God as Egocentric Personal Opinion
A while ago I argued that I thought "Man created God" was a much better explanation for the origins of divinity than "God created Man" was for ours. But I mostly presented rhetorical, circumstantial evidence. "Doesn't it seem more like" is fine for discussion but it's observational and retrospective which isn't as strong as it could be.
This paper, by psychologist Nicholas Epley, adds some direct prospective experimental evidence. Epley is a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago who wanted to see where people were getting their ideas about God - to what extent was it based on texts like the Bible and experts like priests versus personal, internal, egocentric reasoning. To what extent "inferences about God's beliefs as a moral compass" were actually God's beliefs, as opposed to "dependent on one's own existing beliefs".
Epley surveyed various participants about various controversial issues (abortion, death penalty, marijuana legalization, same-sex marriage). He asked what they thought God thought about those issues, what various famous people like George Bush (well known position), and Bill Gates or Barry Bonds (unknown position) felt about these issues, and what they personally felt about these issues. He "predicted that people would be consistently more egocentric when reasoning about God's beliefs than when reasoning about other people's beliefs." In four separate trials of Boston Rail commuters, undergraduates, and online respondents "The egocentric correlation with God's beliefs was again larger than with every other target." People most often thought that God thought what they thought.
Epley wasn't happy yet. Correlation is not causation. A correlation between God's opinion and personal opinion could reflect "both egocentric projection onto God and the opposite (using God's beliefs as a guide to one's own)". He wanted to "demonstrate causality conclusively using experimental methods". Epley reasoned that if God's opinion was generated from personal egocentric opinion, "manipulating believers' own attitudes should similarly manipulate predictions of God's attitudes but should have less consistent impact on predictions of other people's attitudes". In Study 5, subjects read strongly biased arguments in favor or against particular positions, then they were asked what God, the average American, Bill Gates, and George Bush thought. Epley found that "the egocentric correlation was stronger for God's attitudes than for any of the other targets". When people are "push polled", God changes his opinion too.
Epley wasn't happy yet. He wanted to test the same thing a different way to make sure. There's a well-known phenomenon where asking someone to take and argue an arbitrary, randomly-assigned position changes their opinion toward that position. In study 6 he randomly assigned participants to "write and deliver a speech either consistent or inconsistent with their own preexisting beliefs in front of a video camera", which has been previously shown to shift attitudes in the direction of the speech. Then they were asked what God, Bill Gates, George Bush, and the average American thought about the position. Writing and delivering the speech altered their own positions as predicted, but "Manipulating people's own attitudes produced consistently similar shifts in estimates of God's attitudes, but not consistent shifts in estimates of other people's attitudes." God's opinion appears susceptible to the same psychological trick that humans' opinions are.
Epley wasn't happy yet. If God's opinion was generated from personal, egocentric opinion, Epley reasoned that fMRI scans should show that "neural activity in these regions should be more similar between self and God than between self and average American". There's no agreed-upon pattern for what "god behavior" or "personal behavior" looks like, but he reasoned that by 'diffing' the patterns he could see which were most similar. In study 7, participants' brains were scanned while they were asked what they, God, and the average American thought about 10 "attitude items" such as legal euthanasia. He found that "the egocentric correlation in this pilot experiment was larger for God's attitudes than for the Average American's attitudes". When people consider God's attitude toward something, their thought process is far more similar to considering their own attitude than considering the opinion of someone else.
Epley concludes that "there is not only a stronger relationship between reports of one's own beliefs and God's beliefs compared to another person's beliefs, but an increased similarity in the underlying mechanism used to generate one's own beliefs and God's beliefs as well", which blows a huge hole in the idea of religion as a moral compass. While a true compass always "points north no matter what direction a person is facing … inferences about God's beliefs may instead point people further in whatever direction they are already facing." God is more of a dowsing rod than a compass, pulling people in whatever direction they're already inclined to go rather than toward any absolute truth. Obviously personal views about God aren't entirely egocentric - they're also effected by religious authorities, community, and texts - but people also choose which churches to join, which authorities to respect, and which lines of ambiguous self-contradicting texts to follow. "Religious beliefs are guided by the same basic or natural mechanisms that guide social cognition more generally." Or as I said before "religious texts are Rorschach tests. Believers' inherent and evolving moral sense dictates which parts of a text they follow or ignore". Dr. Steve Novella puts it another way. Religion is the ultimate argument from authority fallacy, which is why I'm so incredulous when I hear that atheists are arrogant egomaniacs while religious people humbly submit themselves to the plan, word, and will of God. No they don't. Atheists say "this is my opinion". Religious people misrepresent their opinion of a conveniently omniscient, invisible, impossible-to-argue-with creator of the universe, which is arguably the most arrogant thing it is possible to do short of claiming to actually be God, Buddha, Jesus, a different Messiah, or "Other".
(For your consideration: God is a fan of the Pittsburgh Penguins, Phillies, Riders, Red Sox, and BMX tricks. God is a DJ. God loves airmen, Ugly, New York City, Albania, and snakes but hates fags, goths, Ireland, cleveland sports, elves, liberal judges, techno, and Lady Gaga. Or maybe these are just people misattributing their personal beliefs and opinions to God.)
