In article <C7SdneFKnsqZl6TbnZ2dnUVZ_qemnZ2d@comcast.com>,
"Michelle Malkin" <hypatiab7@comcast.net> wrote:

Angry God, angry people
Feb. 28, 2007
Courtesy Association for Psychological Science
and World Science staff

New re­search may clar­i­fy the re­la­tion­ship be­tween re­li­gious
in­doc­tri­na­tion and vi­o­lence, a top­ic that has gained new
no­to­ri­ety
since the Sept. 11 at­tacks.

In the stu­dy, psy­chol­o­gist Brad Bush­man of the Uni­ver­si­ty of
Mich­i­gan in Ann Ar­bor, Mich. and col­leagues sug­gest that vi­o­lence
sanc­tioned by God in scrip­tures can in­crease ag­gres­sion,
es­pe­cial­ly
in be­liev­ers.

The find­ings ap­pear in the March is­sue of the re­search jour­nal
Psy­cho­log­i­cal Sci­ence.

The au­thors worked with un­der­grad­u­ate stu­dents at two
uni­ver­si­ties:
Brig­ham Young in Pro­vo, Utah, where 99 per­cent of stu­dents re­port
be­liev­ing in God and the Bi­ble; and Vrije Uni­ver­si­teit in
Am­ster­dam,
where just half re­port be­liev­ing in God, and 27 per­cent in the
Bi­ble.

The par­ti­ci­pants read a par­a­ble adapted from a rel­a­tively ob­scure
pas­sage in the King James Bi­ble. It de­s­c­ribes the bru­tal tor­ture
and
mur­der of a wom­an, and her hus­band's sub­se­quent re­venge on her
at­tack­ers.

Half the par­ti­ci­pants were told that the pas­sage came from the Old
Tes­ta­ment; the oth­er half, that it was an an­cient scroll un­earthed
by
ar­chae­o­lo­gists. In ad­di­tion, half the par­ti­ci­pants from both the
Bi­ble and the an­cient scroll groups read an ad­justed ver­sion that
in­clud­ed the verse: "The Lord com­manded Is­ra­el to take arms against
their broth­ers and chas­ten them be­fore the LORD."

Par­ti­ci­pants were then paired up and in­structed to com­pete in a
sim­ple
re­ac­tion game that meas­ures ag­gres­sion. The win­ner gets to "blast"
his
or her part­ner with a noise that can be about as loud as a fire alarm.

The Brig­ham Young stu­dents were more ag­gres­sive-that is loud­er-with
their blasts if they had been told the pas­sage they had read was from
the
Bi­ble rath­er than a scroll, the re­search­ers found. Like­wise, they
were
more ag­gres­sive if they had read the ad­di­tional verse that de­picts
God
sanc­tion­ing vi­o­lence.

At the more sec­u­lar Dutch school, the re­sults were sur­pris­ing­ly
sim­i­lar, the sci­en­tists said. Al­though the stu­dents were less
like­ly
to be in­flu­enced by the source of the ma­te­ri­al, they blast­ed more
ag­gres­sively when the pas­sage they read in­clud­ed God's sanc­tion­ing
of
the vi­o­lence. This held true even for non­be­liev­ers, though to a
less­er
ex­tent.

The find­ings shed light on the pos­si­ble ori­gins of vi­o­lent
re­li­gious
fun­da­men­tal­ism, the re­search­ers said, and fit with the­o­ries
hold­ing
that vi­o­lent scrip­tures help lead ex­trem­ists to ag­gres­sion. "To
the
ex­tent re­li­gious ex­trem­ists en­gage in pro­longed, se­lec­tive
read­ing
of the scrip­tures, fo­cus­ing on vi­o­lent ret­ri­bu­tion to­ward
unbe­liev­ers in­stead of the over­all mes­sage of ac­cept­ance and
un­der­stand­ing," wrote Bush­man, "one might ex­pect to see in­creased
bru­tality."

I recall how many of the religious right used to complain about violence
in comic books, and now more about movies and TV. They claimed that
reading about violence causes children to act violent. The only
conclusion I can come to is that they never read their own book, which I
believe is one of the most violent ever written.
--