So... 7 out of the top 10 coming in below 50%... not impressed?

Oh, and Pineapple, did you also include the degree to which theism is incorporated into daily life?  That's an important number, and you'd be doing your numbers a disservice if you simply took all theism as equal.  Clearly "social catholics" are not going to be as influenced by religion as devout Muslims or Baptists.

Cap, what's the range of the peace index, and which of the
endpoints of the range indicates most peaceful, and least.

Also, I'm curious if you know what crit4eria and time frame was used to measure a peace index, as well as, when the study was published. Tx.

A slight boo-boo on my part.

I mis-read the Uruguay article [I mis-read read it as 12% atheist, when it's 17% athest], and the % Theists is acutally 83%. Since this is still above the E[T], I don't see how this will change anything significantly.

I don't understand what you are trying to prove with this? This peace index doesn't show if religion is beneficial or not. The only conclusion you MIGHT be able to draw from it is about the country's military and political climate (both foreign policy and internal).  I don't see any linking factor from that to theism or atheism...just the elected government by that population. You could have a high peace rating by having a stable government, strong military in your area, and having no aggressive neighbor.

Hamby's post shows that the areas where there are a high number of atheists, there are also much more stable conditions. Keep in mind that the determinant doesn't show how good these places are, just the peace. A place with sharia religious law can be considered peaceful when they stone people to death for sodomy if the system is accepted by the people as legitimate, the military is strong, and the neighboring nations are peaceful. The US for example borders Mexico and Canada, two nations very unlikely to go to war with us, and who have relatively stable governments. 

From the site: -------------------------------------

Indicators consisting of quantitative data such as military expenditure or jailed population have been measured on the basis of the distribution of values across all countries between the maximum and minimum values (we assume that the 144 countries measured for the Global Peace Index are a representative sample of all countries). Each of the indicator’s data set has been divided into ten bands based on the full range of the data set and a country’s corresponding score results in its position in the distribution. Each indicator’s range between the maximum and minimum values has now been anchored in time based on data collected for the 2008 Global Peace Index. This is a change to the measurement methodology used in previous versions of the GPI and a description is provided below. In order to make comparable and fair assessments over time, the 2009 methodology has been used to recalculate GPI 2008. All ranking and score changes between the 2009 GPI and 2008 GPI are on the basis of these enhanced measuring techniques. A detailed explanation of the scoring criteria used for each indicator is available in the Results Report.

Measures of ongoing domestic and international conflict

The Global Peace Index is intended as a review of the state of peace in nations over the past year, although many indicators are based on available data from the last two years. The panel of experts decided against including data reflecting a country’s longer-term historical experience of domestic and international conflict on the grounds that the GPI uses authoritative statistics on ongoing civil and trans-national wars collated by institutes such as the Uppsala Conflict Data Program and the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo. These, combined with two indicators scored by the Economist Intelligence Unit’s analysts, comprise five of the 23 indicators:

• Number of external and internal conflicts fought: 2002-07
• Estimated number of deaths from organized conflict (external)
• Number of deaths from organized conflict (internal)
• Level of organized conflict (internal)
• Relations with neighbouring countries

Measures of societal safety and security

Ten of the indicators assess the levels of safety and security in a society (country), ranging from the perception of criminality in society, to the level of respect for human rights and the rate of homicides and violent crimes. Crime data is from the UN Office of Drugs and Crime. Five of these indicators have been scored by the Economist Intelligence Unit’s team of country analysts:

• Perceptions of criminality in society
• Number of displaced people as a percentage of the population
• Political instability
• Level of disrespect for human rights (Political Terror Scale)
• Potential for terrorist acts
• Number of homicides per 100,000 people
• Level of violent crime
• Likelihood of violent demonstrations
• Number of jailed population per 100,000 people
• Number of internal security officers and police per 100,000 people

Measures of militarization

Eight of the indicators are related to a country’s military build-up - reflecting the assertion that the level of militarization and access to weapons is directly linked to how at peace a country feels internationally. Comparable data are readily available from sources such as the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS):

• Military expenditure as a percentage of GDP
• Number of armed services personnel per 100,000 people
• Volume of transfers (imports) of major conventional weapons per 100,000 people
• Volume of transfers (exports) of major conventional weapons per 100,000 people
• Funding for UN peacekeeping missions: outstanding contributions versus annual assessment to the budget of the current peacekeeping missions
• Aggregate number of heavy weapons per 100,000 people
• Ease of access to small arms and light weapons
• Military capability/sophistication

Weighting the index

The panel of experts apportioned scores based on the relative importance of each of the indicators on a 1-5 scale. The consensus scores for each indicator are presented in the results report.

Two sub-component weighted indices were then calculated from the GPI group of indicators:

1. a measure of how at peace internally a country is;
2. a measure of how at peace externally a country is (its state of peace beyond its borders).

The overall composite score and index was then formulated by applying a weight of 60% to the measure of internal peace and 40% for external peace. The heavier weight applied to internal peace was agreed within the panel of experts, following robust debate. The decision was based on the innovative notion that a greater level of internal peace is likely to lead to, or at least correlate with, lower external conflict.

Also, what "crime" is changes dramatically from country to country. Being stoned to death by sharia law for disgracing your family for example. In addition, they don't actually judge by number of crimes..rather the perception of it.

If you look at most of the more religious areas that have a higher peace index, you will notice either they are next to nations that follow the same belief system, or they are extremely isolated to where they have little to no bordering countries.

I would say this is because religion is a topic for contention, and what starts as a holy war for conversion frequently turns into actual war over differences in beliefs of how the world is in their minds. Isolated they do okay believing that, but put them up against contradicting beliefs and things start getting violent. It may not start as all-out war, but conflicts will surely come up from it, and a series of conflicts is enough to trigger almost anything. It usually doesn't stop until everyone is following one religion. Then it is only a matter of time before that religion splinters, and it would happen again...or another religion starts up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_war

Due to Hamby's complaints, I am attempting to hunt down polls that indicate Religiousity such as the one Clockcat linked to.

And through the magic of Microsoft excel, I no longer have to do the calculations by hand and can hence increase my sample size

I don't know the Theism/atheism % of the bottom 25

The other 2 I will try to find it out.

Ruh roh.

Alison, run the numbers on number of murders per year (approximately) in our Solar System for planets with a stratospheric ozone layer vs planets with no stratospheric ozone layer. I think you'll find the relation between planets with an ozone layer and their murder rate to be nigh undeniable.

Damned ozone. It'll be the doom of us all.

So wait, you are saying that disbelief in god helps peace in Europe in a roundabout way?

Okay.

Since belief in spirit/lifeforce is listed as atheist/agnostic on the page you pulled it from.

Disregard the police  correlation. I can't seem to pin down reliable sources.

You didn't take into account the ratio of Carbon/Silicon in the minerals.

Not really

Now my head hurts from crunching all these numbers

Actually I found a wikipedia article of beer consumption per capita, so I might have fun with that later

 [EDIT]

As for the prison population I doubt I would get accurate results.

It is unknown whether or not they are saying their Christian as it will help with the parole board for example.

[/EDIT]

Also interesting that 5 of the 6 states that recognize gay marriage are also in the top 10 least religious.

Also interesting that I wouldn't be caught alone in the most religious states BECAUSE I am gay, for fear of my safety.