First, a number of studies have concluded that by any reasonable measure, atheists tend to be more ethical than religious people as a whole. This shows up in under-representation in criminal activity, lower divorce rates, etc. (There are a number of sociological reasons for this, but those are the statistics.)
What about if you compare atheists and religious people of similar intelligence? I suspect atheists tend to be more ethical simply because they tend to be more intelligent.
The correlation between education and atheism is one of the sociological reasons I was referring to. Unfortunately I do not have access to any research that tries to control for this obviously correlated factor.
What about if you compare atheists and religious people of similar intelligence? I suspect atheists tend to be more ethical simply because they tend to be more intelligent.