Religion, Violence, Crime and Mass Suicide

Religious adherents no doubt find that their actions are influenced by their religious beliefs. The association between religion and violence is long-standing. This page looks more at individual acts of violence and crime, and not mass acts such as the Crusades or Holy Wars, as these become too intertwined with politics and culture.

1. Violence and Religion

1.1. Religious Wars: Politics and Culture

Many religious wars have a political and cultural component. Often it is not just two groups of people fighting over religion, but, one culture fighting another. Some defend religion in general by saying that societal divisions are the main factor in such conflicts. However, such divisions are themselves worsened by the adhering to religious identities. Religion is not only just another way of separating them, but, it is often intrinsic to the religion that non-believers are less moral or less worthy. It seems that religious texts actively promote sectarianism, and, given that this is the case, even where cultural factors play a role in mass violence it seems that religion often makes it worse and is sometimes the cause of the conflict in the first place.

The them-and-us attitude is not just prevalent in monotheistic religions - India has seen much violence on behalf of Hindus in the name of religion (specifically, anti-Christian and anti-Muslim violence). If the instigators and the victims both decided to give up religion, then, there would be label for those fellow Indians to use to box each other.

This page will not, however, concentrate on large-scale cultural-religious conflicts and instead concentrate on the activities of criminal and violent religious folk acting in a more individual role.

1.2. The Role of Strange Beliefs

The promotion of strange beliefs and associated mindsets is a danger of religious thought in general. For example, when Eden Strang attacked worshippers at a Church in South London, UK, in 1999, he was later found by the courts to be insane. He attacked the congregation because he thought they were demons in human form₁. But if he didn't believe in demons, then, there is a chance his actions would have been different. He told psychiatrists that God had ordered him to do it₂. It is true that most God-believers don't start murdering people; it is even more true that they are one step closer to killing in the name of god to those who don't believe in gods in the first place.

“Words like "God" and "Allah" must go the way of "Apollo" and "Baal," or they will unmake our world.”

"The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason"
Sam Harris (2006)₃

Sam Harris (2006) argues at length that in today's world, even seemingly innocent beliefs in things like a Paradise-after-death can lead to murder and a lost sense of the value of life in this world. Dawkins makes a similar warning about the irrationality of religion and its effect on morals and actions, in The God Delusion, concentrating on issues such as violence against abortion-clinics and various other activists with bizarre beliefs₄. When such beliefs are institutionalized or given free reign, it can spell disaster for those who disagree with them. Anti-Semitism for the last 2000 years has been fuelled from Christian theology, and many instances of violence against homosexuals stems from the intolerant religious teachings of the Abrahamic religions. If people understood religious myths to be unreal, and if they had a more rational and skeptical outlook, it would be much less common for such religious prejudices to translate into violent actions.

It seems that in total the general religious mindset permits a kind of irrationalism that can easily lead to violence - although most people (religious or not) are not violent. Harris makes the undeniable argument that in a world where weapons such as nuclear arms and biological weapons are becoming easier to access, we must make up for it by promoting clear-thinking, and if that means discouraging religion, it is probably for the best.

1.3. Africa: A Modern Christian/Muslim Front

During the Crusades, Christian and Muslim armies sallied back and forth across Europe and the Middle East. Christianity had plunged the West into the Dark Ages, and Islam was carrying only a dim light of Human progress. It is arguable that such a conflict was as much cultural and political as religious. But religious differences helped define Arabs and Christians as enemies. Today, such a bleak picture is mirrored in religious battles across the continent of Africa. It is a continent where democracies fail as frequently as they rise and where scientific enterprise is retreating from powerful (and armed) religious bodies. Take Nigeria and the summary presented by The Economist:

“Nigeria, evenly distributed between Christians and Muslims, is a country where people identify themselves by their religion first and as Nigerians second. Around 20,000 have been killed in God's name since 1990. [...] This is one of many religious battlefields in this part of Africa. Evangelical Christians, backed by American collection-plate money, are surging northwards, clashing with Islamic fundamentalists, backed by Saudi petrodollars, surging southwards.”
The Economist (2007)₅

Once fired up with a particular set of religious beliefs - especially ones that teach that non-believers need to be converted for their own good - it is easy to see how this adds fuel to the fire in an already violent continent.

