Who Sins More?

You know, when I talk to people of southern origin when I go stateside, they often tell me that "they don't trust atheists". I'm not sure why. I try to be polite and say that we're pretty much the same as eveyone else, but there's this intellectual block that I think they have where they associate their religion with "good" and anything else as "bad".

However, the most common reply I get from people of this viewpoint is "If there is no God, why wouldn't you do whatever you want? Why obey anything? Cause if the universe is eternal and our lives are short, it all ends up being the same."

First of all, I'd say that I find the concept of people being good simply because God "made laws so you would" laughable. How many Christians would turn the other cheek if you came up and slapped them? I don't think the number would be too high. Generally speaking, when it comes to faith, people generally ignore the rules they don't like and stick with the ones they do.

Second, it's not at all true. Unquestionably there are more people in the United States that are christian rather then atheist. But if we were to look at a ratio of the population of christians or atheists vs. their populations in prison (proven to have commited a crime, and for the most part, a sin). What do you think we'll find?

Catholic 29267 39.164%
Protestant 26162 35.008%
Muslim 5435 7.273%
American Indian 2408 3.222%
Nation 1734 2.320%
Rasta 1485 1.987%
Jewish 1325 1.773%
Church of Christ 1303 1.744%
Pentecostal 1093 1.463%
Moorish 1066 1.426%
Buddhist 882 1.180%
Jehovah Witness 665 0.890%
Adventist 621 0.831%
Orthodox 375 0.502%
Mormon 298 0.399%
Scientology 190 0.254%
Atheist 156 0.209%
Hindu 119 0.159%
Santeria 117 0.157%
Sikh 14 0.019%
Bahai 9 0.012%
Krishna 7 0.009%

According to current population, about 76% of the population is Christian and 15% is atheist or has no faith, ie, no God.

But isn't it interesting when we comare that total to Christians (not including any other faiths that also have divine set of laws). Christians are at 74%, atheists at 0.2%

What does this show? It shows that on average, the prison population ratio of christians is very close to the same ratio of christians on the outside.

However, for atheists, there are far less atheists in jail. Despite having 15% of the population, they only have 0.2% of the prison population (ie, one fifth of 1%).

It would seem to me that faith may influence some people's actions, causing them to be better, but the claim that it's the only reason people are being good is obviously false.

What do you think?