Is an average non-religious person more likely to be more moral than average religious person?

I can only base my answer on people I know; of those people, the non-religious ones are more moral than the religious ones.

My late husband was agnostic/atheist, he had a horrible childhood, and as an adult had compassion for others like him and helped whenever he could.

One of my better friends, a hard-core atheist, is one of the most moral people I know, always finding opportunities for random acts of kindness, donates anonymously, has great compassion for those less fortunate than she has been.

The humane rescue group I volunteer for is filled with non-religious people who concern themselves with lessening the suffering of animals, finding homes for abandoned and surrendered cats, and spaying and neutering feral cats to lessen the pet overpopulation problem.

I don't spend much time with religious people, but the ones that I do know are more concerned about people behaving properly (being judgmental) and less concerned with lessening suffering. Their charity seems to always have strings attached. They help others within the group of believers, but non-believers are largely ignored unless there is a possibility of conversion.

Because I live in the midwestern US, the majority of religious people I know are Christian or Jewish. I don't advertise my atheism because most midwestern Christians think atheists worship the devil, they think you are either for or against their definition of god. They have more of a herd mentality. The non-believers seem to think as individuals and are more tolerant of differing beliefs - a live and let live stance.

    My objection to these comparisons between "religious" and "non-religious" people one often finds on the internet is that "Christianity" is lumped together with all the "religious" people. That way the surveys can show how much more "religious" people get divorces, how "religious" people make less income, are less well educated, or whatever measure you choose.

    If you separate the "evangelical" (more on this definition presently) Christians out you won't get the same numbers. Atheists do not have less divorces than Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Buddhists and on and on. Atheists do not make more income. Atheists are not better educated.

    I thought it was fairly well established on this board that those 'evangelical" Christians and most atheists are just two sides of the same bad coin, people with a superficial understanding of religion, science and most of everything else. They read at an elementary level. Thus are they bewildered by the superficial differences between various religions around the world  other than Christianity.

    I think it is a terrible mistake to count Trump supporters as "religious." They are very obviously not. They are in fact those "Christians" who give religion a bad name in those surveys.

    The definition of an "evangelical" is problematic. That term has seen considerably more use since Trump was elected and largely to describe the sort of "religious" people who support him. It is not however well defined. The requirements are very few and very vague. It can be obvious that they are more nationalistic than religious. They really have no rules except being a member. If one of their members does it, it's fine. If someone not a member does it, it's a terrible offense.

    So by quite many measures we already have the answer to your poll. Atheists and Trump supporters are generally less moral. People with an actual religion with rules other than simple membership are more moral.

    Of course there are exceptions. There are very moral atheists and very moral self described, nondenominational Christians. And then there are some people with very little education who are the most decent people you will ever meet.  Generally speaking though there is an observable pattern.

I know an ex-Mormon missionary who sought to convert people in Thailand. He said that sometimes the people they talked to would laugh and say, "All religions teach men to be good, you have your religion and I have mine. So why do you think it makes a difference to change?"

Yes, various religions teach men to be good. This should result in a higher percentage of religious people being more moral. Some may try to do good because they feel it the honorable thing to do. They might have the exact same reasons in doing good as non-religious people. Some religious people might do good out of fear of some future retribution, such as a threat of hell. I live in a country that is predominantly Buddhist. It is a common practice to release captive birds and fish to "make merit" but is this practice actually "doing good"...? Some of these same people abandon pet dogs at Buddhist temples.

I voted that religious people might be slightly more moral. In general they are not but in some religions people are being continually admonished to be moral. I think this may edge them slightly ahead of the non-religious.

There was actually a study that followed people from childhood into their twenties (I think), and it found that the ones who were raised religious were more likely to have negative traits as adults such as racism, nationlism, desire to get revenge for slights, etc. As teenagers they were more likely to be bullies and were more worried about "fitting in" than the kids raised atheist/agnostic. The reasoning seemed to be that the kids raised without religion were often taught how to behave based more on lessons of empathy, whereas the religious kids were more likely to receive a simple "God will be mad at you if you do bad things". One of the methods obviously (given the results) works better. Don't remember where I came across the study, but I remember it from a thread I made back on the original IMDb boards.

Again, based on what?

Which just goes back to my point.

Everyone 's opinion is based on their own moral code or a particular accepted code.

It means nothing to have a competition about it.

I did not vote. but ill say this... someone who follows Christianity a bit more seriously is more likely to be more moral than the common person.