Religion and Serial Killers

[Lundie]

Its odd how most serial killers like Albert Fish suffered from some form of religious psychosis or had lived under a suffocating religious environment during childhood. Is there a correlation between the two?

http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/notorious/fish/gracie_1.html?sect=3

[Tenspace]

I'm interested in this too. Not just the serial killers, but murderers in general. One would think that if God was real, the prisons wouldn't be full of religious people, just atheists. We all know this is not true.

Does anyone have links to studies which compare religiousity and crime?

Tenspace

[Paradox]

yeah, i heard that alot of serial killers had a fascination with the bible... not really surprising considering how morbid the book is.

Does anyone have links to studies which compare religiousity and crime?
you can get those here (http://www.adherents.com/misc/adh_prison.html).

[God, my arse]

"Thyth smite thine enemies with their swords and crackth their skulls in to thine lord's earth" sure that won't influence christian pcychopathic fanatics to go on murdering sprees.

[The Judge]

-How do you plead?...

-Not guilty

-NOT Guilty?! But you murdered them, chopped them up and ate their livers!

-god TOLD me to do it...

[Lundie]

yeah, i heard that alot of serial killers had a fascination with the bible... not really surprising considering how morbid the book is.
Please note that I refrained from specifically targeting the Christians. From my research, I find that religious psychosis among murderers and other criminals is a feature that trancends one particular religion. It's just that I have yet to find an impartial study into the whys and wherefores, which is not that suprising considering that it's a potential academic minefield of the highest order.

you can get those here (http://www.adherents.com/misc/adh_prison.html).
Hmmm....that looks suspiciously like a theist's apologetic attempt to divert attention from the problem at hand.

It cites outdated data and then says it's not applicable in Atheist forums because it's outdated. A little paradoxical isn't it?

Furthermore, it conveniently ignores the fact that varying forms of religious psychosis (i.e. dressing up in human skin and shouting "I AM GOD" at the top of their lungs) are highly prevalent among serial killers and murderers throughout history, thus avoiding further analysis into the matter. Why the blatant dichotomy?

It then launches into attacks on postings on Atheist forums. Enlightened though us Atheists may be, an article dressed up in quasi-scientific language and claiming to refute a particular hypothesis could at least find some more in-depth arguments to refute as opposed to forum posts!

But then again, that's what we get for looking at a website that's called adherents.com! :lol:

Good effort anyway Paradox!