Atheists become emotionally aroused when daring God to do terrible things
DOI:10.1080/10508619.2013.771991 Marjaana Lindemana, Bethany Heywoodb, Tapani Riekkia & Tommi Makkonena
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Accepted author version posted online: 19 Feb 2013
Published online: 19 Feb 2013
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Abstract
We examined whether atheists exhibit evidence of emotional arousal when they dare God to cause harm to themselves and their intimates. In Study 1, the participants (16 atheists, 13 religious individuals) read aloud 36 statements of three different types: God, offensive, and neutral. In Study 2 (N = 19 atheists), ten new stimulus statements were included in which atheists wished for negative events to occur. The atheists did not think the God statements were as unpleasant as the religious participants did in their verbal reports. However, the skin conductance level showed that asking God to do awful things was equally stressful to atheists as it was to religious people and that atheists were more affected by God statements than by wish or offensive statements. The results imply that atheists' attitudes towards God are ambivalent in that their explicit beliefs conflict with their affective response.
Raging against God doesn't do one any good. That seems to be an understatement. Why would anyone, atheist or not, seek to ask God to curse them? Clearly such folks are seeking to prove something but are causing themselves psychic (and other?) harm in so doing.
We examined whether atheists exhibit evidence of emotional arousal when they dare God to cause harm to themselves and their intimates. In Study 1, the participants (16 atheists, 13 religious individuals) read aloud 36 statements of three different types: God, offensive, and neutral. In Study 2 (N = 19 atheists), ten new stimulus statements were included in which atheists wished for negative events to occur. The atheists did not think the God statements were as unpleasant as the religious participants did in their verbal reports. However, the skin conductance level showed that asking God to do awful things was equally stressful to atheists as it was to religious people and that atheists were more affected by God statements than by wish or offensive statements. The results imply that atheists' attitudes towards God are ambivalent in that their explicit beliefs conflict with their affective response.
Keywords Atheism, Emotional arousal, God, Skin conductance
There is a strong tendency in the current work on supernatural beliefs to suggest that religiosity is natural. Belief in a supernatural, intentional agent is assumed to be a cognitive default, a by-product of evolutionary adaptations for social cognition that are present in all humans. Accordingly, has argued that atheism is only skin deep: whether or not people consider themselves to be atheists, their verbal self-description may have little bearing on their implicit supernatural beliefs.
Of course, no cognitive traits arise in a vacuum, and religiosity would not be possible without social learning as well. People learn about religion by actively assimilating the testimony of other people and discourse in their community and religiosity is thus argued to arise also from socio-cultural habitat, not only from default intuitions. In any case, most people have grown up and lived with religious influences.
It is possible that atheists are not immune to these influences. Recent studies have shown that reminders of God increase prosocial behavior, reduce career-related effortful behavior and increase temptation resistance not only among believers but among atheists as well. Because behavior is based on emotions and cognitions, it seems strange that atheists would change their behavior unless they have some emotional reactions to reminders of God – the focus of the present studies – or even an implicit belief in the efficacy of the supernatural.
Heywood (2010)12. Heywood, B. 2010. “Meant to be”: How religious beliefs, cultural religiosity, and impaired theory of mind affect the implicit bias to think teleologically Belfast: Queen University of Belfast.. (Unpublished doctoral thesis)
View all references conducted a study similar to the one described here, in which an analysis of vocal cues was performed to detect whether atheists experienced increased levels of emotional arousal when daring God to do terrible things. Both atheists and theists spoke with lower levels of intensity on God statements than on offensive statements or statements in which they dared Santa Claus instead of God, indicating that the God statements were more emotionally arousing. However, some of the other vocal parameters were difficult to interpret conclusively. We therefore designed two studies where atheists' physiological stress reactions were analyzed by skin conductance when they read aloud statements in which they asked God to do terrible things to themselves and their loved ones. We hypothesized that the physiological reactions of individuals who reject belief in God (labeled here atheists) towards the statements should contradict their explicit attitudes towards the statements (1), that saying aloud the statements should stress the atheists at least as much as saying aloud other kinds of offensive statements (2), and that saying aloud the statements should stress atheists as much as it would stress religious people (3).
Study 1
Jump to section Study 1 Results and Discussion Study 2 General Discussion Acknowledgements
Method
Participants
Twenty-nine Finnish individuals (17 - 45 years) with different educational backgrounds participated. Sixteen of the participants were atheists (7 females) and 13 were religious (8 females). The atheists did not adhere to any conventional religion; of the religious individuals, 12 belonged to the Evangelical Lutheran Church and one to the New Age movement.
