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Posted on: November 30, 2009 3:30 PM, by Ed Yong
For many religious people, the popular question "What would Jesus do?" is essentially the same as "What would I do?" That's the message from an intriguing and controversial new study by Nicholas Epley from the University of Chicago. Through a combination of surveys, psychological manipulation and brain-scanning, he has found that when religious Americans try to infer the will of God, they mainly draw on their own personal beliefs.
Psychological studies have found that people are always a tad egocentric when considering other people's mindsets. They use their own beliefs as a starting point, which colours their final conclusions. Epley found that the same process happens, and then some, when people try and divine the mind of God. Their opinions on God's attitudes on important social issues closely mirror their own beliefs. If their own attitudes change, so do their perceptions of what God thinks. They even use the same parts of their brain when considering God's will and their own opinions.
Of course, correlation doesn't imply causation - rather than people imprinting their beliefs onto God, it could be that people were using God's beliefs as a guide to their own. Epley tried to control for that by asking his recruits to talk about their own beliefs first, and then presenting God and the others in a random order. And as better evidence of causality, Epley showed that he could change people's views on God's will by manipulating their own beliefs.
Originally posted by silver tongue devil
So wait...
they drew conclusive proof that God doesn't exist and that the belief is invalid...simply because when hooked up to a brain scanner the electricity went in a particular direction??
Oh yeah...that's sound philosophical reasoning right there. heh.
Hypothetically lets say there is a "God", and that said person believes this is so, how should this have reflected on the brain scanner in the way that would have shown the opposite conclusion?...
Doesn't it seem as though that was never a possible conclusion for the people monitoring this experiment?
Like what were they expecting?
If God was real then the brain would have illustrated pictures of angels with the brain wave activity??...
Originally posted by reasonable
Here comes the god squad to attack.. lash out, etc. I will not stop posting such articles. I'm not scared of you punks whatsoever. crucify me all you like.. I'm sure Jesus would approve of you bickering with me rather than helping down at the homeless shelter
Originally posted by IceDash
Originally posted by reasonable
Here comes the god squad to attack.. lash out, etc. I will not stop posting such articles. I'm not scared of you punks whatsoever. crucify me all you like.. I'm sure Jesus would approve of you bickering with me rather than helping down at the homeless shelter
we didn't attack you, we was..umm...does the word "disagree" mean anything to you?
lol, the reason why I said "we" because you used the word "punks" and God squad...that's mean more than one people, right?
Originally posted by reasonable
Originally posted by IceDash
Originally posted by reasonable
Here comes the god squad to attack.. lash out, etc. I will not stop posting such articles. I'm not scared of you punks whatsoever. crucify me all you like.. I'm sure Jesus would approve of you bickering with me rather than helping down at the homeless shelter
we didn't attack you, we was..umm...does the word "disagree" mean anything to you?
^^^ Ah, an ATS first folks! "we" I'll type that again "we"... looks like confirmation of the ATS religious cabal. I had no idea they were so unified and considered themselves a "we". This place is in trouble now...