[...] via Futurity.org [...]

By analyzing the beliefs in my own family I decided that most beliefs emphesize good and deplore evil. This led me to suspect that all beliefs are manifestations of God, each belief prepared for the individual. Extremists who advocate destruction, violence against others and murder are a proof (as much as can be determined by a faith based system) that there is also a Devil. This allows me to discuss religion but not argue.

This article does not surprise me. 1) The Templeton Foundation pays big money to get their religious bias out to the public. 2) Of course, ordinary people who make up an invisible God give it the same personal morals as they hold themselves. I doubt anyone would waste their time making up a supernatural and all powerful being to rule their world and give it a set of ethics that are completely foreign or counterproductive to the individual’s personal agenda. Finally, how can anyone argue or test the last paragraph’s claim?

I fail to see1. why you would want to do this study.2. what you get out of that you could not have guessed would be the out come. And 3 did they really think they would find that god differed with there moral beliefs,or that they would not be egocentric when it came to others beliefs.

I was really interested in this story and wanted to see the original PNAS article. When I went to the PNAS early edition link and looked for it — I found nothing. I searched on Nicholas Epley and again came up with nothing. Please correct the link and re-post this so people who want to follow up can do so.
“The findings—published in the Nov. 30 early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS…”

Celia, at post date, PNAS had not made the article available online. We do include links to journal articles when possible.

Most people believe they are good and that what they believe is best for the world, from tyrants to poets. Those who believe in religion have always interpreted the gods as being like themselves. The fact that some religions and their representatives can rationalize doing harm to others (e.g. the Inquisition, the Crusades and John Hagee) explains a lot about the plasticity of the human mind but absolutely nothing about the gods and demons about which such belief systems believe in.

I disagree with the first and last posts. Perhaps the first individual meant God and Devil as metaphors? There is no evidence that either beings exist. As for the last post, historically religious people have crusaded in the name of their God, i.e. they were doing their God’s bidding. Iif people share similar ethical views as their invisible made up God does, then I think their God is a heartless, intolerant bigot (just like them) and their religion is a unacceptable, unjustified excuse for racism and discrimination. So their actions and words do indeed mirror their gods and demons and belief systems. Fortunately the human mind is plastic enough to change its barbaric misconceptions and prejudices about people with different social practices or skin color and become more tolerant. We do change perceptions through education.

Many of us prefer to not think about God’s beliefs. It’s enough to be open to leadings and to be dependent on the Word. The Word takes many forms, I am not referring exclusively to the Bible, and I am not a literalist. Here is the one belief that I hold as a constant. People who feel the need or think that they are capable of discerning God’s beliefs have no sense of faith.

Well of course, the Roman emperors and Egyptian Pharaohs were God, the crusaders were summoned and sent by God, as was the East India Company; the conquistadors were sent by Jesus and holy Mary, and the inquisition made sure that you went to Jesus after they killed you — we don’t know exactly about Genghis Khan or the Seljuk Turks. How could God want something different than what they wanted? In the First world war, God (represented by Christian priests) blessed the British cannons as well as the German’s, the French’s and the Russian’s. If you take the writings seriously, God was on neither side. God is with the poor – and anybody on this planet who owns more than one pair of shoes is not really poor.

Once a religion becomes institutionalized then God is converted from God to a graven image.

In the future an anthropologist unearths a statue. An man is nailed to a cross wearing a crown of thorns with a steel pike in his side spilling blood. The anthropologist thinks to himself ” What a horrible religion to worship the execution of a man. This must have been a cult that worships death.”

Men want God to conform to the image they make of God because they have carried forward the feelings they had as children and want God to take care of them just as their parents did.

So in most religions God has become the image of man writ behemoth.

Yes, I agree with Lawrence that people have historically made up all kinds of fantasy versions of God based on their own experience, tradition, desire etc. But this doesn’t negate the existance of an actual creator any more than I negate the existance of cows by making a green stuffed-animal version.

The real problem with the study is that God probably doesn’t have a belief system at all; he would just know the things that are real. He wouldn’t be doing anything on faith because he would be knower of reality. The term “belief” has imbedded in it the ability to be wrong. In other words, God wouldn’t believe x was wrong, it would be wrong because he declared it wrong.

There is no evidence for God. People are real and they have belief systems. And people developed ethics to decide what is right and wrong. The God you describe is totally passive, does nothing, so makes no difference whether or not he/she exists. And has no influence on our behavior, since it is totally dependent on one’s culture what you stuff into it’s green corpse.

