Letters from an Astrophysicist

by Neil deGrasse Tyson

Finally, deeply religious people sometimes ask, “Without God, why should people be civil to one another?” or “What’s to stop people from committing crimes or even murder in the absence of divine judgment?” There is a simple answer to this: prison. That’s why laws exist, to restrain offensive behavior from person to person and between person and property. This recipe works for most people. In fact, in Europe, there are whole countries (e.g. Switzerland, The Netherlands, England, France, Sweden) where religion plays hardly any role in politics, culture, business, or family, yet they enjoy far lower rates of violent crime than in America, where more than 9 in 10 people say they are religious. In these other countries, the fraction of people who say they are religious is typically less than 1 in 10.