OK, not all parts, just the violent stuff — which is a lot. Remember this when they complain about video games.http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=3191
When God sanctions violence, believers act more aggressivelyANN ARBOR, Mich.?Reading violent scriptures increases aggressive behavior, especially among believers, a new study finds. The study by University of Michigan social psychologist Brad Bushman and colleagues helps to illuminate one of the ways that violence and behavior are linked.”To justify their actions, violent people often claim that God has sanctioned their behavior,” said Bushman, faculty associate at the U-M Institute for Social Research and lead author of the article published in the March 2007 issue of Psychological Science. “Christian extremists, Jewish reactionaries and Islamic fundamentalists all can cite scriptures that seem to encourage or at least support aggression against unbelievers.”Bushman, who is also a U-M professor of psychology and communications studies, and colleagues at Brigham Young University and at Vrije University in the Netherlands, found the same relationship in two separate experiments detailed in the article.The first study involved Brigham Young University students, 99 percent of whom believed in God and in the Bible. The second study involved Amsterdam students, 50 percent of whom believed in God and 27 percent of whom believed in the Bible.After reporting their religious affiliations and beliefs, participants read a passage adapted from the King James Bible that described a woman’s brutal murder and her husband’s revenge on her attackers. Half the participants were told that the passage came from the Old Testament, half that it came from an ancient scroll found by archeologists. Half the participants from each of these groups read a version of the passage that included a sentence in which God commanded his followers to take arms against others.After reading the passages, participants were paired with confederates of the experimenters for a simple reaction task. They were told that the winner would be able to “blast” the losing partner with noise as loud as 105 decibels, about the level of a fire alarm?a common experimental measure of aggression.The researchers found that both the religious and secular students were more aggressive, delivering louder blasts of noise to their ostensible partners, when told that the passage they read came from the Bible. Aggressive responses also increased when participants read that God directly sanctioned violence. The increased level of aggression was greater among believers than among secularists, however.”Our results further confirm previous research showing that exposure to violent media causes people to behave more aggressively if they identify with the violent characters than if they do not,” Bushman said.The work also supports the view that exposure to violent scriptures may induce extremists to engage in aggressive actions. “It’s important to note that we obtained evidence supporting this hypothesis in samples of university students who were, in our estimation, not typical of the terrorists who blow up civilians,” Bushman wrote. “Even among our participants who were not religiously devout, exposure to God-sanctioned violence increased subsequent aggression. That the effect was found in such a sample may attest to the insidious power of exposure to literary scriptural violence.”According to Bushman and colleagues, this does not mean that reading the scriptures leads to aggression. “Violent stories that teach moral lessons or that are balanced with descriptions of victims’ suffering or the aggressor’s remorse can teach important lessons and have legitimate artistic merit. But taking a single violent episode out of its overall context, as we did in these studies, can produce a significant increase in aggression.”Established in 1948, the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research (ISR) is among the world’s oldest academic survey research organizations, and a world leader in the development and application of social science methodology. ISR conducts some of the most widely-cited studies in the nation, including the Survey of Consumer Attitudes, the National Election Studies, the Monitoring the Future Study, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the Health and Retirement Study, and the National Survey of Black Americans. ISR researchers also collaborate with social scientists in more than 60 nations on the World Values Surveys and other projects, and the Institute has established formal ties with universities in Poland, China and South Africa. ISR is also home to the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), the world’s largest computerized social science data archive. Visit the ISR web site at www.isr.umich.edu for more information.
with all the weapons out there we stand a good chance of seeing just how violent religious people can get.
@maddogstu
Oh, they do believe in it. When they’re cornered. Turn your back and, presto, you’re going to burn in hell for ever and ever and ever and ever.
The whole “jeebus is nonviolent” thing is a rather new take on the things. I’m willing to bet it didn’t approach dominance untill secularism raised people’s conscience towards human rights.
Apparently those in charge of public education are as radical in their beliefs as Dave is…
http://newsbusters.org/node/11782
Yes the peaceful Jesus is somewhat new. I read some letters written between catholic bishops, I think, maybe they were cardinals. These letters were written during the advance of the Mongols. They had all but decided that the Mongols were coming to punish them for immorality. Yep, they thought the Kahn was Jesus coming back for the second coming. This was before the protestants existed. Funny how they saw Jesus as an unstoppable force coming to get them and punish them. Not a peaceful Jesus in their minds at all.