The truth is so much simpler: God is as real as Santa Claus. And ethics comes from humans. Socrates made that great discovery 400 years before Jesus when he said: “God loves what is right because it is right, it is not right because God loves it.”

Oh how well put this was! Yes, people who think they know what god wants are too convinced of their own might and righteousness, have, in turn, very little regards for god’s thoughts (if he/she exists), and really make up their own ‘faith’. This says something about us humans, though.

Karl Marks is right ” Religion is the drug of the mass`s” it is sad that we spend so much time in these so called modern time`s learning about something that I feel close`s are mind`s rather then open`s it to new things Ghandi once was asked what he thought of western civilization and he said” Sound`s like a good idea” Well in my book Religion is a really bad Idea.

Was there any real question that religious people project their world-view onto their invisible friend in order to give “authority” and “justification” to whatever nasty piece of work they intended to implement?

Thaddeus – maybe if we spent less time learning about things that “close’s (sic) are (sic) mind’s (sic)” we could spend more time learning things like spelling and grammar.

Dude, i dont know what to tell you.

RT
http://www.be-invisible.ua.tc

Thomas, people can own more than one pair of shoes and really be poor.
Your statement only reflects your own prejudices.

Nice article.More such studies are required to wipe out the excessive stress on religion by many groups,which is dividing our society.

So what do “Scientists” believe? They are clearly theist in their beliefs, actions, and accusations.

So do they subconsciously believe that string theory doesn’t approve of murder? Do they believe that that dark matter condemns adultery? Do black holes believe in good will for all man (except for those who you believe are beneath you intellectually)?

Obviously quantum mechanics states that it is acceptable to falsify data, invent results, stack the deck in their favor in any theory or computer model, lie, cover-up, and collude to destroy evidence.

Postmodern science truly is a religion and has nothing to do with science.

Sorry folks there is no God, it’s only you making choices—remember;

“Reality goes at the speed of Freewill choices”

If you want life to run smoooooothly get an edumaktion

Mental Alchemy
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The ingredients for metamorphic thought substance action appearance
Evolves from the effects of the caused patterns of truths adherence
Transmuting fears and superstitions will give you full clearance
Focusing on love and service of manifestation brilliance
Working with creative intelligent human performance
Executing living love truth, reversing ignorance
All from good thought focus performance
Alchemy’s substance continuance
Love must have dominance
Creative pay is relevance
Collect perseverance
Spend expectance
Live prudence
~Gasser~

As a Christian, this supports discussions I have had about our image of God. Christians should be careful that they are not putting God in a box created by their own perspectives. The biblical view of God is much deeper than our superficial views of him as an old man, a cosmic police officer, or a prayer vending machine. Man making a “god” that is under his control is the central theme of the Bible; rebellion against the true God. Salvation, therefore, is birthed in surrender to the true God.

An opinion and(or) belief is like an asshole… everybody has one and it’s stinky!

Thomas, people can own more than one pair of shoes and really be poor.
Your statement only reflects your own prejudices…

Religion is an infectious mental disease that needs to be stopped. Parent who have it spread it to their children who then try to spread it to other children on the playgrounds of our schools. It is a disease and it needs to be addressed as such before it plagues another young mind. The people infected need to be taken care of before they unwittingly infect others.

For The Religious, God’s Beliefs Mirror Their Own…

As science delves deeper into the mysteries of faith and belief using new techniques and technologies, we may one day understand the motives and inner workings of the most blinded by faith, as well as those who are supported and enriched by it….

First of I wish to give some thought Idea`s on the little that Religion dose help us with 1 It can help us to see Morals & Ethic`s in a new light. 2. There is some great art out there from it.3 It helps some folks get over Death and other things they can not control.
However giving Tax free place`s in the middle of most city`s and town`s to place that`s only used on Sunday is not right . And as stated by me before they is so much going on in the world that need our brain power now,that I fail to see how we can learn about the world if we live in a world that close`s us off to real constructive thought.
I maybe dyslexic but that dose not stop me from reading that Sigmund Freud, Abraham Lincoln,Richard Dawkins,Christoper Hitchens, Jean-Paul Sartre. and many other great thinkers to long to list here saw and or see that the greater good is served if we just take religion out of our lives.Lets grow now before something like the green house affect kills us all off.

Religion does not have a patent on ethics. Secular ethics has nothing to do with religious doctrine. It is a response to religion and religious ethics. People can do good without religion. We have great agencies and institutions that do good all the time without religious bias, e.g. United Way, Doctors without Borders, Planned Parenthood, etc. We are intelligent beings and care about others; we are capable of rethinking what religion has done to our societies and we can change the status quo (if only we weren’t afraid to be bullied by religious institutions and their TV talk show parrots). I agree, giving a tax break to churches, synagogues and other religious places is wrong. We ALL need to pitch in during this awful recession. If religious institutions paid a tax, then I might change my mind about how awful religion is. Until then, they segregate society and cloud our rational thinking.