The participants were recruited through an electronic invitation posted to the Finnish association of skeptics (Skepsis), People's Bible Society and several student mailing lists. The invitation called for individuals who either strongly agreed or strongly disagreed with four statements that were included in the invitation and were derived from the Fetzer Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness/Spirituality questionnaire, such as “I feel God's presence”. Before the laboratory session, all participants signed a written informed consent, and their religiosity was assessed with 19 FBMMR items (Cronbach's a = .97). Of the original 23 items, four were excluded because also atheists can agree on them (e.g., “I have forgiven those who hurt me”). Religious individuals scored higher on the 5-point scale (M = 4.71, SD = 0.30) than atheists (M = 1.19, SD = 0.41), t(27) = -25.11, p < .001, ?2 = 0.98.
Assessment
Emotional arousal. The stimuli consisted of 36 statements of three different types: God (10), offensive (10), and neutral (10), which are given in Table 1. Additionally, six neutral statements were used as practice items.
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Table 1 Stimulus statements
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Skin conductance data were collected while the participants read aloud the randomly ordered statements. The statements were displayed one at a time on laptop monitor in front of subject. Subjects pressed a button when they were ready for a new sentence to appear. They were instructed to read aloud the presented sentence calmly. After the participant had read the sentence, there was a 10 second pause before the next statement.
Skin conductance was measured using NeXus-10 mk1 system running BioTrace+ V2010a recording software (Mind Media B.V., the Netherlands). The data were acquired at 32 samples per second (DC-12.5 Hz) with Ag-AgCl electrodes placed on the second phalange of the index and middle fingers of the nondominant hand. The session was recorded in audio in synchrony with the SC signal.
The SC signals were inspected by eye to be free of artifacts. The timing of stimuli was extracted from the log file exported by Presentation program to quantify the SC data. In quantification the onsets of the presented statements were used as start points. Mean conductance of a SC signal was calculated from the onset of the stimulus until 5 seconds after the sentence was read. The time interval of 5 seconds before the stimulus onset was used as a baseline. The mean conductance was also calculated if the subject refused to read the sentence but not when there was a failure to read the statement after agreeing to do so (e.g., the participant began to talk other things). Signal analysis was carried out in Matlab 7.10.0 (MathWorks, Massachusetts, US).
Implicit and explicit attitudes towards God statements. Before the physiological measures, the participants were instructed that they could choose not to say any statement aloud. After the physiological measures, the participants were given the opportunity to retract their statements (e.g., by saying that “I did not mean it when I said…”). The number of refusals of and retractions of God statements were used as indicators of implicit attitudes towards the God statements. After the physiological measures, the participants were also asked to indicate their explicit attitude about each statement (1 = not at all unpleasant, 5 = very unpleasant”). The average score on God statements was used as an indicator of explicit attitude towards the God statements.
If the participants rated the statement at least a bit unpleasant (score 2 or higher), they were asked to indicate the reason for unpleasantness from the following alternatives: 1. I don't want to ask God to do such terrible things, 2. The statement implies the presence of God and I don't believe in God, and 3. Although I don't believe in God it is nevertheless unpleasant to ask such a terrible thing.
Results and Discussion
Jump to section Study 1 Results and Discussion Study 2 General Discussion Acknowledgements
Reading God or other statements revealed no differences in SC increase between atheists and religious people, all p's > .10. Reading God statements was associated with greater increase in SC than with reading neutral statements both among the atheists, F(1, 14) = 5.46, p = .035, ?2 = .281, and among the religious individuals, F(1, 14) = 5.97, p = .035, ?2 = .374. The difference in SC increase between reading God statements and offensive statements was not significant either among atheists or religious people, both p's > .39. The difference in SC increase when reading offensive and neutral statements was significant both among atheists, F(1, 14) = 6.38, p = .024, ?2 = .314, and among religious people, F(1, 14) = 8.30, p = .015, ?2 = .430. The means and deviations are set out in Table 2.
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Table 2 Mean Skin Conductance Increase (with Standard Deviations in Parentheses) When Reading the Statements in Study 1 and Study 2
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The atheists assessed the God statements as less unpleasant (M = 2.89, SD = 1.07) than religious participants (M = 4.31, SD = 0.61), F(1, 26) = 15.96, p< .001, ?2 = .380. Among atheists, the most often reported reason for unpleasantness was “Although I don't believe in God it is nevertheless unpleasant to ask such a terrible thing” (M = 6.81, SD = 3.54). This reason was given on average more often than the reason “The statement implies the presence of God and I don't believe in God”, (M = 0.75, SD = 1.65), F(1, 15) = 30.53, p < .001, ?2 = 0.671, but equally often as the reason “I don't want to ask God to do such terrible things”, (M = 0.31, SD = 1.25), F(1, 15) = 0.64, p = .437, ?2 = 0.041. Religious individuals selected only the alternative “I don't want to ask God to do such terrible things”.
