Do you wish your god were different?

Here's an interesting take on the issue. Religious believers tend to think that God's beliefs are uncannily similar to their own beliefs. Here's an extract from the excellent Not Exactly Rocket Science blog;

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Psychological studies have found that people are always a tad egocentric when considering other people's mindsets. They use their own beliefs as a starting point, which colours their final conclusions. {Nicholas} Epley found that the same process happens, and then some, when people try and divine the mind of God. Their opinions on God's attitudes on important social issues closely mirror their own beliefs. If their own attitudes change, so do their perceptions of what God thinks. They even use the same parts of their brain when considering God's will and their own opinions.

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This leaves God looking suspiciously like an internet sockpuppet, that just agrees with whatever the believer thinks. The really damning thing is that by manipulating the test subjects in order to change their opinions (by exposing them to strong or weak arguments for an issue), Epley found that "God's" opinion appeared to shift as well. Essentially, if you ask a believer "What would Jesus do?" you are really asking "What would you do?".Original paper here;Just a moment...Discussion here;Page not found | ScienceBlogsMutate and Survive

This is interesting, but not conclusive. What I now want to know is, do I use a different part of my brain to think about the opinions of people who are genuinely distinct from me? Suppose I think about what my wife (for example) would like me to do, do I use a different part of my brain, or do I use the same part of my brain as I use to figure out what I'd like to do and what God would like me to do?If the latter, then this result is not particularly significant.

Hi Dr A,Brain scans did show comparable activity when the subjects considered their own or God's opinions. From NERS again;

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For his final trick, Epley looked at the brains of recruits as they in turn attempted to peer into the mind of God. While sitting in an fMRI scanner, 17 people had to state how they, God or an average American would feel on a list of social issues, including universal health care, stem cell research, euthanasia, abortion, sex education and more. As before, their answers revealed a closer match between their beliefs and those they ascribed to God, than those they credited to the average Joe or Jill.

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The brain scans found the same thing, particularly in a region called the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) that's been linked to self-referential thinking. The mPFC is more active when we think about our own mindsets than those of others. Epley found that it was similarly abuzz when the recruits thought about their own attitude or God's, but lower when they considered the average American.
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The results suggest that similar parts of the brain are involved when we consider our own beliefs and those of God - Epley thinks this is why we end up inferring a deity's attitudes based on those we hold ourselves.

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It looks pretty damning to me. It would be interesting to see if this can be replicated in those of other cultures and beliefs.Mutate and Survive

Yes. Same reason Tina Turner defended Ike Turner and why Whitney Houston defended Bobby Brown. Anything less would have reduced themselves to fools.

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"Political correctness is tyranny with manners." -- Charlton Heston

Yes, but that's not what I'm asking.Suppose I use the same part of my brain when pondering what I think of what God thinks. On the face of it this seems "pretty damning", as you say.But suppose I also use that same part of my brain when I try to figure out what Pat Robertson thinks or what Sarah Palin thinks.You see the problem?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Yeah, I see what you're getting at. Obviously it's not as simple as using one part of the brain or another, it's about comparing levels of activity in multiple areas. It was the case that when considering the "average American" the subjects showed different activity to when they considered self or God. The mPFC (an area already linked to self-reflection) was highly active for self/God. It was less active for the average American. From Epley's paper;

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activity in the mPFC was lower when participants thought about the average American's attitudes than when they thought about their own attitude or God's attitudes (Ps < 0.05), whereas activity in the mPFC did not differ between the self and God conditions... These results expand considerably on the behavioral results observed in Studies 1—6 by demonstrating a relative similarity in the neural substrates involved in thinking about one's own beliefs and God's beliefs compared to when thinking about another person's beliefs.

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Now if you're asking what the difference in brain activity might be when gauging the views of a specific known person, as opposed to the "average American", I can't say. Epley did not cover that.I suspect that the more we know about a person and their beliefs and attitudes, the less the brain will be forced to fall back onto projecting our own views. If we know someone well, or know their views (as in a public figure), there is no need to project. We can simply fall back on our existing knowledge to gauge their opinion.With God, we know a lot less, save that he is "good". Since we all like to think of ourselves as good and our own opinions as the most moral, it makes sense that we would project our own views onto God.The way to go from here would be to see if the results are the same in those of other faiths and (perhaps even more interesting) in atheists and agnostics. It would also be interesting to see how the brain functions when considering the views of specific other people (as you suggest) and when considering fictional characters.Mutate and Survive

Ah, thank you. Interesting, most.