I’m surprised that no one has linked religion with our biological mandate to survive and reproduce (thrive).

The most widespread religions are mostly concerned with life here on Earth. They speak of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ in ways that are, as many point out, generally self-serving. The Old Testament, for example, is like a manual on how to survive and thrive as individuals within a community. The New Testament starts off kind of tricky in that Jesus comes to Earth to ‘change the law’. What does he change it to? Something that tries to get people to ignore their biological mandate to survive AND thrive.

In nature it is evolutionarily counter-productive for a species to deny food to the strong so that the weak who are not their off-spring might survive.

So what happens to Jesus after he tells the strong to help the weak and starts challenging the power structure of his religion? He is killed for no ‘good’ reason. Then, later adherents slowly but surely add more to the mix. What they add steers the faithful right back to ‘survival of the fittest’ thinking, except they call it ‘survival of the most righteous’.

My point is that, given the pervasiveness and power of our biological mandate, it is only natural that other-worldly concepts (such as God) would simply serve those inclinations. Gods and religion are organizational constructs that have made their impact by organizing large groups of people under a single entity. Long before there were concepts of world government or ‘global consciousness’, there were ideas of singular all-powerful gods that ruled the whole world. If such gods are just a projection, then they are projections of a desire to organize people into larger groupings in order to….gasp….increase our chances to survive and thrive not just as individuals, but as a species.

People who are dead-set against religion strike me as being like people who want to tear down the school because they themselves have learned the lessons. The ‘indoctrination’ that takes place in religion is, in effect, indoctrinating its adherents to take on a series of beliefs that will not only allow them to ‘fit in’ with other adherents (extremely important for survival in a social setting), but which also provides a means by which the entire group can establish and work toward common goals. Of course, once strong enduring nations are formed it becomes possible to establish and work toward common goals under the aegis of political power, rather than a deity. However, we have clearly not come to the point where the deities can be discarded completely in maintaining group coherence.

Finally, given that we are animals capable of perceiving and discussing our own death, gods can be seen to be projections of the consciousness of those who differentiate between body and mind (or spirit). Also, we are an animal that can ask the astounding questions of “how did I get into this reality” and “what happens when I die”. It is possible that creating ‘gods’ was the only way to stay reasonably sane, given the utterly unknowable answers that were sought.

Marx was certainly correct when he said “Religion is the opiate of the masses.” If you’ve ever done opiates, you know that moderate intake of them can be quite pleasant (and even helpful in alleviating pain), but ingesting too much will turn you into a babbling addict.

Many of us in the so called “non religion world” learn new ways to think about ethics say or another way to see morality from religion, so I do not think we close any schools when we speak out. As to biologictual cause`s I for one have studied that for many years so I bet many others have to .
Try reading about the God Gene there is the book and many study`s

Thaddeus: The God gene lends credence to my point: which is that religion is a natural outcome in a species that possesses consciousness and the ability to communicate thoughts and ideas to others. Whereas some true believers in a spiritual dimension (those who have the God gene) are the ones who usually make the sacrifices and take the actions necessary to broadcast their views, the religions that they create, modify or uphold will be used by the majority of followers to supplement the biological mandate to survive and thrive.

As for the school analogy, it was apparently unclear what I was saying. Stated more directly, since religion has also been an organizational tool used by humanity to bolster efforts toward community and unified action, and since it was also historically been the means by which morals and ethics were conveyed and upheld within the community, it has indeed served a practical function. However, with the advent of ever larger nations controlled by more-or-less centralized governments, which are themselves imbued through technology with powers that used to be attributed to gods, there are new organizational tools available to humanity. Meanwhile, morals and ethics in the secular realm equate to “whatever is legal”, which is defined by political institutions. Nonetheless, the advent of these new forms does not negate the practical role played by religions in the past.

On an individual level, I’ve noticed that my atheist friends are often more moral and ethical than many religious folks I know. All of my atheist friends are just one or two generations removed from religious ancestors. It occurs to me that they don’t need to conceive of an all-seeing God to do the right thing because they are already doing the right things as taught to them by their parents. Likewise, some of the people I know who are of questionable ethical character are among the most interested in spirituality and/or religion. It occurs to me that, much like someone who knows nothing about physics must go to school to learn, those people are going to church to learn what some of my atheist friends already know (which is that it’s not okay to do something merely because you won’t get caught).