Atheists refused to say aloud the God statements equally seldom (M = 0.14, SD = 0.52) as did religious individuals (M = 1.22, SD = 3.31), F(1, 26) = 1.468, p = .239, ?2 = 0.068. Atheists also retracted God statements equally often (M = 1.33, SD = 3.42) as did religious individuals (M = 2.92, SD = 4.50), F(1, 26) = 1.054, p = .314, ?2 = 0.046.
Because most variables had a high skewness or kurtosis or both, non-parametric correlation analyses were conducted to examine more specifically the way religiosity and God SC levels were related to explicit and implicit attitudes towards God. Among all participants, religiosity was associated with how unpleasant the God statements were rated (Spearman's rho, r s = .59, p < .001), however, within atheists or religious individuals, this association was not significant (p's > .55). Religiosity was not related to retractions in either participant group (p's > .22) but it was positively correlated with refusals among religious individuals (rs = .74, p = .022). Among atheists, this correlation was not significant (rs = -.16, p = .57). As regards the SC levels when reading God statements, the only significant correlation that was found was the association with religiosity (rs =.68, p = .02) among religious individuals. Among all participants, religiosity was not correlated with SC levels when reading God statements, even when controlling for SC levels to the neutral or offensive statements, all p's > = .16, ns).
The results support Hypotheses 1-3 and suggest that asking God to do awful things is equally stressful to atheists as it is to religious people. However, only the God statements included the idea of tempting fate. Hence, we cannot rule out the possibility that the atheists believed, like many other people, that talking about negative events enhances the likelihood of the event to occur irrespective of whether the talk includes God or not. If this is the case, the results for atheists would have no bearing on God-related arousal per se. To rule out this possibility, Study 2 was conducted.
Study 2
Jump to section Study 1 Results and Discussion Study 2 General Discussion Acknowledgements
Method
Nineteen Finnish atheists (20 – 30 years, 10 females) with different educational backgrounds participated. The participants were recruited through an electronic invitation to atheists posted to students' mailing lists at University of Helsinki. Only participants who received the lowest possible score (M = 1) in the Fetzer Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness/Spirituality questionnaire ( Neff, 200617. Neff, J. A. 2006. Exploring the dimensionality of “religiosity” and “spirituality” in the Fetzer Multidimensional Measure. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 45: 449–459.
[CrossRef], [Web of Science ®]
View all references) were included in the study. The method was the same as in Study 1 except that ten new stimulus statements were included. The statements were otherwise identical to the God statements but the expression “God” was replaced with “I wish” (e.g., “I wish I would die of cancer”).
Results
The participants did not refuse to say aloud any of the statements, and they also did not retract any of the statements. Reading God statements was associated with greater increase in SC than reading offensive statements, F(1, 21) = 4.49, p = .046, ?2 = .176, or wish statements, F(1, 21) = 7.26, p = .014, ?2 = .257, giving further support for Hypothesis 2. SC changes related to offensive statements did not differ from those of wish statements, F(1, 21) = 0.05, p = .824, ?2 = 0.007. Reading neutral statements was associated with the lowest increase in SC, differing from that of wish statements, F(1, 21) = 4.613, p = .044, ?2 = .187. The means and standard deviations are given in Table 2.
General Discussion
Jump to section Study 1 Results and Discussion Study 2 General Discussion Acknowledgements
We asked atheists (Studies 1 and 2) and religious individuals (Study 1) to verbally dare God to cause unpleasant events, like murders and illnesses to happen to themselves and their intimates. Atheists did not regard the statements as unpleasant as the religious participants did in their explicit self-report. The impact of conviction was strong as it explained 38% of the variance in the unpleasantness ratings. However, when the participants' emotional arousal was analyzed by their skin conductance level during their verbal dares, a different picture emerged.
In the first study, reading the provocations addressed to God increased atheists' emotional arousal more than reading neutral statements about such things as sleep and weather. Second, God statements resulted in equal tension among atheists as reading the offensive statements (e.g., “It's okay to kick a puppy in the face”). Third, this same pattern of results was obtained for religious individuals. The results indicate that compared to their conviction and responses on the self-report measure, atheists' implicit reactions to the God statements were more similar to the reactions of religious individuals.
The results raise the question as to whether it was actually asking God to do the awful things that was upsetting, or whether it was contemplating the event itself (e.g., the possibility that one's parents might be murdered) which was upsetting. Because of the following results, we think the first type of inference is more likely. When reading the God statements in Study 2, atheists experienced greater emotional arousal than when reading the offensive statements. Moreover, when reading the God statements, atheists' emotional arousal increased as much as did religious individuals' arousal. Atheists also refused to say aloud the God statements and they felt the need to undo the statements equally often as religious individuals did, although neither group refused to say statements very often or retracted statements very often.
