Reminders of god can lead to risky behaviour in theists
Offline Thinking of God makes people bigger risk-takers, study suggests
Date: February 26, 2015
Source: Association for Psychological Science
Summary:
Reminders of God can make people more likely to seek out and take risks, according to research. The findings suggest that people are willing to take these risks because they view God as providing security against potential negative outcomes.
Exerpt:
In a group of online survey studies with nearly 900 participants, the researchers found that people who were reminded of God -- either by working on word scrambles that included God-related words or by reading a paragraph about God -- were more willing to engage in various risky behaviors than those participants who weren't prompted to think about God.
In one study, for example, participants were asked to choose which version of the study they wanted to complete: one version would give them a small bonus payment, but involved looking at an "extremely bright color" that they were told could potentially damage their eyes, while the other version involved looking at a harmless darker color. The researchers found that participants who had been reminded of God prior to making their choice were more likely to opt for the dangerous version of the experiment (95.5%) than the participants who hadn't been reminded of God (84.3%).
Source Article:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150226110446.htm
Common sense thing, I know. But interesting. I think it has both useful and anti-useful potential consequences. It might make people more willing to explore and learn, but also cause people to die doing stupid things.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
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I have found people who believe in religion also believe in chain letters and rumors because they have a nasty habit of not questioning the story.
On another note, I found out just Friday that my mother told my sister to call the 700 Club to have them pray for my niece who had cysts on the ovaries.
It wasn't a big deal in the sense she had this run away sickness, but she still have to have outpatient surgery to have them removed.
So after the operation my sister made this big deal saying the doctor claimed the cyst was free floating and in all the years of surgery they had never seen that before.
I laughed and went straight to Google to research it and it appears cysts go free floating quite often and it isn't any thing like a miracle.
Of course you couldn't convince them of that even if the medical field said so.
So they believe prayer is some process which works, yet millions of people suffer or die every day even though they pray.
That would explain why I have very few theists as friends online, despite very little discussion on religion. Whenever someone sends me a bullshit chain letter that a six year old could see through, they get deleted and blocked on the spot. I've occasionally wondered why so many of my gaming buddies are atheists. Maybe this is why.
Re: your mom/sister, I think you're running into two distinct walls instead of one. Humans have a natural tendency to defend ideas they've accepted without critical thought processes. Athiets are not immune to this any more than theists are. It is especially notable when the original source of the bad information appears to be or actually is a person in authority. If a doctor says something, most people will believe it. Even if it's pure bullshit.
Combined with the effect of religious thought processes, it would make what should be a 2 second conversation turn into a decades long war.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Yeah, most of my gaming friends are either atheists or they just don't care enough about the subject to make a decision.
My mom is an enabler of my sister. My sister is an imbecile.
Well that is interesting because while I find my mom extremely confident and intelligent, my sister lacks any confidence and is not intelligent.