1.4. The Divine Endorsements of Violence

Social research has found that the greater the perceived authority is, the more its opinions are taken seriously₆. A soldier will fight for democracy because he is trained to respond to the authority of his seniors and he may understand the values of freedom. A gang leader or a religious leader can both inspire the same aggressive behaviour in their flocks. Sociologists have spent much time researching aggression but there is not much data that specifically focuses on the effects of religious texts on violent behaviour. The National Secular Society reports on one of those few studies:

“SCRIPTURAL VIOLENCE CAN FOSTER AGGRESSION, ESPECIALLY IN BELIEVERS. [...] A study published in this month's Psychological Science looks at the relation between aggression and recent exposure to accounts of biblical violence. Students were asked to read a story about the torture and murder of a man's concubine and his tribe's measured response: they assembled an army and razed several cities, killing every man, woman, child and animal they could find.
Half the students were told that this was based on an ancient scroll recently discovered by archaeologists. The other half were told that it was from the Book of Judges in the Old Testament (which it is). In addition to the scriptural distinction, half of the students from both the Bible and the ancient scroll groups read an adjusted version that included a sentence in which God commanded his followers to take up arms against the others "and chasten them before the LORD." [...]
Higher levels of aggression were measured in [...] in those who were told that the passage was from the Bible and in those who had read that the violence was sanctioned by God. Unsurprisingly, this effect was greater in believers than in atheists.”
National Secular Society (2007)₇

If you combine the divine sanctioning of violence found in holy books such as the Christian Bible and the Holy Quran, with the desire for an afterlife attained through worldly actions, the recipe for violence is a potent one. Failed Islamic suicide bombers have, for example, explained that they want to attain Paradise for themselves (and friends of their choosing) by violently martyring themselves in the fight against non-believers₈. The motivation was great because they truly believe the value of such actions are spelled out in God-given written texts.

1.5. Monotheism and Violent Intolerance

There is a particular inclination towards organized violence in the histories of monotheistic religions (those with just one god). Monotheism is embodied by three world religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

“The God of the Abrahamic religions, so far as it is concerned in The Koran, and The Bible and in history, hates opposing Gods. The Israelites are described as being commanded by God, time and time again, to wage war against and kill nonbelieving pagan because they dare to worship icons, fake gods, and any number of things that are not Jehovah. A long series of biblical condemnations set in motion the wheels of a series of religions deeply hostile to all other religions. Christianity started out tolerant and peaceful: the first Christians, the gnostics and ebionites, accepted respectively that their religion was one interpretation of the truth amongst many, or that it was a devout, personal path and not something that could be enforced on to others. Centuries later, though, the Nicene Christians arose and murdered their more peaceful predecessors, preparing Christianity to embrace the Dark Ages like no other religion could, or would, have.”
"Religious Tolerance for Competing Ideas: Why is Monotheism Intolerant?" by Vexen Crabtree (2008)

2. High Rates of Imprisonment

2.1. Incarceration, Poverty, Intelligence and Religion

Imprisonment is linked to both poverty and lower intelligence. These are also linked to religiosity; and in the case of intelligence, low intelligence is a known cause of adherence to a religion. As crime is also linked to inner city populations, and this is also, again, where religion is found to be strongest, it seems that the religious have always been bound to find themselves over-represented amongst prison populations, such as Muslims₉ and Catholics₁₀.

2.2. Why Are There So Many Catholics in Prison?

The liberal thinker Barbara Smoker remarked on in a Government discussion group that Catholics have a greater chance of being found in prison than many other social groups:

“I mentioned that the proportion of Roman Catholics in penal institutions is at least twice their representation in the population at large. Though I was under the impression that this was a well-known fact, it caused some derisive laughter. But on checking the statistics, I find that again I erred on the side of caution: RCs comprise 12 to 13 percent of the population of England and Wales, but 25 to 35 per cent of the inmates of borstals, detention centres, prisons and hostels for drug addicts, alcoholics, and the like [...] and similar ratios pertain in all Western countries.
A book entitled "The Church Now" (published in October 1980 by Gill and Macmillan) contains a chapter by a Catholic priest, Fr Terence Tanner, enquiring why this should be so. He points out that the answer generally given in the past - that RCs are unduly represented among the poorer sections of the community - is no longer valid.”
"Freethoughts" by Barbara Smoker (2002)₁₀