@phreedm:
Hm, let’s see…
but
Now, if the scenario involves “right-wing fundamentalist groups”, but “discriminates against Christian”, doesn’t that make Christians a right-wing fundamentalist group? If they aren’t the above scenario wouldn’t discriminate against them, would it? It would discriminate against “right-wing fundamentalist groups”.
Also:
Indeedy-doody. Because gays and pro-choicers don’t bomb churches and gun down priests, whereas…… Well, you’re a smart kid, you can figure it out.
Anyways, thanks for the link and the laugh. It’s always amazing to see confirmation of Harris’ “concentric circles” theory at work. This is a prime example.
Oh, I tried sooo hard not to say this, but I can’t stop myself.
“Apparently those in charge of public education are as radical in their beliefs as Dave is”
Like your belief isn’t radical? You better keep lying to yourself because you ain’t foolin’ us.
jshane
I agree, it’s hard to reconcile the peaceful jesus (carry the solders stuff an extra mile) with … when the soldier dies he gets to suffer eternally.
One more reason I’m an atheist.
I’d still like to see more xtians act like jesus instead of claiming him as their dad who can beat up your dad.
maddogstu there does seem to be a growing peace wing in the christian religion.the mainline protestants in particular.
“I’d still like to see more xtians act like jesus instead of claiming him as their dad who can beat up your dad”
This is an interesting statement, especially considering that Jesus challenged the social and religious norms of his time, thusly pissing a lot of powerful people off. He revealed the evilness and hardness of heart. He rebuked their hypocritical teachings. He was not peaceable for peace sake. As the Son of God, He was leading people back to God. He was a revolutionary not a passivist, nor was He just generally a “nice guy”. So, when you say you want Christians to act more like Jesus, exactly what do you mean? … and indeed, exactly what are you asking for? Because Jesus of the Bible was not a pansy.
While not exactly a sentence, you are absolutely correct.
He was in fact a hypocrite; one minute “turning the other cheek” the next “bringing the sword”; one minute asking all to honour their parents the next denying his own.
The fact is, Jesus was a prick and there are far too many people like him.
I’m curious, interesting, as to whether you think Gandhi and Martin Luther King were pansies. These were men interested in peace for peace’s sake (i.e. for the good peace itself would bring). Same is true of many humans who were not pansies when they put their lives on the line to protest violent governments around the world. It would be very unfair to call current protesters of the current wars pansies without knowing them and how they would react to force against them by police, for example.
I’m not sure that using pansie as a reference point is the best place to be working from. That suggests some paternalistic bravado. I’d suggest that the bravery of standing up to police in protest is equal to, but different than the bravery of a person taking care of a terminally ill spouse while they watch that person whither away over months or years.
What I think people react against is the holier than though arrogance that at times accompanies belief. If we, as christians, expressed the nurturant side of our religion more than our strict father side, I think we would be given more credit.
Remy, I’m not sure if you would like it, but I’m finding John Spong’s “Jesus for the Non-Religious” quite interesting. Essentially, he’s looking at Jesus from a very Jewish perspective and reviewing the symbolism that was meant very directly to build on Moses, Elijah, and Elisha and how the account of Jesus was written to resonate with a jewish audience, which is why some of it seems so odd to us today. I find it fascinating as it goes over a lot of what we talk about here and Spong goes so far as saying he’s christian, but does not believe in a literal resurrection, virgin birth and so on. Quite interesting.
spanders,
I a fan of Bishop Spong. Smart man. He is not very popular with OT literalists.
May I recommend Tom Harpur’s, The Pagan Christ. He has also remained Christian whilst seeing the stories as myth. He has a new book out but I haven’t read it yet.
True, violence evolved from religion. Our religious “neighbors” next door are proof that xtains promote violence because they shoot pistols across our yard when we are attempting to cut our grass. These same xtians go to church every Sunday too so they can be “forgiven”. We see their vehicle at their church every time we go to buy groceries on Sunday!
Xtians cannot evolve because they were never taught how to evolve!
SunbeamAtheist
I disagree. People are violent ? always have been. Religion, like many other ideologies, gives those that are prone to violent behavior justification to be so. Just as, for many people, religion helps them to NOT act in violent ways.
You should have them arrested. THAT’S CRAZY!
I think Spanders )as well as myself) might disagree. : )