Utilisateur:GregSmith

"Somebody could walk into this room
And say your life is on fire.
It's all over the evening news,
All about the fire in your life on the evening news."

- Paul Simon, "Crazy Love, Vol. II," Graceland album (1986).

My e-mail is glsmith7 (at) telus.net

If we play the same game as the evangelical critics, we could choose the states with high concentrations of conservative Protestants. There are thirteen states in which the Southern Baptist Convention has more congregations than any other denomination.[1] The suicide rates for these states are tabulated below:[2]

State Rank (1 is worst)
2004 data
Suicide rate per 100,000
2004 Data
US National average > 36 11.1
Alabama 24 21.1
Arkansas 20 13.1
Florida 15 13.7
Georgia 36 10.9
Kentucky 16 (tie) 13.5
Louisiana 27 11.9
Mississippi 23 12.1
Missouri 22 12.4
North Carolina 14 12.0
Oklahoma 14 14.4
South Carolina 19 11.5
Tennessee 18 (tie) 13.4
Texas 39 10.2
Utah 9 15.6

All but three of these states is in the top half of suicides, and all but two (Georgia at 10.9 and Texas at 10.2/100,000) are above the national average.

  1. [retour]  Largest Religious Groups in the United States: Religious Bodies which have the Most Congregations of any Denomination in One or More States, 1990," adherents.com (Accessed 30 August 2007). off-site
  2. [retour]  John L. McIntosh, "Rate, Number, and Ranking of Suicide for Each U.S.A. State*, 2004," American Association of Suicidology (accessed 30 August 2007). PDF link