It seems that it might be safer to attend an Australian strip show than to go to church.
The latest data, compiled by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, showed 1600 people were charged with committing a range of 27 offences in the state’s “places of worship” in 2008.
Surprisingly, the figures showed only 282 people were charged in premises classified as adult entertainment over the same offences.
Except — and I do hate to ruin a funny story — the newspaper article says nothing about the number of premises involved. I suspect that there may be many more churches than strip clubs, which would mean that per venue, churches would be safer.
If that latter assumption is not true, though, let me know — it would mean Australia is actually Flying Spaghetti Monster paradise.
I envision church buildings with steeples festooned with images of His Noodley Appendages draped down to surround the double-door entrances.
…and large pots of marinara sauce here and there.
Say, does that mean there’s a parallel between transsubstantiation and having a pasta dinner?
We’ll have to wait for the Australian contingent to wake up, have that first cup of coffee (or VB, depending), and park at their computers before we can ask the really important question needed to put this article in full perspective, viz: Are there more churches or “premises classified as adult entertainment” in Oz?
My vision of Australia, which is likely horribly inaccurate, is that there are at least as many strip clubs as churches, if not more.
True. On the other hand, strip clubs are open for business many more hours per week than a typical church.
A lot of strip club violence is probably alcohol related, impairing people’s inhibitions and judgment. I wonder what the catalyst is at a church?
The bouncers at the strip clubs probably have an inhibiting effect on problems there. Last I knew, churches didn’t have bouncers.
This comes as no surprise to Webster Cook…..
I wonder if any places qualify as both a “place of worship” and “adult entertainment”. What? It’s Australia, you never know.
This also reminds me of a headline: Fire destroys go-go bar and leaves 4 men homeless.
(My posts are pretty much just streams of consciousness at this point.)
Brains addled by religion I would expect.
While there are actually many more churches than “premises classified as adult entertainment” here, the churches have far fewer patrons.
It’s not only the number of premises of both types, but the number of people who visited both types of premises times the number of yearly visits.
I don’t know what is the average number of yearly visits to each types of premises made by Australians. Let’s play around with some numbers:
Assuming 1/3 visits weekly a church, 1/3 monthly, 1/3 never, we get 470 million church visits per year.
Assuming 10% of the Australian population visits an adult entertainement place once a month and the rest never, we get 26 million AE visits per year.
1600 /470mill. = 3.4 per million church visits
282/ 26mill.= 10.8 per million AE visits
so with these assumptions people are 3 times more likely to commit an offense when visiting an Adult Entertainement place than when visiting a place of worship.
@Matt Penfold: I suppose. I grew up going to tedious Catholic services where the biggest hurdle was trying not to yawn too much. I always figured that they made up switch between sitting, standing, and kneeling so often to keep us awake. It’s hard for me to imagine getting violent at church (except maybe in the competition to get out of the parking lot afterward).
And how many people were ever burnt alive while being tied to a pole at a strip club?
Okay, there was that one time in ’83 when a pyrotechnics/bondage show went horribly awry, but that’s it.
Less than 10% of Australians go to church each week. I do not know the strip club rates, but I warrant it’s no greater.
And there was a horrible fire in St Kilda back in the 70s at a strip club.
@#2
I think churches and strip clubs should both be categorized as adult entertainment!
The article did mention the number of sexual assaults at church – priests and pastors preying when they should be praying, no doubt.
Since the article refers to people being charged, it appears that these statistics won’t count incidents where the police weren’t called. I suspect that adult entertainment places are less likely to find the attentions of the police conducive to their business, and more likely to deal with trouble in-house.
Having spent an awful (wonderful) lot of time in a strip club in the past* and an awful (awful) lot of time in seedy bars, I can assure you that there is a lot more violence in a regular ‘ol drinking bar than there is in a “gentleman’s club”.
Having spent almost zero time in a church, I can’t presume to know what goes on there. I can only speculate that if I were forced to be there for any length of time, some shit might go down.
*The guy across the hall was a bartender at our local strip joint. Being a starving Deadhead and all, I took advantage of the free drinks and waiver of cover charge he afforded me. He also used to let dancers stay at his apartment so they didn’t have to blow (hey, now) their per diem on a hotel room. My girlfriend used to love it when Troy and I would come staggering in at 4 AM with a trio of scantily clad circuit girls. Not.
When life gives you lemons, the old-timers warn,
And everything starts to look sour,
Just make lemonade! This is no time to mourn,
But a time to start “Church Happy Hour”!
From ten to eleven, on Saturday night,
Half off blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ,
Come knock off a chalice of red or of white,
While the sacrament’s reasonably priced!