This paper, by psychologist Nicholas Epley, adds some direct prospective experimental evidence. Epley is a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago who wanted to see where people were getting their ideas about God - to what extent was it based on texts like the Bible and experts like priests versus personal, internal, egocentric reasoning. To what extent "inferences about God's beliefs as a moral compass" were actually God's beliefs, as opposed to "dependent on one's own existing beliefs".
Epley surveyed various participants about various controversial issues (abortion, death penalty, marijuana legalization, same-sex marriage). He asked what they thought God thought about those issues, what various famous people like George Bush (well known position), and Bill Gates or Barry Bonds (unknown position) felt about these issues, and what they personally felt about these issues. He "predicted that people would be consistently more egocentric when reasoning about God's beliefs than when reasoning about other people's beliefs." In four separate trials of Boston Rail commuters, undergraduates, and online respondents "The egocentric correlation with God's beliefs was again larger than with every other target." People most often thought that God thought what they thought.
Epley wasn't happy yet. Correlation is not causation. A correlation between God's opinion and personal opinion could reflect "both egocentric projection onto God and the opposite (using God's beliefs as a guide to one's own)". He wanted to "demonstrate causality conclusively using experimental methods". Epley reasoned that if God's opinion was generated from personal egocentric opinion, "manipulating believers' own attitudes should similarly manipulate predictions of God's attitudes but should have less consistent impact on predictions of other people's attitudes". In Study 5, subjects read strongly biased arguments in favor or against particular positions, then they were asked what God, the average American, Bill Gates, and George Bush thought. Epley found that "the egocentric correlation was stronger for God's attitudes than for any of the other targets". When people are "push polled", God changes his opinion too.
Epley wasn't happy yet. He wanted to test the same thing a different way to make sure. There's a well-known phenomenon where asking someone to take and argue an arbitrary, randomly-assigned position changes their opinion toward that position. In study 6 he randomly assigned participants to "write and deliver a speech either consistent or inconsistent with their own preexisting beliefs in front of a video camera", which has been previously shown to shift attitudes in the direction of the speech. Then they were asked what God, Bill Gates, George Bush, and the average American thought about the position. Writing and delivering the speech altered their own positions as predicted, but "Manipulating people's own attitudes produced consistently similar shifts in estimates of God's attitudes, but not consistent shifts in estimates of other people's attitudes." God's opinion appears susceptible to the same psychological trick that humans' opinions are.
Epley wasn't happy yet. If God's opinion was generated from personal, egocentric opinion, Epley reasoned that fMRI scans should show that "neural activity in these regions should be more similar between self and God than between self and average American". There's no agreed-upon pattern for what "god behavior" or "personal behavior" looks like, but he reasoned that by 'diffing' the patterns he could see which were most similar. In study 7, participants' brains were scanned while they were asked what they, God, and the average American thought about 10 "attitude items" such as legal euthanasia. He found that "the egocentric correlation in this pilot experiment was larger for God's attitudes than for the Average American's attitudes". When people consider God's attitude toward something, their thought process is far more similar to considering their own attitude than considering the opinion of someone else.
Epley concludes that "there is not only a stronger relationship between reports of one's own beliefs and God's beliefs compared to another person's beliefs, but an increased similarity in the underlying mechanism used to generate one's own beliefs and God's beliefs as well", which blows a huge hole in the idea of religion as a moral compass. While a true compass always "points north no matter what direction a person is facing … inferences about God's beliefs may instead point people further in whatever direction they are already facing." God is more of a dowsing rod than a compass, pulling people in whatever direction they're already inclined to go rather than toward any absolute truth. Obviously personal views about God aren't entirely egocentric - they're also effected by religious authorities, community, and texts - but people also choose which churches to join, which authorities to respect, and which lines of ambiguous self-contradicting texts to follow. "Religious beliefs are guided by the same basic or natural mechanisms that guide social cognition more generally." Or as I said before "religious texts are Rorschach tests. Believers' inherent and evolving moral sense dictates which parts of a text they follow or ignore". Dr. Steve Novella puts it another way. Religion is the ultimate argument from authority fallacy, which is why I'm so incredulous when I hear that atheists are arrogant egomaniacs while religious people humbly submit themselves to the plan, word, and will of God. No they don't. Atheists say "this is my opinion". Religious people misrepresent their opinion of a conveniently omniscient, invisible, impossible-to-argue-with creator of the universe, which is arguably the most arrogant thing it is possible to do short of claiming to actually be God, Buddha, Jesus, a different Messiah, or "Other".
(For your consideration: God is a fan of the Pittsburgh Penguins, Phillies, Riders, Red Sox, and BMX tricks. God is a DJ. God loves airmen, Ugly, New York City, Albania, and snakes but hates fags, goths, Ireland, cleveland sports, elves, liberal judges, techno, and Lady Gaga. Or maybe these are just people misattributing their personal beliefs and opinions to God.)