Now that poverty no longer excuses Catholic crime, another common answer is that many people convert to a religion during a stint in prison because it is generally thought (by both inmates and those in the world at large) that this increases the chance of an early release. Statistics have indeed shown that there is a strangely high rate of conversion amongst prisoners, and sociologists have also found that it does not generally coincide with genuine belief. But it is beside the point, because of the simple fact that Catholics are over-represented in many walks of life that do not include imprisonment:

“The Times of 3 October, 1980, carried a front page comment by its religious affairs correspondent, Clifford Longley (himself RC) under the heading 'The Dilemma over Roman Catholic Delinquents', the first sentence of which reads: 'Roman Catholics are vastly over-represented among drug addicts, alcoholics, compulsive gamblers, prostitutes, night-club strippers and convicted prisoners, for reasons no one seems to know.'
Catholic children are largely segregated in their own denominational schools. In any case, Cardinal Hume's contention that church schools are morally beneficial is hardly borne out by the facts.”
"Freethoughts" by Barbara Smoker (2002)₁₀

If we accepted that conversion-in-prison explained why there were more Catholics in prison, it wouldn't account for why there were so many Catholics amongst the other categories mentioned by Smoker; drug addicts, alcoholics, compulsive gamblers, prostitutes and night club strippers. The final point she makes is that this prevalence undermines the Catholic idea that Catholic schools tend to produce a better class of moral person.

We are about to see below that one reason for the higher rates of sex crimes may be explained by Christian ideology; their teachings on human sexuality do not mesh with reality and the mental dissonance that results can cause distorted behaviour.

2.3. Discords Between Religious Belief and Law

A more prosaic possible cause of the higher rates of criminal and anti-social activity amongst the religious is an inherent bias within legal systems against such people. Whenever such biases are revealed in court, they will normally fall foul of anti-discrimination laws, but, what if a general and obscure bias permeates the entire legal system? As some Western countries have a strong tradition of historical Christianity, is it possible that such legal systems contain an inherent bias against non-Christian religions? Examples include the Sunday trading laws that have become accepted standards in the West and the definition of marriage which generally conforms to Abrahamic ideals (Judaic, Christian and Muslim) at the exclusion of other ideals.

More enlightening are the historical biases and battles between different Christian denominations themselves. The biggest conflicts were between the Protestant and Catholics; whenever one took power in England, the other became heavily suppressed under law. These intolerant law-making policies of major denominations may have contributed to a general bias in law that makes it likely that some religious adherents are likely to find particular laws difficult. Although specifics of such anachronisms are hard to find in the secular West (as the now-dominant secularist law-making attempts to treat all religions fairly), it does demonstrate the point that religion-specific legislation should be kept out of law as much as possible, but also that it is worth considering making changes to accommodate religious adherents if there is no strong rational argument against it.

3. Sex Crimes

That prostitutes and night-club dancers and other sex trades, and crimes, have a higher incidence of Catholics is an anomaly in the minds of most laypeople. Such behaviours revealed their darkest sides in the 1990s and 2000s when many child abuse scandals centered around the Christian priesthood gain much media coverage.

“The high child abuse and sexual abuse rates within the Christian priesthood highlight a problem that many religions face: We should not attempt to mould human sexuality around otherworldly religious ideals. Sexual dysfunction always results. Psychologists and sociologists have noted the association between extreme religious fervour and psycho-sexual problems (the former causing the latter), and the highly negative stance that many monotheistic religions take towards sexuality in general have contributed to a general malaise amongst their lay adherents, and a serious pandemic of abuse amongst professional religionists. The religious attitude towards religion is to behave like an ostrich and stick its head in the sand, hoping that theology can override biological truth, but merely making its victims unable to cope with adult sexuality. Witness the hateful and confusing statements that Christians and Muslims make about homosexuals, the anti-contraception stance that the Catholic church has in an over-crowded world ridden with disease, the harmful and simplistic rejection of abortion and the patriarchal dominance over women that has gone hand-in-hand with traditional religion on every continent.
In the modern world, many modern popular movements provide an alternative to traditional religions, and have enshrined normal sexuality. The secular world merely lets sexuality remain natural, and the New Age movement amongst many others, actively engage sexuality. The results have been much more positive and healthy than those of the classical monotheistic religions. Rather than an ostrich, be a peacock!”
"The Peacock vs. the Ostrich - Religious Behaviour and Sexuality" by Vexen Crabtree (2008)

