More proof that you can only be moral with religion! … hey, waitaminute

I never thought I’d say this, but maybe more criminals ought to turn religious, if this story is anything to judge by. A Swedish bank robber who had eluded capture for four years finally turned himself in – though only after finding faith (or, as he put it, having had a “religious awakening”. Why is it people always refer to “waking up” when converting to a religion? You’d think they used to walk around sleeping, bumping off the walls or something).

It was back in 2005 when men on mopeds attacked two guards and made their way into the Sparbanken Gripen in Ängelholm.

The assailants then sped off on their motorbikes with several million kronor from the bank’s vaults.

Three months after the caper, an arrest warrant was issued for a 30-year-old man suspected of carrying out the daring heist.

But police ran into a number of roadblocks during the investigation’s early phases, and by 2008 it looked as if the crime would remain unsolved, the Helsingborgs Dagblad (HD) newspaper reports.

But police caught a lucky break last year when the 30-year-old suspect unexpectedly contacted Sweden’s embassy in Brazil, confessed to the theft, and then asked to return to Sweden to atone for his crime.

He later explained that he had had fallen in love with a Brazilian woman following the robbery. The couple then moved to Brazil, where the 30-year-old began studying religion.

“He had studied with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, which caused him to reassess his life. Now he sees that he must follow the country’s laws in order to be a Jehovah’s Witness and as a result wants to pay for his crime,” the 30-year-old’s defence attorney, Niclas Elison, told the newspaper.

So … it took this bank robber religion for him to see the error of his ways and atone …

Now, don’t ya know those pesky religious moralists will just use that against us secular humanists somehow?

Okay, all joking aside: this proves nothing at all. It’s one guy who obviously cared more for his relationship – and his faith – than for his desire to stay out of jail. It’s hardly indicative that other people also need Jesus (or Allah, or Cthulhu, or whichever deity you prefer) to live honest lives filled with moral goodness.

(via @religionnews)