Is this a coincidence?

Hilarious!

Of course, correlation is not necessarily causation.

But it could be...:)

Hmm... The maps do look very similar, well done for spotting it out! However, I don't think being a follower a specific religious group such as Christian in this case will be the sole reason for the homicide rate.

Usually the factors of a homicide can include:-

-mental illness

-relationship breakdown

-physical ill health

-financial stress

Religion doesn't really play a role of homicide, if so the cases are very rare. Possibly there might be a trend with the number of murders, homicides etc.. to do with Christians. But gender, ethnicity, area you live in and country can influence the rates.

GOSHAROOTIE. THE TWO MAPS ARE ALMOST THE SAME!!!!

Except that they aren't. There are a few places with a low of CHristians and a lot of murders (e.g. - Mexico) but also a lot of places where there is no correlation (e.g. Europe and Russia).

Show me maps correlating poverty and homicide, and I suspect you'll get a close fit.

(Sigh - why does a Jewish boy like me keep on defending Christians and Christianity)

More importantly, what inference would you like to make?

Mine would be that the more desperate a population tends to be:

A) the more homicide

B) the more irrational, thus religious

@ zvi

Funny you should mention that, poverty correlates with relgiousity as well.

Christian countries have the most amount of 2nd, 3rd world immigrants... that's the answer. Compare your statistics to 2nd and 3rd world countries irregardless of majority faith. Wikipedia references have there issues eh? Christian countries are, without a single exception ( unless non-white) are 1st world, they deal with less killing issues than all' rest. You need to filter your info more intelligently, sorry

I'm afraid the question asker might be retarded.