Religion and Crime
Different religious traditions may promote distinct norms of behaviour, and these in turn may clash or harmonise with the perceived interests of a state. Socially accepted or imposed religious morality has influenced secular jurisdictions on issues that may otherwise concern only an individual's conscience. Activities sometimes criminalized on religious grounds include (for example) alcohol-consumption (prohibition), abortion and stem-cell research. In various historical and present-day societies, institutionalized religions have established systems of earthly justice that punish crimes against the divine will and against specific devotional, organizational and other rules under specific codes, such as Roman Catholic canon law.
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Famous quotes containing the words religion and, religion and/or crime:
“Your honesty is not to be based either on religion or policy. Both your religion and policy must be based on it. Your honesty must be based, as the sun is, in vacant heaven; poised, as the lights in the firmament, which have rule over the day and over the night.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)
“Every religion is good that teaches man to be good; and I know of none that instructs him to be bad.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
“The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)