Thus, I find it curious that a number of atheists, who likely to believe in the scientific explanation of reality, cannot grasp that the thing they hate so much (organized religion) is a natural phenomenon. I find it equally curious that they go on to blame the ill’s of humanity upon religion and suggest that the removal of religion would cure everything, when every theory they hold to be true indicates that we are merely biological automatons programmed to survive and reproduce, and that all systems of thought either serve that purpose or are relegated to a minority of adherents. Some atheists also say that only by releasing ourselves from the ignorance of religion will we aspire to truly high ideals. They will say this in spite of thousands of years of recorded history in which people of superior moral and ethical standing have never been able to convince the majority to ascribe to those same values, regardless of whether they sought to do so through religious or political institutions.

In short, the biology of all animals, including our species, does not and will not lead a higher state of moral and ethical development for the species. Rather, like any animal, when given a consistent source of shelter and food, we will generally become less violent and more complacent to the wills of our masters. In our new-found free time we can and will develop elaborate intellectual cultures, part of which will be dedicated to celebrating our advancements in morality. We will also continue to reproduce as much as we can, thus subjecting the species to the cycles of feast and famine that strengthens all species through the evolutionary process of natural selection. Just as naturally, the majority of individuals facing famine will, if at all possible, throw their morals and ethics away and assert themselves with violence and coercion if it will prolong their own lives.

I understand that many have studied these issues. I have been studying the findings and insights of those who have studied the issues and what I’ve written here is part of what I’ve concluded from those studies. In reaching these conclusions, I have been absolutely amazed that so many atheists cannot see that, by there own logic, the ‘problem’ with humanity does not emanate from its institutions, but from its own animal nature. That atheists believe we can transcend our animal nature strikes me as quite remarkable, since they offer no scientific reason as to why that would happen.

[...] Dios piensa como tú (ENG) [...]

For Elizabeth. Have you ever read “Yes, Virginia. There is a Santa Claus”? By accident you destroyed your own argument.
For Thaddeus. Don’t forget that Jean-Paul Sartra was a priest. His thoughts and comments would have been colored by that connection.
Always be careful what you pick as examples.

Yes, Mr. O’Driscoll, I read the newspaper response to little 8 y.o. Viriginia’s honest question to which a grown adult preserved her fantasy that not only Santa Claus exists but so do fairies. Wow, really…fairies! I don’t see your point. But my argument continues to stand solid, there is no evidence for God, Santa Claus, or even fairies. Until the scientific community gives the public empirical evidence for the unequivocal existence for God, then I won’t be suckered by emotional pleas for God being real.

Makes sense. In the ages before science, we created gods to make sense of our life experiences and the natural world.

First, duh. The Caucasian Jesus is the funniest thing. If they will change his face, race, ethnicity and language is it that startling that folks might supplant their own agenda onto their opinion on “His” beliefs?

Second, you people are aware that there are other religions out there, right? It is the stench of this naroow minded that once the word religion is uttered, we immediately all yammer “Christianity”(that goes for both sides of this ‘argument’ – you can not assail against “religion” by pointing out the flaws of one…well, not unless you are a bigot). I wonder how James Hampton would argue his position in the context of a religion like Buddhism.

If I was an older white man and I wanted to control a good part of the world I would invent Religion,Sports,the lottery (so I would not have to pay tax`s) and something to smoke so folks would live just long enough to serve me but not long enough that I would have to take care of them.All 4 things make a world where we do not see what a older white guy is up to!Read about this Philosophy of Education — Chapter 2: Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire this is what Religion really dose those who are oppressed do it to others in the name of religion. Sartra teach`s us to think for our selfs and live it. The God gene show`s us that (in the book) that there is a place in the brain that dose religion and that a gene makes it happen some of us have it some do not, some get it when something like a stroke or a kind of sizure happen`s. Its time to grow up this is 2009 we can get info from anywhere but if let religion color it we lose all hope in my book

Ummm . . . wrong title. It should be “RESEARCHERS CONCLUDE THAT PEOPLE’S BELIEFS MATCH THEIR OWN.” I’m guessing that when researchers were “analyzing” their data that the same parts of the brain were being used as when they thinking about their own beliefs about God. Maybe someone should fund THAT study.

Good one, Dr. Ray! Your witty comment made their data disappear.