4. Mass Murder and Suicide Cults

4.1. Mass Delusion: 276 Child Murders and Over 600 Adult Suicides: Jim Jones' Peoples Temple

In 1978 over 900 people died when the People's Temple (frequently known as Jonestown) murdered their (276)₁₁ own children with poison. The rest of the community then followed suit, killing themselves (and shooting some). They had previously practised the suicide routine. Their leader shot himself. He was American Rev. James (Jim) Warren Jones, an ordained priest in the mainstream Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). He had previously left the Methodist Church because they did not allow African-Americans to be members. Jones preached "an apocalyptic end of the world through race war, genocide and nuclear war. He maintained that he was the manifestation of the Christ principle and that he had the power to heal"₁₂. The sectarianism and religious extremism of the Christian community brought about its own isolation. Its religious ideals were not compatible with the demands of the practicalities of real life, and the group was fixated by a Bible-based fear of the end of civilisation. Conflicts led Jones to move the community to a remote part of Guyana in 1977, but a Congressman soon followed with two investigators, worried by the concerns of relatives of members of the cult, and the stories of defectors. The community murdered them in 1978, and the same night put their suicide plan into action.

“Jonestown might be better understood as a utopian and millenarian society where suicide and murder were the final strategy when the idealistic goals of the movement failed. The conflicts Jones had with the outside world and the isolation of the experimental commune are key factors [... of] self-destruction.”

"Encyclopedia of New Religions" (2004)₁₂

The truth is a little more complex than saying that religious extremism, led by extremist leaders, leads to such delusion that human life is made second to otherworldly idealism. For in this case, Jim Jones is said to be not only rather unchristian, but a communist atheist (according to some). Whether this is true or not, it is the religious mindset of the community - the susceptibility of his followers to believe him - that led them astray. He put on fake shows of his healing powers, complete with bloody props (rabbit flesh) that he proclaimed to be cancers, and claims to be an embodiment of a principal of Christ. He attracted the poor, the uneducated, Christians and spiritualists. If only people would think more skeptically, and not take claims of resurrection and magical healing seriously, few would have believed such odd claims about reality.

The Ontario Consultants for Religious Tolerance look at sociological, radical and anti-cult studies of the causes of the Jonestown disaster, and offer the following four points as being the main contributing factors:

Jim Jones' mental illness, aggravated by his use of drugs.
The group's intense fear of the imminent end of civilization.
The extreme isolation of the Agricultural Project.
Opposition and pressure from anti-cult groups, the media and U.S. government.

Ontario Consultants for Religious Tolerance (2007)₁₁

4.2. Apocalyptic Survivalism: The Branch Davidian's Shoot-Out and the Sarin Gas Attack

We saw the Jim Jones' Peoples Temple movement progress gradually from mainstream Christianity, through to a fully-fledged survivalist cult. An emphasis on the end times (when in Christian belief, apocalyptic wars and death scourge most of humanity) emerged slowly. Such ideas are present in most mainstream religions so it is hard to tell believers that it is a dangerous belief. Isolationism, extremism, idealism and an intolerance of people without the same beliefs: these are all commonplace across religious communities. Once you believe in some of those principles, it is hard to draw a firm line and stop a community progressing down a slippery slope to a place where they consider their ideals to be more important than human life. Such a slope met the Peoples Temple in the Jonestown disaster where over 900 of them lost their lives in 1978. Another American group, the Branch Davidians, also took on an increasingly them-and-us attitude. They started out with Biblical ideas about the cataclysms of judgement day, and ended up stockpiling weapons. It culminated with the Waco siege where over 80 of the religionists died during a shoot-out with authorities₁₃ in 1993.

Irrationality and susceptibility to believe some unlikely things about the universe can lead to ideals and sectarianism that separate 'others' from their humanity, and allow despicable acts to be undertaken. Aum Shinrikyo was the religious movement responsible for the 1995 sarin gas attack on Tokyo's subway that killed a dozen people and injured thousands. The movement had also already murdered others in order to protect itself. The leader believed in karma, and preached that murder was justified because it stopped people accumulating bad karma₁₄. He had picked up Christian ideas, and preached that such actions were an act of mercy, and started preaching about Armageddon. "Political failure and a feeling of national rejection led to increasing millenarianism"₁₄; again, the idea of a cataclysmic end of the world fuels seemingly insane bloodshed. The victims are not only the suggestible adherents of the movement, but the relatives, friends and communities that are affected by the religion's otherworldly aims.

