Unconscious Autotheism
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Quote:
Researchers led by Nicholas Epley, a professor of
behavioural science at the University of Chicago, said believers often rely on
what they think God wants them to do as a “moral compass”. But this is a poor
analogy, they found. “The central feature of a compass is that it points north
no matter what direction a person is facing,” they wrote. “Unlike an actual
compass, inferences about God’s beliefs may instead point people further in
whatever direction they are already facing.”
So really God is moral inertial guidance.
The Greek philosopher Xenophanes jested that if horses and
oxen had hands and could make art then they would make statues of gods that
look like themselves.
This
skeptical insight is now confirmed by standard psychological testing. People
tend to think God agrees with them about everything; and when you manipulate
their beliefs, they tend to think that God, too, changed his mind.
I particularly like the brain scans. When people think
about what they think, the same brain areas light up as when they think about
what God thinks; whereas different areas light up when they think about what
other people think.
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