by Benjamin Ady
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. (Matthew 10:34, King James Version)The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name. (Exodus 15:3, King James Version)
I recently learned of a really fascinating study about how God-sanctioned and/or Biblical violence affects aggression.
Last year psychologists at the U of Michigan, Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, and Brigham Young University did a study in which they gave a violent Old Testament passage (Judges 19-21) to a number of people to read. Some believed in God; some didn’t.
Half the participants in each study were told that the passage came from the Bible. The rest were told it came from an ancient scroll discovered at an archaeological dig. Furthermore, half the participants read a passage that had an extra verse in which God clearly sanctions the violence in the passage. Read the rest of this entry »
04-09-2008 |
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