I'm not surprised in the least. A significant number of people hold the belief that believing in a deity is a necessary condition when judging a person as being moral. Although this belief is unfounded and easily disproved it continues to influence opinions.

I wonder what the results would be of a survey taken about the religious beliefs of felons at the time the crime was committed (which would, of course, exclude jailhouse conversions)? How many atheists would be found, do you think?

How many atheists would be found, do you think?

If we go by current statistics, atheist are vastly under represented in today's prison population. Evidently, we're simply not trying hard enough.

Unforntunately, most people, religious or not, tend to think in terms of arguments that confirm the views they hold but not arguments that disconfirm them. I frequently run into people who debunk science on the grounds that, "It's only theory." Of course, logical empiricism works by taking a hypothesis and throwing rocks at it. If the hypothesis can whether nearly every attempt to DISPROVE it, it is called a theory... contingent upon further investigation. In other words, the theory of science is better than most people's facts. Such a rigorous method requires rigorous thought processes generally not encouraged at church or elsewhere.

If I remember correctly, the same question was asked in the United States and only 10% would vote for an atheist. So Brazil sounds pretty good to me.