In Study 2, atheists were also asked to say aloud statements that were otherwise identical to the God statements but God was replaced with a wish (e.g., “I wish my parents were paralyzed”). Speaking the wish statements and the offensive statement increased the participants' SC level more than speaking the neutral statements. Thus, again, it may be that considering the offensive events was unnerving. It is also possible that the atheists implicitly endorsed thought-action fusion, believing that talking about disturbing events increases the likelihood that the event will occur. Nonetheless, as the SC levels also showed that atheists were more affected by God statements than by wish or offensive statements, it may be safe to conclude that atheists were less comfortable with daring God than with daring a more nebulous and impersonal fate or simply contemplating the distressing events.
Considered together, the results imply that while atheists' and religious individuals' beliefs about God and explicit attitudes towards God statements are different, they become equally emotionally aroused when daring God to do unpleasant things. These results extend earlier results by demonstrating that atheists' explicit beliefs not only conflict with their behavior, but also with their affective reactions. There at least four potential explanations for these findings.
Because emotion and cognition strongly interact and jointly contribute to behaviour (e.g., Pessoa, 200818. Pessoa, L. 2008. On the relationship between emotion and cognition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 9: 148–158.
[CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®]
View all references), the first possibility is the most provocative. In line with Bering's (2006, 2010) argument, atheism may lack cognitive depth in that atheists' explicit beliefs may differ from the implicit reactions that exist outside of conscious awareness. However, atheists may have found using the word God stressful also because others, possibly their friends and family, do take God seriously and believe in his ability to affect the world. Third, although the participants did not rate the idea of God as the reason for the unpleasantness of the statements, appealing to God may nevertheless have been absurd or aversive to atheists, leading to a dissonance-related affect. Fourth, it is possible that although atheists did not currently believe in God, they may have been influenced by their own previous beliefs. Hunsberger and Altemeyer (2006)13. Hunsberger, B. and Altemeyer, B. 2006. Atheists: A groundbreaking study of America's nonbelievers Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books..
View all references surveyed American atheists and found that 71 - 76% of them had once believed in God.
On the basis of the present data, it is not possible to determine which explanation is more satisfactory. Besides supplementing the present findings by a larger sample of participants, it would be useful in future to include implicit measures of belief in God and to get information about atheists' ideological history (e.g., how long they have been atheists and how passionately they deal with atheism). Also, it would be important to include a measure of socially desirable responding to determine how much the participants are worried about how they'll be perceived by others rather than worried about whether God can actually affect their lives.
Moreover, it would be important in future work to include additional statements to analyze whether the results replicate. First, as the “I wish” statements did not include hubris or unnecessary risk-taking, future studies should include sentences that would tempt fate more directly (e.g., “I am certain that no one will ever rape my friend.”). Second, inclusion of sentences that dare God to do good things and sentences that dare other agents to do good and bad things would inform us if it is sentences that include God that create arousal, and is the arousal linked only with daring God to do bad things. In addition, assessment of participants' explicit attitudes toward the offensive and neutral statements should be measured. Hereby it would be possible to analyze whether atheists' evaluations are more neutral than religious participants' evaluations only regarding God statements (indicating milder feelings towards God) or regarding emotional stimuli in general, indicating less intense emotional feelings in general, as shown by. Finally, because the participants chose which sentences they refuse to read aloud, it is possible that religious participants skipped the most upsetting sentences which may have lowered their average SC levels and thus distorted the results. In future studies, this problem should be resolved in some ethical manner.
In conclusion, the results indicate that even atheists have difficulty daring God to harm themselves and their loved ones. The results do not necessarily mean that atheists do not mean it when they say they do not believe in God or that daring God is emotionally arousing for atheists and religious individuals for similar reasons. Rather, the results suggest that atheists' explicitly stated beliefs and affective reactions regarding God are of opposite valence.
Acknowledgements
Jump to section Study 1 Results and Discussion Study 2 General Discussion Acknowledgements
We thank Miia Havusalmi, Noora Kekki, Johanna Koskinen, Leena Kurjenluoma, Mira Makkonen, Marjo Myllykoski, Kati Nironen and Taru Numminen for collecting the data. We also thank the Traffic Research Unit of the University of Helsinki for the use of their galvanic skin response device. Jesse Bering provided invaluable methodological advice as partaking in planning the design utilized in this study.
Notes
aitems adapted from Heywood (2010)12. Heywood, B. 2010. “Meant to be”: How religious beliefs, cultural religiosity, and impaired theory of mind affect the implicit bias to think teleologically Belfast: Queen University of Belfast.. (Unpublished doctoral thesis)
View all references
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