Believers Leave Punishment to Powerful God

[rug]

Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer
Date: 22 May 2012 Time: 07:01 PM ET

Believing in an involved, morally active God makes people less likely to punish others for rule-breaking, new research finds.

However, the researchers also find that religious belief in general makes people more likely to punish wrongdoers – probably because such punishment is a way to strengthen the community as a whole.

In other words, religion may introduce two conflicting impulses: Punish others for their transgressions, or leave it to the Lord.

Punishment is good for the community as a deterrent to criminals, cheats and liars. And research suggests that a desire for punishment is ingrained, with babies as young as 8 months preferring to see a wrongdoer punished.

http://www.livescience.com/20512-punish-wrongdoers-belief-god.html

Abstract:

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2012/05/21/rspb.2012.0615.abstract?sid=47a2aa4c-8c3f-458a-80af-6e741c3bb3cb

[cbayer]

1. There's not much info in the abstract.

I find these soft sociological studies hard to get my head around. The criteria often seem weak and would seem difficult to replicate.

[rug]

2. Plus you have to pay for the data.

[cbayer]

3. Yep and that's really too bad.

It's hard to see the results as credible when you can't look at the methods and actual results.

At least some abstracts give you some data (including p values). This one gives you nothing.

[DirkGently]

4. Perhaps it's just the loudest believers who want to

do the punishing themselves. I've long thought the most vociferous advocates for carrying out "God's law" on earth don't truly believe in any kind of just, omniscient arbiter of behavior. What they're really saying is that THEY are god.

Problem is, whether those people are deep-down hypocrites or not, when ignorant and terrible practices are pushed in the name of religion, there's no practical difference to society. We simply can't afford to adopt infinitely subjective, often flatly immoral or ignorant ideas about crime or punishment or law on the basis of traditional beliefs about gods and magic.

[rug]

5. Anecdotally, I've found many potential jurors disqualify themselves from criminal trials because

they state it is not their place to judge another. Almost unanimously they base it on religious conviction.

Remarkable.

[dimbear]

6. As a workable compromise, come down hard on the laity and leave the punishment of

clerics to the divinity. Time honored practice.