4.3. Rejection of the World and Mass Suicides: Order of the Solar Temple and Heaven's Gate

Mass suicide frequently punctuates the progression of self-isolating religious communities. They are nearly always associated with belief in another world that they can travel to after death - be it heaven or a paradise on Earth. They often do not see themselves as belonging to this world, and consider the whole world evil, and often think that there is about to be a great war, worldwide cataclysm, or, judgement day. These beliefs were strongly apparent in Jonestown, where Jim Jones led the Peoples Temple to murder their own children before mostly committing suicide themselves. They believed in an imminent apocalypse and Jim Jones had previously predicted when it would happen (it didn't). The Branch Davidians had similar, urgent beliefs, which is why they stockpiled weapons. The sources of strong life-denying beliefs have varied sources: one French New Age group, the Solar Temple, was steeped in new age beliefs and practices, complete with Rosicrucian, Knights Templar and other esoteric interests. 74 of them died, mostly by suicide in Switzerland and France, then Quebec, in 1994, 1995 and 1997₁₅. They believed that the Second Coming of Jesus was imminent, and that they had to prepare for this. As with all such groups, they had issues with the real world, and in their farewell letters, they spoke of the "hypocrisies and oppression of this world"₁₆.

Heaven's Gate committed their final act of self-destruction when all 39 members killed themselves in San Diego, USA, in 1997. The leaders, Herff Applewhite and Bonnie Lu Nettles, believed that "they were the two witnesses mentioned in Revelation 11"₁₇, and combined weird New Age beliefs with UFO theories and were committed to detaching themselves from this world through physical training and suppressing all emotions. Over time, they became more and more isolated, and in keeping with other religious groups discussed on this page, also embraced the idea of a final departure from this world. In the case of Heaven's Gate, when the Hale-Bopp comet approached, they decided it hid a spacecraft that they could enter by committing suicide. They would be reborn, according to New Testament lore, into physically perfect bodies₁₇. Clearly the group had little grasp of cosmology or physics, as their spiritualist beliefs about travelling souls and an idealistic life overrode their common sense.

Superstitions and an obsession with spiritual ideas of purity, 'karma' and other strange beliefs are at the core of the ability for a leader to convince people that mass suicide is a way forward. It is hard to stop such beliefs from forming. The ability of devout parents to indoctrinate children into the belief system is a main reason why the children are later victims of the group, either through constant miseducation or actual murder (the Peoples' Temple and nearly all other religious suicide groups have first poisoned their own children). It may help to prevent children being removed from public educations systems to be taught at home by extremists, but the methods of measuring who an extremist is, or, of measuring which religious groups are destructive, has proven to be generally impossible.

4.4. The Role of Reactionary Mass Media in Isolating Idealistic Groups

"Modern Mass Media: The Bane of Human Cultural Evolution" by Vexen Crabtree (2009)

“The characterization of being called a doomsday cult may actually affect the outcome of violent events related to the group. [...] Canada's Canadian Security Intelligence Service Report on Doomsday Religious Cults [... advises] members of the law enforcement community, noting: "authorities often fail to appreciate the leverage they have over doomsday movements, which depend upon them to fulfill their apocalyptic scenarios." In the conclusion of the Canadian Report, the potential effects of actions by authorities are described:
Sanctions applied by authorities are often interpreted by a movement as hostile to its existence, which reinforces their apocalyptic beliefs and leads to further withdrawal, mobilization and deviant actions, and which in turn elicits heavier sanctions by authorities. This unleashes a spiral of amplification, as each action amplifies each action, and the use of violence is facilitated as the group believes this will ultimately actualize its doomsday scenario."
Eileen Barker has compared these concepts to the notion of a deviancy amplification spiral in the media and its effects on new religious movements, and James Richardson has also discussed this effect. In the case of the Concerned Christians, use of the term "doomsday cult" as a characterization of the group served as a justification for deportation of its members by the Israeli government. In the book The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines, author Loren L. Coleman discusses the affect the media can have on the seemingly innocuous intentions of a French doomsday cult. [...] In Apocalpse Observed, authors Hall, Schuyler and Trinh discuss the affect the media had on the events surrounding the Order of the Solar Temple group. They note that news commentators "could not [help? - Vexen] making a comparison to events in Waco, where the government siege of the Branch Davidians had just begun."”
Wikipedia article "Doomsday Cult"₁₈

