Findings from the first study to compare the minds of gods

One explanation for the ubiquity of religion is that it fostered advantageous cooperation among our ancestors. The human mind readily develops belief in supervisory god-like entities and these beliefs help promote in us cooperative, moral behaviour. One problem with this account: how come some religions don't believe in a god or gods with moral concerns? Benjamin Purzycki may have the answer. He argues there's a difference between explicit, formal theological religious beliefs and people's religious intuitions. Even among religions that state their gods are unconcerned by human moral behaviour, he predicts there is an automatic bias toward believing that these gods know and care about interpersonal behaviour between people. To test this moralisation bias theory, Purzycki has conducted what he describes as "the first study to systematically compared the minds of gods." For this he surveyed 88 Christians at the University of Connecticut (including 60 Catholics, 14 Protestants) and 88 ethnic Tyvans living in Southern Siberia. True to the religious teachings of their faith, the Christians stated initially that their god knows everything. However, when they rated God's knowledge of 50 moral and non-moral issues (e.g. "God knows if I was helpful to someone"; "... knows what is under my bed"), they showed a clear bias for rating him more knowledgeable and concerned about moral facts than non-moral ones. "In one sitting, students claim both that God knows everything, but ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: Source Type: blogs