Does believing that "God is on our side" make it easier for us to inflict pain and suffering on those perceived to be our enemies? If we think God sanctions violence, are we more likely to engage in violent acts?
Those questions were posed recently by Social psychologist Brad Bushman of the University of Michigan. You may be surprised by the results.
According to the studies, the resounding answer to both questions is "yes." Researcher Brad Bushman hypothesized that "exposure to a biblical description of violence would increase aggression more than a secular description of the same violence" and that "aggression would be greater when the violence was sanctioned by God than when it was not sanctioned by God." In the study, students read a description of the beating, raping, and murder, of a woman in ancient Israel. One half of the students read a version of the story that included an assertion that God commanded the friends of the woman to take revenge. The other half read a version that did not mention God sanctioning violence. One group was told the account came from the Bible while the other was told it came from an ancient scroll. When those involved in the study were then entitled to inflict punishment upon others, those who believed that God sanctioned the punishment were the most aggressive in inflicting punishment. The results held true in Brigham Young University, where 99% of those tested said they believe in God and the Bible, and in Vrije University in Amsterdam, Holland,, where half said they believed in God and only 27% believed in the Bible.
As I read this story, I thought of the false prophets we are warned about. It is a warning well worth heeding, especially in politics. When Hitler came to power, his speech was colored with references to God and what is right. "I can thank God at this moment that He has so wonderfully blessed us in our hard struggle for what is our right..." he said in 1939. In the last two elections, politicians have manipulated voters with 'gimmick issues', like striking the words "under God" from the pledge of allegiance and appeals claims that our faith is under attack from (gasp!) liberals.
But perhaps Bushman summarizes the results of the study best:
"What worries me is when people use God as a justification for their violence. There are scriptures that say you should not take God's name in vain. This is the most extreme version of taking God's name in vain," he said.
Amen.
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So did these test subjects
So did these test subjects actually go out and inflict pain on others? Just wondering.
I assume the corollary of this study would be that people who believe God commands them to love their neighbor and do good deeds are more likely to engage in loving acts than their secular counterparts.
UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL
did the test subjects inflict pain on others?
Curt, did you read the study that Will linked to? After reading the stories, the next step was to be given the chance to "punish" someone else for losing a contest with a blast of an unpleasant noise through earphones, which they did in the following order: believers who got the "God approves punishment" version, unbelievers who got the "God approves punishment" version, followed by those who got the secular version (no significant difference in the punitiveness of believers vs unbelievers with that version.)
Although I would take that with a grain of salt. It isn't completely clear to me from the article whether the reaction time contests were real, and the unpleasant sound really inflicted, or whether the subjects were merely told that they were inflicting the painful sound. It sounds from the article as if the punishments were real, but they usually aren't (most often the supposed victims are collaborators who only pretend to be on the receiving end), so the article may be misleading. I couldn't find a reference to the actual report. Every psychology student by now has studied Phil Zimbardo's famous experiments of the seventies. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of the volunteers didn't suspect that the "punishment" was fake (whether it was or not), and were just doing what they thought would support the experimenter's thesis. These days, I wouldn't trust the results of any experiment that involved deception of the subjects by the experimenter. You get paid for volunteering for psychology experiments, so there's a big incentive not to let on that you aren't taking the experimenter's word for it.
That said, I think there's plenty of common sense evidence from history, from the Inquisition and Salem witch trials through today's extremists of various stripes, that believing that God is in favor of punishing your enemies has an enormous power to blunt your sensitivity to their suffering. It doesn't take a contrived psychology experiment to show that.
As far as your corollary about loving acts, it would be nice if that were true, but it doesn't necessarily follow. I think most people have a natural inborn sense of empathy (discounting psychopaths - the presence of congenital deafness or blindness doesn't disprove that hearing and sight are part of our nature), and don't need to be taught it. It takes powerful teachings to block an impulse to relieve the suffering of others. A corollary that does follow, though, would be that consistently emphasizing "love your enemies" teachings (not just love your neighbors), and holding believers up to it whenever they did something to an opponent that they wouldn't appreciate being done to themselves, would go a long way towards bringing about a better world.
I think the most effective thing we could do to combat terrorism would be to find ways of increasing the visibility and reach of Islamic religious leaders who preached tolerance and peace.
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Exactly
Curt, that is just the question. Hypotheticals are one thing, performing acts of violence are something else. I have had people tell me that God told them to do the most appalling or silly things, counter to Biblical teaching. Do they know the Bible? No. So I believe the study, but not necessarily the conclusions drawn from it.
Kate Pitrone
What a thought provoking
What a thought provoking post, thank you.
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