5. Scriptural Justifications for Murder

People tend to find and learn scriptures from their religions that reinforce what they already believe about morality and ethics. But on top of that, the justifications offered by religions can sometimes be given enough loyalty and prominence in society that a religion's formal texts can support, and then cause, violence and murder. Such scripts obviously exist in war faring religions such as Christianity and Islam, but also exist in Buddhism and Hinduism. Stories and arguments from all these religions are used to justify killing in circumstances that secular moralists find worrying.

5.1. Hinduism

“At the beginning of the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna is contemplating the forthcoming battle between the Pandavas and their cousins the Kauravas. Filled with sadness, he refuses to fight and tells his charioteer, Krishna, of his reason. Krishna replies:
"Great warrior, carry on they fight. If any man thinks he slays, and if another thinks he is slain, neither knows the ways of truth. The Eternal in man cannot kill: the Eternal in man cannot die. He is never born, and he never dies. He is in Eternity: he is for evermore... When a man knows him as never-born, everlasting, never-changing, beyond all destruction, how can that man kill a man, or cause another to kill?...
Think thou also of thy duty and do not waver. There is no greater good for a warrior [kshatriya] than to fight in a righteous war. There is a war that opens the doors of heaven, Arjuna! Happy the warriors whose fate is to fight such war. But to forgo this fight for righteousness [Dharma] is to forgo thy duty [Dharma] and honour: is to fall into transgression... And to a man who is in honour, dishonour is more than death... Can there be for a warrior a more shameful fate?
In death thy glory in heaven, in victory thy glory on earth.
Bhagavad Gita 2:18-21, 31-4, 37. Quoted in:
"The Phenomenon Of Religion: A Thematic Approach" by Moojan Momen (1999)₁₉

The problem is that this gives divine assent, and ultimate sanction, to war or killing, that a person finds "righteous". Hindus and Muslims have, for example, been fighting throughout the lands of Pakistan and in India, for many decades with both sides attacking communities and religious centers. This is a 'righteous' war based on nothing but differences of religious belief. Any discontent can lead to 'righteous' killing when there are strong feelings, and (some) Hindu texts give people an intellectualized excuse to indulge in murder. People can't really die in Hindu mythology, therefore killing isn't really killing. And righteous killing is better than dishonour. These are dangerous ideas.

5.2. Buddhism

“The main scriptural justifications for killing may be briefly summarized. In the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra it is told how the Buddha in one of his former lives killed some Brahmin heretics. This was done to protect the Doctrine, and to save them themselves from the consequences of continued attacks on it. When the Doctrine is in danger the Five Precepts, including the prohibition on taking life, may be ignored...”
"The Phenomenon Of Religion: A Thematic Approach" by Moojan Momen (1999)₁₉

The problem is that "threats" to Doctrine can mean almost anything. Science and modernism both threaten religion as a whole, including Buddhist Doctrine. Hardline Buddhists have fought violently against Muslims and Hindus in Asia, expressing fears that Buddhism is dwindling under the other religion's forceful expansionism. The Crusades and the Inquisition were both based on protecting Doctrine against heretics. The idea that ideas are more important than lives is one of the most dangerous ideas in religion, especially when you combine this with a general belief in eternal consequences and afterlives. It is better for stability and peace if we consider Humans to be more valuable alive than dead, no matter what their beliefs are.