Dear Elizabeth, I’m sorry you didn’t see my point but it is essentially that you must choose your examples carefully, especially with faith and/or belief subjects. If you had used the Easter Bunny I would have granted your supposition, which may be correct. Santa Claus, on the other hand, is a spirit type belief that does have a valid connection to a possible group existance owing to its roots in human nature. (Please note the weasel words.)
As an experiment you might get away from all artificial illumination, such as a boat 10 miles offshore on a clear night and turn off all lights on the boat, wait 10 minutes and look at the sky. The view is a lot better than television. I find it difficult to believe all the stars, galaxies and the universe does not have some type of guiding force. As my grandfather put it, “Where would you put your money?”

The New AtheismThe New Atheism ($19.00, ISBN 978-1-59102-751-5) Victor J. Stenger — author of the New York Times bestseller God: The Failed Hypothesis — offers this essential “review and defense of some of the key principles of the New Atheism as well as a general response to some of its critics.” (Library Journal.)

Bravo to Elizabeth and James Hampton for championing reason.

Elizabeth I think what you were getting at with “Secular ethics has nothing to do with religious doctrine,” is what many might call “secular humanism.” (I would guess you know this). For those who aren’t familiar with it, in a nutshell it might be described as (true Christ-like) christian behavior without the unnecessary and misleading cultural myths (religion) are burdened with.

James I think you were on the money with the connection between religion and biology. As Terror Management Theory argues, humans are (following Darwin) the biological beings which have evolved to our present state, and like all biological beings, we have an innate drive to survive (and pass along some genes man!). In addition, human beings are unique in that we are self aware. With this comes the knowledge of our inevitable death. So we have a creature desperate to live, yet cognizant of an inevitable death. What does this do? It has the potential to create crippling anxiety.

So how do people deal with it? In a number of ways, creating cultural myths being a big one. As Cultural Anthropologist Joseph Campbell pointed out, the earliest indication of religion is Neanderthal grave sites. As Campbell, TMT, and others have argued, religion is mainly a tool to alleviate the anxiety created by mans dual nature (biological/symbolic). It’s one of many means to alleviate existential anxiety.

But there’s a brighter side: if people use culture to alleviate anxiety, then those of us who maintain compassion and caring as constructs of the self, acting compassionately can alleviate anxiety.

Terror Management Theory has at this point amassed a wealth of empirical research to back it up, and I would encourage anyone interested in understanding why man needs religion to look into it.

Cheers!

Biology is of course the way we got our gods. When we changed from a hunter/gather group culture to a pastoral one those who could look to the star`s or other nature sign`s could show when to plant food and when to hunt and when even to move.Those folks where gods or claimed to be in touch with one or many.It also helped with talking and print. ( read how Ireland Saved Civilization ) When you get more food and meat ya have more kids and live longer then you get grandmothers who can care for kids while the mothers work so even more live. To this day grandmothers help with kids and guess who you will find in a church the most ? Grandmothers and woman. Older white guys are still telling them what to do how to feel,and even what politics to have its time for them(the woman) to grow up we are not in pastoral groups anymore.Conformity is what got us in the mess we are in now. And Religion is sadly a big part of it !

“When things go our way, we ‘Praise the Lord’, but when they don’t go our way, we withhold it. . .And it is in this way we convict ourselves; We follow a God of our own making!”

“When things go our way, we ‘Praise the Lord’, but when they don’t go our way, we withhold it . . . And it is in this way we convict ourselves. . . We follow a God of our own making!”

[...] God agrees with me … apparently So reports Heresy Corner on this piece of research published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) from the [...]

Wow – God in our own image. How twisted. But given our human intellect, I guess it was inevitable.

[...] leave a comment » Courtesy of the Encyclopedia Britannica folks, I note that today is the anniversary of Leo X, Bishop of Rome, excommunicating Martin Luther in 1521 CE. [Link] It seems somehow congruent that I also noted an article about research done at U Chicago: Religious people tend to use their own beliefs as a guide in thinking about what God believes, but are less constrained when reasoning about other people’s beliefs, according to a new study.[Link] [...]

Like gentle winds
warming buds of fall,
our pathways shine
with fragrant blossoms,
perchance to share, forever new,
joyous, distant starry clusters.

[the chance is affected more by the cosmic vastness and the paths of progression involved, but sometimes "it's a small cosmos." ]

If God is kind, loving and helpful, did He become like me (much more junior) or did I become like Him?

If I see Him as All Powerful, why I am I not yet creating galaxies?

BTW, a scientist is speaking here, fyi.

[...] hummus, hummus, 4.+ tons Nunitak comments on ‘God copying us.’ — see the [...]

Since “God” is a man-made construct, naturally the beliefs that religious people feel “God” has, are in line with their own. For those of us who see no need to invoke a supernatural force, this study doesn’t make much sense or say very much.