What Does God Look Like? UNC Study Finds Liberals and Conservatives Have Different Ideas
A new study published by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill finds that liberals and conservatives see God differently and the psychologists stress...a lot differently, according to The Charlotte Observer.
Researchers asked 551 American Christians what they think God looks like. They then created a photograph from the responses they received.
The resulting image shows God is white, young and clean cut.
Liberals imagined God as "more feminine, younger, and more loving," according to the study.
The researchers said all of the Christians that responded came to the study with some kind of bias.
"These biases might have stemmed from the type of societies that liberals and conservatives want," said the study's lead author Joshua Conrad Jackson, in a synopsis posted on UNC-Chapel Hill's website.
"Past research shows that conservatives are more motivated than liberals to live in a well-ordered society, one that would be best regulated by a powerful God. On the other hand, liberals are more motivated to live in a tolerant society, which would be better regulated by a loving God," the synopsis reads.
The study's final image of God is, of course, a big guess, since the Bible doesn't reveal what God actually looks like.
" describes man as created in God's image," says the report, "but other verses portray God as embodied as non-human ( ), or as not embodied at all ( )."
According to the study, demographics often come into play when each of us create in our minds our image of God. For instance, Caucasians tended to see a white God. African Americans imagine a black God. Younger people saw a younger God and attractive people imagined a more attractive God.
UNC Psychology Professor Kurt Gray, the study's senior author, said the study revealed people tend to believe in a God that looks like them, except in one curious instance.
"Men and women believed in an equally masculine-looking God," the report reads.