6. Conclusions

6.1. Religious Authority and Idealism

Monotheism has bred the most violent individuals and cultures due its intolerance of 'other' gods and a general strictness on the specifics of belief, but, other forms of religion also breed antisocial and violent individuals. Two factors lead believers into uncivil behaviour. (1) The irrationality of belief and (2) the legitimization given to actions by beliefs in higher authorities, without the teaching of any critical and skeptical way of judging between claims as to what those higher authorities would want. For some people, voices in their heads are all that are required as long as they believe in god(s) which have authority to speak to them. For others, including atheist skeptics, such voices are immediate warning signs of impending mental ill health. Thirdly, (3), an otherworldly idealism and fixation with the corruptness, evilness or immorality of this world often pushes groups into extreme isolation where they cease to consider outsiders to be worthwhile human beings. Both irrational and criminal behaviour are given freer reign within religious systems of thought, along with suicide to escape this world and move on to the 'next'. Mass suicide, shoot-outs, gas attacks and other atrocities have befallen groups whose main thing in common is self-isolation from wider society, and a dread of a generally Christian-themed apocalyptic judgement-day. Many such groups emerged from mainstream religious movements and gradually became more and more sectarian over time. The main causes that allow this slip are insipid supernaturalism, poor education, sectarian schooling and a lack of critical thinking.

6.2. Intelligence

Prison incarceration is inversely linked to intelligence. Intelligence is inversely linked to faith. Religious parenting causes a reduction in children's average IQs. Evidence for this is that religious types (notably Catholics) are over-represented amongst prison inmates and other nasty classes of human, such as drug addicts, alcoholics, compulsive gamblers and sex industry workers (including strippers); not to mention the fact that sectarian religious schools promote the social divisions that hundreds of sociological analyses have proven to destroy community cohesion and increase violence and crime. If religion makes a person more likely to fall foul of societies' penal codes and moral judgements, and so does lower intelligence, and also religion causes lack of intelligence, then we have a self-perpetuating cycle. Two ways forward are an increase in non-religious education and the reduction of the authority given to religious ideas.

6.3. Prevention

To prevent the sectarianism and isolation that leads religious groups to the most atrocious actions is a difficult task in a free society; people are free to join groups and live with friends (call it a commune if you want), and are also free to believe crazy things. To stop social groups, even just exclusive ones, is a severe reduction in freedom and almost definitely not worth it on the balance. Restricting living arrangements would disrupt ethnic groups, religious groups and all kinds of innocent behaviour. Iis impossible and reprehensible to try and police beliefs; that type of behaviour is a symptom of extremism, not a cause of it. Yet these three elements, when taken together, can lead to everything from mass suicide to genocidal attacks on humanity as a whole. The cure cannot be to deal with the errant groups as they emerge, but to stop them emerging in the first place.

Causes of the isolation of these groups stem from their social unacceptability; they feel rejected because others (accurately) judge their ideas as absurd. They reject the world just as it rejects them. This leads to the them-and-us attitude in extremo. The outcries against "cults" in the press, and official investigations, all feed the fire, but the government cannot fail to investigate pseudo-criminal groups, as things like child welfare are at stake.

My page on "Anti-Religious Forces: Specific Factors Fuelling Secularisation" by Vexen Crabtree (2003) describes many of the elements of modern life that reduce superstitious and religious beliefs in general. Without beliefs in god(s), afterlife, etc, it is impossible to believe any of the things that the leaders of these groups tend to say. And although most these groups do attract some outstanding individuals and persons of responsibility, in general they are the stay of the under-privileged and under-educated. Education is the main inverse correlate of divisive religious sectarianism. Comparative religion and skeptical thinking both serve to help people evaluate claims about spiritual reality in more reasonable and moral terms. This operates across the scale from the tutorship of individual children at home, to the mass-education of ethnic and religious groups in specially run schools. Most parents who educate their children at home do so for religious reasons₂₀. Sectarian religious schools (who base entry criteria on religion) are a major cause of the type of social schism that leads to violent behaviour₂₁.

Education should be secular, inclusive and mixed. This means emphasis on difference of belief, without assuming any particular belief system is true, and an abandonment of schools that split people along religious (or ethnic) lines (this applies during home education too).
Cult-bashing reactionary news broadcasts that actively attack small, isolated communities always make the situation worse. Engagement should be educational and sympathetic towards followers, not judgemental and aggressive (which makes them isolate themselves more).
The presentation of scientific reality in easy-to-understand terms on TV, complete with reality-based interpretations of spiritual-seeming events. Too much TV assumes that many otherworldly ideas about reality are true, and far too little employs any evidence-based skeptical thinking. A more responsible take on what beliefs mass media products encourage should be taken.
Beliefs in afterlife, god(s) and spiritual ideas should ideally be tempered with reasonable levels of doubt and common sense. Merely saying that this should be so doesn't help, however, so it is up to the three points above to bring this recommended state closer!

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