007 at 8:28 pm

You'd almost think this guy made his living by drawing funny cartoons, or something. I mean, the bit about the caribou has got to be a joke. Right?
.
.
.
.
.
(Actually, I love Scott Adams and his quirky humour, but I gather he pisses off a lot of other people. See the current debate at Pharyngula.)

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21. Comment #20181 by Alexander van Houten on January 31, 2007 at 8:47 pm

I work in the Canadian north and I have promissed an old friend that I would fine work down South if the Caribou started to look good. That is a promiss I intend to keep. Besides out side of Muskeg there is no soil to burry the bodies in or roads to transport the bodies on.

Not to mention that the Caribou or Boos as they call them selves are having some rather extreme gang violence trouble and it is not a safe time for any carpet makers or sellers to get involved with a young caribou lass.

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22. Comment #20526 by killer_rabbit79 on February 3, 2007 at 7:11 pm

I know the only reason I'm not relentlessly murdering anything in sight is because I live in Canada and therefore don't know where to buy a gun. They make it so damn hard. Also, I'm too lazy to work out so I am in no shape to strangle people with my bare hands. What's an atheist to do? I guess I'll have to be a good boy for now.

Seriously though, I saw a video on youtube that said 75% of Americans are Christian and 75% of American prisoners are Christian and 12% of Americans were atheist (that includes agnostics and humanists) and 0.2% of American prisoners are atheist. If that's true then we must be morally superior in general to Christians. Maybe because morally superior people tend to become atheists rather than morally inferior people who will tend to stay theists.

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23. Comment #20669 by tmg on February 5, 2007 at 4:20 pm

Is it ignorance? Or is it apathy?
I don't know and I don't care.

Besides it's freezing here (London, the Canadian one)

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24. Comment #116958 by migo on January 27, 2008 at 10:50 pm

There's a problem with any statistics of atheists and theists in jail globally. In some countries it is illegal to be an atheist - that seriously skews the statistics.

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25. Comment #116970 by dlitt on January 27, 2008 at 11:36 pm

There is only one conclusion that I can draw from this rigorous scientific analysis: Atheists are lazy.

I'll certainly agree with that conclusion. I've been meaning to write a 'guide to laziness' - except I'm just too lazy.

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26. Comment #117022 by octopus on January 28, 2008 at 5:23 am

Then you have to drag the victim to a carpet and roll him up.

Not worth it mate. Carpets are rather expensive nowadays.

Interesting link:
Quotes-atheism

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27. Comment #117043 by al-rawandi on January 28, 2008 at 6:27 am

A lot of the violent criminals happen to be narcisistic psycopaths (sociopaths), perhaps they are atheists, but worship themselves as god like figures?

In that sense, we atheists can't claim them.

Think about all the prisoners in China, where atheism is the norm (norm enforced by the govt.) thus the govt. would identify their prisoners as religionless when in fact they may actually harbor religious sentiments.

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