Believers’ Inferences About God’s Beliefs are Egocentric

The is exactly why pandeism is true. Pandeism is the belief that the Creator became the Universe, and in that act ceased to exist as an independent being -- and the human experience of "God" is merely the sense of the underlying power of the unconscious Creator, a power that humans can obliquely and unknowingly tap and direct toward the fulfillment of their own biased beliefs!!

K. Mapson of CA 2:27PM December 07, 2009

Such a study should striate its sample set by religious affiliation, and possibly even by reported religious commitment. I skimmed the article, at least one of the four related studies asked about religious commitment in terms of personal, need-based prayer only.* Another had 5 undisclosed questions about the person's religious beliefs. One asked a question to the effect of, "Do you believe in God? Answer in whatever way you understand god." Then they lumped all "believers" into the same statistical categories.

At the risk of being judgmental (and hypocritical, as I likely fall into this category) I'll guess that, yes, most religious people have an ego-centric idea of what God thinks.

I would imagine that different religious traditions/cultures might think differently in this regard. We're very self-directed as Americans, and indeed our religious traditions (which themselves often _reject_ tradition in favor of a more "modern" approach) are highly self-directed as well. So, I wonder if it's not so much that "religious people tend to believe that God thinks like themselves," but rather "American religious people ... etc."

I wonder if this study were to ask the same questions of, for example, ascetics of Mt. Athos. Or, I wonder what answers one might get from Mexican, Spanish, or Italian Catholics, many of whom have a very specific notion of "God" taught by the Roman Catholic Church, and not all of them agree with this "God," but nevertheless believe in him. How many of the respondents were Hindu? They have several "gods," and thus they might think of these entities as more distinct from their own moral conceptions.

Inquiring minds want to know! This study, while certainly revealing, still doesn't tell the whole story.

I'm not terribly surprised by their findings, either, even as a religious person. But as usual, this news article jumps to conclusions in the headline, and doesn't really render a proper critical account of the study.

*Catholics enumerate 5 different types of prayer:

http://catholicism.about.com/od/prayers/tp/Types_of_Prayer.htm

This Protestant (broad generalization, I realize) account lists at least 4:

http://www.wordlibrary.co.uk/article.php?id=11

And the Eastern Orthodox enumerate a similar set, but this article adds an interesting comment:

http://www.orthodoxphotos.com/readings/LGOT/types.shtml

"...we must always, before we ask God for anything, first repent and then ask God concerning our needs. This means that penitential prayer must always precede our petitions in prayer."

<-Someone who believes and practices this might have a different conception of God's right and wrong from their own.

Sean of TX 8:43PM December 05, 2009

It's interesting to follow this idea throughout history, especially within the Bible itself. There are many very different views of YHWH's thoughts in there! He starts out as a father figure to Adam and Eve (giving them laws and teaching right from wrong), becomes a confidant to Abraham (telling Abraham his plans for the destruction of the Cities on the Plain, for instance), and eventually mostly withdraws as a character by the time of the Kings. In Writings, he plays around with Job's life then says that his own mind is inscrutable (despite our seeing just what he was thinking at the beginning of the narrative), and he has all sorts of helpful qualities in the Psalms, helping those who pray to him and scattering their enemies.

The Christian god, especially the Christian god of theology and Christian philosophy, is yet completely different from the YHWH of the Bible, being mostly merciful and loving (and not focused on genocide like in the book of Joshua), having offspring and multiple Persons, and eventually being literally perfect, omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and eventually formless, the force of nature rather than anything that could be personified, and so on.

All of these are in our consciousness, presenting numerous quite contradictory views about the nature of YHWH. When we have a problem and want to know what YHWH thinks about it, we have a huge number of sources to draw from that will give divergent answers. In our strife, do we think he's punishing us or testing us or neither? Does he care about every detail (hence his very specific directions for the Tabernacle, for instance, in Exodus) or will he forgive all sins in his mercy? Following a recent story in the news, if we are hungry, will YHWH provide us food like when he provided a ram to substitute for the sacrifice of Isaac, or will he expect us to work for our food like how he cursed Adam when he cast him from Eden?

If our gods want us to do what is right (assuming they're good gods rather than evil ones, of course), of course we'll think that we're doing their will if we do what we think is right. "This is right, so it must be my god's will." I would be surprised if it had turned out any different.

Mauro of FL 4:26PM December 05, 2009

"I think, therefore I am God!!!!"

R.T.Thaddeus of OR 3:44PM December 05, 2009