Prisoners are not asked whether they believe in god or not, they are asked what is their religious affiliation. If they don't feel like belonging to any, they can choose none. But anyway, the accuracy of the statistics is of lesser importance here, if we all agree that statistics alone don't prove any proposition of cause-effect as true or false.QMan wrote: I thought I made that amply clear. The questioning of the inmates and questionnaire design was wrong in the past. Most inmates claim they belief in God for the spurious reasons
That may well be your belief, but certainly has not been proven to be a fact.QMan wrote:The hypothesis is of course based on the fact that the divine benefit the theist receives and his/her response to the divine influence results in an interior psychological transformation akin to the interior heaven promised by Christ.
Sure, personal experiences are only "personal" because they are experienced by the subject. They have an empirical value for that person. But you will admit that it works the same for everybody. So you don't have access to the personal facts of the atheist, the buddhist, the taoist, the wiccan, the worshiper of Horus, etc.QMan wrote: As an atheist you have no access to that fact and are limited to evaluate it statistically