Seven Deadly Sins Found In Bible Belt

“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?” Conventional wisdom would say, “The Shadow knows”.  But in 2009, its the Department of Geography at Kansas State University, who knows what  kinds of evil and precisely where it lives in America.  How do they know?  Because they made maps of it.

The question of evil and where it lurks has been largely ignored by the scientific community, until now.  Geographers from Kansas State University have used certain statistical measurements to quantify  America’s sins graphically showing the various degrees of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride in the nation.   By culling statistics from nationwide databanks of things like sexually
transmitted disease infection rates (lust) or killings per capita (wrath), the researchers came up with a sin index.  The findings were presented last week at the Association of American Geographers’ annual meeting in Las Vegas.

Reporter Abigail Goldman of the Las Vegas Sun noted, “this is a precision party trick — rigorous mapping of ridiculous data.”  Even so, I deal with numbers all day long and I’m a lapsed Catholic– this is the coolest thing I’ve seen in a long time.  Taking real verifiable data like crime statistics, mashing it together with the Seven Deadly Sins of the Christian faith, and then putting it on a county-by-county map of the United States.  Brilliant.  Pay particular attention to the so called “Bible Belt”.  The details and maps for each sin follow:

Lust was calculated by compiling the number of sexually transmitted diseases (HIV, AIDS, syphilis, chlamydia and gonorrhea) — reported per capita.

Gluttony was calculated by counting the number of fast food restaurants per capita (Personally, I would have added the number of weight loss clinics and sales of Sweating to the Oldies DVDs)

Greed was calculated by comparing average incomes with the total number of inhabitants living beneath the poverty line.

Sloth was calculated by comparing expenditures on arts, entertainment and recreation with the rate of employment.  (Here, I would have added an additional variable and looked to see how many residents had been contestants on a reality TV shows or had made an appearances on Jerry Springer, Maury, or Dr. Phil).

Wrath was calculated by comparing the total number of violent crimes (murder, assault and rape) reported to the FBI per capita.

Envy was calculated using the total number of thefts (robbery, burglary, larceny and stolen cars).

And last but not least, pride.  The root of all sins, in this study, is the aggregate of all data.

So take a gander and see where your rotten borough falls on the sin index.  You might be surprised and then again you may not be.