Research shows that people project their own beliefs onto God. | Hacker News Reader

Research shows that people project their own beliefs onto God.

newscientist.com

27 pointsAndrewDucker15 comments

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We didn't need a new research report to tell us this.

For sure. From Jethro Tull's 1971 Aqualung :

"In the beginning Man created God; and in the image of Man created he him.

"2 And Man gave unto God a multitude of names,that he might be Lord of all the earth when it was suited to Man

"3 And on the seven millionth day Man rested and did lean heavily on his God and saw that it was good. ..."

Because it would be "preaching to the choir"?

Right.

It is interesting how (in the European and American context) we have not developed this idea much from the Enlightenment (Spinoza, Pascal, etc). We know this idea and yet cannot get past it.

The realization does not shake the belief itself, unless it was very weak to start with. The German philosopher, Ernst Bloch - I think in his work "Atheism in Christianity" - insisted the the 'atheist is very close to the true believer' in the sense that both are responding to the same impulse.

Darwin doesn't wreck my idea of the possibility of a God. And I do not mean in the sense of "Intelligent Design" or whatever it is called.

It seems hard to accept that if there is 'an allpowerful creator being thingie' that it would be completely beyond our ken. And any approximation would be an approximation of something infinite and thus as good as nothing. Less than the shadows on the cave in Plato's image.

This idea is at least as old as the combined JudeoChristian tradition. Arguably (and I am not competent to argue this - just was taught it years ago by a Franciscan so take it for what itis worth), arguably the oldest book of the Hebrew Scriptures is Job. The oldest text. And to me the answer to this idea is in that book. (and if you happen to be in NYC check out Wm Blake's Job prints in the Morgan library exhibit)

That idea of god is incomprehensible, terrifying and at turns mild, beatific. Like those alternately anthrophagous and beatific buddhas on Tibetan or Mongolian tapestries.

Over the years a few things I have read have given me the same chill as the lines of God responding to Job from the whirlwind (Stephen Mitchell's translation). Like the ending of "King Lear" or Prince Arjuna looking over the plains at his immense enemy spread before him but then realizing his charioteer is Krishna. Moments of almost obliterating awe - the realization of the absolute otherness of creation of which we are a part yet separate through consciousness trying to get back...

Which gets to why I think Bloch was right. The atheist and the true believer they are human responses to the same impulse.

I do not get the in between - ie articles like this - is this a new idea?

"This research suggests that, unlike an actual compass, inferences about God's beliefs may instead point people further in whatever direction they are already facing."

I have long thought that one of the major downside of any religion is that it radicalizes people. No mater how much peace and tolerance it preaches, dogma always takes over.

It can increase people's commitment to compassion too. Like Lisp or Forth, it is an amplifier. Actually placebos are a better analogy. Both are imaginary social support that allows a body to commit resources that would otherwise be held in reserve.

This isn't surprising...people tend to project their own beliefs onto everybody, and unlike our fellow humans God doesn't give us any opportunities to disabuse ourselves of this notion.

The question this should make people ask is: where are these beliefs coming from, if not from religious teaching?

Often both sides of a controversial argument are content to blame God for the position of the religious side. It's easier to simply write off your opponent as an unreasonable religious nutcase rather than making a legitimate attempt to look for the real motivation. It's almost as easy to attack religious fallacies as it is to use them for support.

It is somewhat interesting for noting why this is the case, eg fMRI observations showing that praying activates the same brain regions as used when chatting to friends.

Didn't read the original paper yet, but I'd like to see some research on how these beliefs may shift at different times. For example, someone might say it's wrong to steal on Monday, but on Friday they might embezzle some money while murmuring 'god helps those who help themselves', balancing it out with an hour or two of being a poor sinner on Sunday before deciding they've been forgiven at the end of it. Stories of large-scale financial fraudsters often reveal a pattern of 'doubling down' and increasing the fraud in an attempt to use the money as capital for a superficially legitimate scheme designed to yield a large profit and allow the return of the money they 'borrowed'.

Julian Jaynes theorized that consciousness as we know it today developed out of a kind of low-grade schizophrenia in which people internalized social mores as religious voices prior to the kind of self-reflection we take for granted today.

Much like how we project our ideas about our ideal love-object onto the people we fall in love with. Which, of course, no person can ever live up to.

"God" is a very flexible object of contemplation. As a word, its entire meaning is dependent on context. To a great extent that context is very private. Yet most of humanity naively bandies it about as if we're already agreed on what it means. As a meme it's certainly one of the most, if not the most, successful that's ever grabbed hold of us. For whatever purposes.

Is this surprising or concerning? This article seems to presume a belief or decision making process wherein the subject has a belief, but has not thought about what God would think on the issue, and so decides to address the question by performing an act of intuition—at which point God's opinion is intuited to be similar to the subject's own.

I would be awfully surprised if religious people didn't tend to have opinions, religious and moral, that tend to track with each other and influence each other.

This reminded me of something from a Steve Yegge rant:

"Now do a Google search for "perl religion". Looky looky, the first link is a Slashdot interview with Larry entitled: Larry Wall on Perl, Religion, and..., in which Larry talks extensively about his conversations with God, in which God evidently explains to Larry that He only likes Perl programmers. "

http://steve.yegge.googlepages.com/ancient-languages-perl

I tend to think that a lot of religious fanaticism is a result of positive-feedback loops between sect members. God is defined by the authorities in a group, per this article; the rest of the group internalizes this God and projects their own beliefs, again per this article; they share these beliefs among themselves and with the religious leadership, and the cycle starts over.

(I am a Christian, in case that colors your interpretation of this comment).

Ramen.

In other news, the world continues to rotate. It's nice to have a proper study saying it, though.

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