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Does an angry and vengeful God make for better people? Apparently so according to a new study by University of Oregon psychologists, who found the link between one’s willingness to cheat and the belief of a benevolent God:
In line with many previous studies, it found no difference between the ethical behavior of believers and nonbelievers. But those who believed in a loving, compassionate God were more likely to cheat than those who believed in an angry, punitive God.
"The take-home message is not whether you believe in God, but what God you believe in," said Azim Shariff, a psychologist at the University of Oregon. Shariff conducted the study with psychologist Ara Norenzayan, who had been his doctoral advisor at the University of British Columbia.
Doesn’t this remind you of the age-old joke of "I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn’t work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness."
The combined ratings were significantly lower — more immoral — when the survey was conducted in the presence of fart smell. Schnall’s team says that this demonstrates that our moral judgment is affected by disgust: we’re harsher in our moral judgments when we’re disgusted (a post-test confirmed that those who smelled the fart spray were significantly more disgusted than the others). Interestingly, the quantity of fart spray didn’t matter: despite the fact that everyone agreed that more fart spray smelled worse, the moral judgments weren’t different depending on how much spray was used.
Warning: Some examples from the questionnaire may be disturbing. Link
