Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Divine politics

Another great article from Dan Ariely. You have just GOT to read this.

The obvious finding: We have similar views about divisive issues like gay marriage or the death penalty as we assume G-d does.

But is this because we create a G-d in our own image or because we gravitate towards a religion where the G-d already agrees with us? That is the fascinating part of this study.

They use a common manipulation to shift participants views about these subjects (by having them give a speech on camera arguing for the other side) and then measure how their view of G-d's opinion changed. When their opinion moved, their assumptions about what G-d believes moved too. Not because G-d was convinced by their speech, but because G-d always thought this way.