This news story is related to some comments in response to the review of the Richard Dawkins book that I posted the other day. The comments have turned to the question of the relationship between religion and aggression, and this press release describes some recent research into that very thing. A psychologist at the University of Michigan led a group that looked at students at Brigham Young University and at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam; a much higher percentage of the BYU students reported a belief in God and in the Bible, as you would expect. The students read a story from the King James Bible describing a nasty incident involving torture, murder, and revenge; some of them were told it came from the Bible but others were told that it came from a scroll found at an archaeological site. For some participants in each of those two groups (the Bible group and the scroll group), the story was augmented with an additional verse about God instructing Israel to chasten its brothers before the Lord. After reading the story, the students paired up for an interactive test that measured aggression (the winner of a competition got to assault the eardrums of the loser with a loud noise, at a volume the winner chose, up to about the volume of a fire alarm).
The results are very interesting. The BYU students displayed more aggression if they thought the story came from the Bible than if they thought it came from some random scroll, and also if they got the extra verse about chastening their brethren. The students from Amsterdam also were more aggressive if they got that extra verse, although they weren’t as strongly influenced as the BYU students by what they thought the source of the story was. (It’s especially interesting that even the non-believers were apparently influenced by that verse about God urging Israel to fight its brothers.) The closing paragraph of the press release discusses what the results of the study might have to do with the roots of religious terrorism.
Of course many people who read the Bible ignore the more violent verses, but there’s a surprising amount of strong language about what God will do to unbelievers even in the supposedly kinder, gentler New Testament. The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible lists relevant passages (there’s also an annotated Quran and an annotated Book of Mormom).
So, to continue my previous theme. Do the same test on a text from a political dogma (the Neo-cons in the US, Shining Path etc etc) and I am pretty sure you will get the same result. Belief systems, the creation of an “other” and a “us” are part of human evolution. Religion manifests that tendency, it does not cause it.
You’re right, it doesn’t cause that tendency; in fact I think that’s an important part of the evolutionary psychology of religion (that it taps into that “us and them” type of thinking that we are already prone to). What disturbs me is that in so many cases, religion seems to legitimize one of our more unfortunate propensities. Obviously in other cases it tries to inculcate compassion, but I don’t think you need a supernatural being to do that. (Which has nothing to do with whether God exists, of course, but it does address the question of why bother to argue against religion.)
I suppose that re-enforces the notion of religious fundamentalism. Though I do agree with Dave and you — you could replace religion with a lot of other perverse themes, and get the same result. Of course, that does not take away the fact that religion does manifest that tendency on a larger scale than most other things … world wide. As an aside: Back in India, mob psychology manifests itself everytime some well known “leader” dies — immediately the mob go out and “have a good time” destroying public property, etc. (The objective: not mourn the “leader’s” death but rather to do “their thing”)
I was listening to an ABC Podcast on social intelligence, relating to the two periods of sudden expansion in bran capacity. One of the speakers argued that story telling and religion were part of the expansion, increasing communication and the capacity for abstract thought. I have come accross some other stuff (although I cannot remember where) on the abstract nature (as opposed to naming things) of human language and its origins. Overall I think there is an interesting. transdisciplinary research theme here. One of the depressing things for me in recent years is to see the way that management movements take on cult like aspects (Learning Organisation and Senge is the latest case) including some of the symbols and power plays of evangelical christianity. There is something innate here in the way we interact that needs further study.
Okay, if you look in an absolutist sense, you find that Christianity can easily precipitate aggressive behaviour, that the whole system of church and doctrine serves to reinforce and exploit the Us/Them Mental Disorder (UTMD).
On the other hand, I think Christianity offers a lot in relation to what came before. If you accept as granted that UTMD is endemic to humanity, then you realize the value of a religion which is spread through conversion rather than birth. The resulting culture war (crusades, and their more destructive cousin: missions) is the worst exploitation of UTMD. But after the conversion of South America, the pool of “us” becomes so much larger. The idea that all of humanity is “us” becomes substantially more obtainable even to those most afflicted with UTMD.
I am curious how it really compares to what came after: “secular humanism,” science, etc. Science-based missionary work can be just as destructive to pre-existing cultures (maybe?). In my personal experience, science also provides scant comfort when battling UTMD. I mean, what feelings invade your brain when you see a Bush 2004 bumper sticker? On the other hand, maybe there is no better tool than science to understand the core of human nature: “I have been wrong, I will be wrong again.”