...born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad

Extry, extry: Religious people are more likely to helpful and generous—but only because they think God is watching and judging them like some supernatural hall monitor. From the Vancouver Sun:

VANCOUVER -  Religious people tend to be more helpful and generous than others because their belief in God assumes the existence of an all-knowing "supernatural police" officer who monitors their behavior,  University of B.C. psychologist Ara Norenzayan said in an interview Thursday.

 The prestigious journal, Science, published an article Thursday by Norenzayan and his assistant Azim Shariff that surveys 30 years of wide-ranging research into the relationship between religion and moral behaviour.

 The UBC authors conclude that religious people are on average more ethical than atheists - but only on two conditions.

 Religious people tend to behave more ethically on condition they believe it will enhance their reputation among their group, and only when they have been freshly reminded of their belief in God, said Norenzayan.

 Emphasizing he is not out to either defend or attack religion but to look at "hard scentific evidence," Norenzayen said he is grateful that the global scientific community has become much more open to researching religious behavior in the past six years.

Norenzayan, who has gained international attention for some of his earlier psychological experiments into religion, said their latest report in Science does not necessarily contradict those who claim religion exacerbates conflict between cultures and traditions.

That's because the UBC researchers discovered religious people are often more generous and helpful (or "pro-social") only to members of their religion, not necessarily to outsiders.

 The UBC study shows that, even though religion has been helpful in creating moral behavior, it has no monopoly on producing honest and empathic people…

Well, that’s fo shizzle. Sometimes religion has been known to create monstrous totalitarians.

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:51 | link | comments

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