Do Atheists Secretly Believe in God

8/9/2019 Do Atheists Secretly Believe in God

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Do atheists secretly

believe in God?http://www.salon.com/2013/04/27/doatheistssecretlybelievein!odpartner/A Finnish study suggests that non-believers become emotionally

aroused when daring God to harm their loved ones

BY TOM JACOBS

The heads and hearts of atheists may not be on precisely the same

page. That’s the implication of recently published research from

Finland, which finds avowed non-believers become emotionally

aroused when daring God to do terrible things.

“The results imply that atheists’ attitudes toward God are

ambivalent, in that their explicit beliefs conflict with their affective

response,” concludes a research team led by University of Helsinki

psychologist Marjaana Lindeman. Its study is published in

the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion.

Lindeman and her colleagues describe two small-scale

experiments. The first featured 17 Finns, recruited online, who

expressed high levels of belief, or disbelief, in God. They read out

loud a series of statements while skin conductance data was

collected via electrodes placed on two of their fingers.

Some of the statements were direct dares to a deity (“I dare God to make my

parents drown”). Others were similarly disturbing, but did not reference God (“It’s

OK to kick a puppy in the face”). Still others were bland and neutral (“I hope it’s

not raining today”).

The arousal levels of the believers and non-believers followed

precisely the same pattern: Higher for both the God dares and

otherwise unpleasant statements, and lower for the neutral ones.

http://www.salon.com/2013/04/27/do_atheists_secretly_believe_in_god_partner/http://www.salon.com/2013/04/27/do_atheists_secretly_believe_in_god_partner/http://www.salon.com/writer/tom_jacobs/http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10508619.2013.771991http://www.psyko.helsinki.fi/psyko/Psykolog.nsf/Personnel/LindemanMarjaana?OpenDocumenthttp://www.salon.com/writer/tom_jacobs/http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10508619.2013.771991http://www.psyko.helsinki.fi/psyko/Psykolog.nsf/Personnel/LindemanMarjaana?OpenDocumenthttp://www.salon.com/2013/04/27/do_atheists_secretly_believe_in_god_partner/http://www.salon.com/2013/04/27/do_atheists_secretly_believe_in_god_partner/


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Compared to the atheists, the believers reported feeling more

uncomfortable reciting the God dares. But skin conductance data

revealed the underlying emotional reactions of the two groups

were essentially the same. This suggests that taunting God made

the atheists more upset than they were letting on (even to

themselves).

Of course, perhaps it wasn’t the presence of God, but rather the

subject matter of the statements (such as the death of their parents)

that caused the atheists’ emotional arousal. The second experiment

was designed to test that hypothesis. It featured 19 Finnish atheists,

who participated in an expanded version of the first experiment. It

included 10 additional statements—variations on the God dareswhich excluded any mention of supernatural forces. For example,

in addition to “I dare God to turn all my friends against me,” they

read out loud the statement: “I wish all of my friends would turn

against me.”

The results: The atheists showed greater emotional arousal when

reading the God-related statements than while reading the

otherwise nearly identical sentences that omitted the almighty. Tothe researchers, this indicates that “even atheists have difficulty

daring God to harm themselves and their loved ones.”

“There are at least four potential explanations for these findings,”

Lindeman and her colleagues write. The simplest and most

provocative is that “atheists’ explicit beliefs may differ from the

implicit reactions that exist outside of conscious awareness.”

But other possibilities are equally plausible. Atheists “may have

found using the word God stressful because others, possibly their

friends and family, do take God seriously,” they note.

Alternatively, they may have found the idea of God “absurd or

aversive,” leading to the heightened emotional response.


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Finally, the researchers note, “although atheists did not currently

believe in God, they may have been influenced by their own

previous beliefs.” They point to research from 2006 that found

three-quarters of American atheists were once believers.

Perhaps the emotional response measured in this study is an echo

of that previous belief. If so, it suggests that even for committed

non-believers, it’s difficult to totally erase the idea of God from

one’s psyche.
http://www.amazon.com/Atheists-Groundbreaking-Study-Americas-Nonbelievers/dp/1591024137http://www.psmag.com/culture-society/do-atheists-have-deathbed-conversions-43291/http://www.psmag.com/culture-society/do-atheists-have-deathbed-conversions-43291/http://www.amazon.com/Atheists-Groundbreaking-Study-Americas-Nonbelievers/dp/1591024137http://www.psmag.com/culture-society/do-atheists-have-deathbed-conversions-43291/http://www.psmag.com/culture-society/do-atheists-have-deathbed-conversions-43291/

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Do Atheists Secretly Believe in God