14 DAY TRIAL // In a find that could explain why some people feel a close and direct “relationship” with their respective gods, scientists have determined that each individual tends to endow the deity with their own personal beliefs. These may include views on abortion and same-gender marriages. Persuaded that they speak in God's name, these people stop at nothing to get their point across, as evidenced by ultra-conservative, right-wing religious groups in the United States and Islamic fundamentalists in the Middle East. But they do not act on God's will, but on the ideas they allot to their God, NewScientist reports.
“Intuiting God's beliefs on important issues may not produce an independent guide, but may instead serve as an echo chamber to validate and justify one's own beliefs,” explains scientist Nicholas Epley. The expert is the leader of the team of investigators behind the new study. The group, based at the University of Chicago, published its findings in the latest issue of the respected journal Proceedings of the National Academies of Science (PNAS).
“People may use religious agents as a moral compass, forming impressions and making decisions based on what they presume God as the ultimate moral authority would believe or want. The central feature of a compass, however, is that it points north no matter what direction a person is facing. 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,” the scientists also write in the journal entry.
In a set of experiments, the team asked a number of religious volunteers to state their opinions on controversial issues such as abortions and the death penalty. The respondents were also asked to say what they believed God, the average American, and public figures had to say on the same issue. Unsurprisingly, the test subjects were more likely to say that God has exactly the same views that they do on the controversial issues, lending further credibility to the idea that people indeed endow deities with their own personal beliefs.
“The experiments in which we manipulate people's own beliefs are the most compelling evidence we have to show that people's own beliefs influence what they think God believes more substantially than it influences what they think other people believe,” Epley concludes.