There are pretzels and chips at the pew, in a dish,
For the church-going Happy Hour snacker,
Or the Flesh Of Our Savior, if that is your wish,
For the folks who want more than a cracker
It’s the hippest of hippest, the best place I know
Where believers can mingle or meet–
But this weekend, I’m thinking It’s safer to go
To the topless church, just down the street!
http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2010/04/everything-is-upside-down-down-under.html
Tim Wilson’s First Baptist Bar & Grill.
Well, there’s Aussie Rules Football — Aussie Rules liturgy ain’t too much of a stretch, is it?
@ #15 – but sometimes (as in the case of the Catholic Church) it takes years for the crimes to come to light, and an eternity for criminal charges to be filed. They also like to deal with assault in-house.
There are a lot more churches than “adult entertainment venues” – even if you include the pubs with the topless waitresses.
However, on a per-capita basis, there are probably more people attending the “adult entertainment venues” than the churches; after all, you can go to the pub every day of the week.
Say, does that mean there’s a parallel between transsubstantiation and having a pasta dinner?
I will now prove the existence of the miraculous transformation made possible by the FSM.
Look, you start out with flour. Mix it with water and extrude it into pasta shapes. Then dry out the water. Does it turn back into flour? NO!
So, mathematically:
flour + water – water should = flour.
IT DOES NOT!!!!!!!!
IT’S A MIRACLE!!!
THE FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER EXISTS!!!!!!
This is a much more rigorous proof of His existence than any Christian apologist one.
Compare:
Wafer + consecration = What? You can’t tell the difference? Ha Ha!
Flour + water – water = IT’S A MIRACLE
QED
There should be churches with topless priestesses. Would do wonders for attendance.
“Homosexual clubs”? Are those any different from gay bars which are (in my experience) just bars where gays and lesbians can safely congregate?
Granted I can count on one hand how many times I’ve been to one, but they seem less likely to have fights break out than at straight bars which could be why the difference is spelled out.
However, by lumping them in with strip clubs, sex shops, brothels, and massage parlours, it certainly goes toward enforcing the idea amongst the homophobes that homosexuality is just about sex and their clubs are nothing but orgy dens.
Premises listed under adult entertainment included … gaming houses as well as gambling clubs.
Well, if you tally those puttin’ their money down on Pascal’s Wager, doesn’t each church count as a one-game casino?
@23
Ah, but there were a lot of those, up until about 1700 years ago – mystery cults, fertility goddesses, etc. Then something happened. Seems it had a lot to do with one particular one particular cult that got too popular and started to forcibly restrict the competition.
As might have been deduced from the use of the word “church”, I was suggesting that that particular cult should pick up the practice.
Tabby, I assumed they were talking about bath houses which do tend to be all about sex (at least according to the gay guys I used to hang out with).
Kudos to the great cuddlefish, that was priceless!
If these findings are true/correct then one is better off staying away from churches and other houses of worship. And, I for one, welcome the Flying Spaghetti Monster as the new overlord. All kiss His Noodly Appendage.
I’m trying to see if the adult entertainment part includes NSW TAB – a place where you can place a bet rather than a casino-style ‘gambling place’. I think TABs in NSW have an age restriction on the door, so they may count. If this IS the case, then these will add rather a large number of well patronised venues to the Adult Entertainment list. If not, then the number of religous venues would probably win out.
Tabby @24 – Homosexual clubs will mean sex-on-site venues which have an 18+ age restriction on entry. Most pubs in Australia allow minors in, but not service at the bar (even to buy soft drinks), so long as they are accompanied by an adult.
But hopefully not a priest….
Ahh, PZ. I’m disappointed to see you fall victim to the fallacy of the excluded middle.
We must ask, ‘How many of those churches are also strip clubs?’
I think we need to draw a Venn diagram.
Having unfortunately attended a number of Australian lie dispensers and also fortunately also attended a number of adult performing art galleries I can make the following comments.
Both cater to certain mental fantasies, however one venue is honest and transparent about this fact.
Both cost you quite a bit of money. One through voluntary admission and or payment for services, the other through compulsory taxation through tax exemption status.
One is very open about services provided and hides very little if anything at all, the other is shrouded in arcane and institutional mysteries.
Both serve alcohol. One has cheap crappy wine the other a range of high quality wines, beers and liquors.
One can be lots of fun for consenting adults and the other can be a life of torment for non-consenting minors.
And just think how many offences there would be if the RCC didn’t manage to gag so many victims.
I wouldn’t believe anything on news.com PZ, as they tend to simply make news up. I wouldn’t be surprised if those figures are the imagination of the author. They are usually good for a laugh, though.