Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/06/14/behold-the-face-of-god.html
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Of course, Christians would only imagine him them as a man…
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and white.
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He owes me some change.
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Gotta show that to my Lyft driver, it’s him right down to the maniac smile.
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If man was made in the image of god wouldn’t it be better to present the average human face? Seems way less subjective than asking 511 Christians 
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Is that Elon Musk?
Also, are we to assume these Christians are Trinitarians, like the majority of Christians? Which of the Divine Persons is this the face for?
ETA:
The study doesn’t even mention the Trinity, which is a fundamental element of mainstream Christian theology, which makes me think that neither the researchers nor the subjects were thinking very hard about this whole endeavor.
If I were to ask (Trinitarian) Christians how they visualize God, I would explicitly mention the Trinity in the prompt, so as to leave the visual possibilities open, and avoid nudging the subjects into an anthropomorphic conception of the divine. That’s because the idea of the Trinity undermines the idea of visualizing God as some human! Well, it undermines visualizing God as one human; Trinitarians (aka most mainstream Christians) really ought to be visualizing God as at least one human, but no more than two, plus one very abstract Spirit. Though they then ought to realize that the Trinity is a bit of a silly concept for a supposedly monotheistic religion, so (in my version of this study) they would then visualize God as Nature, and all become Spinozists. It would then be revealed that it was not a research project at all, but an outreach effort to get people to question their beliefs.
I think these researchers were banking on American Christians’ ignorance of Christian theology (and their literal-mindedness), in order to get a ridiculous result. Or maybe the researchers’ are so ignorant of Christianity, theology never came up. I mean, have any of you read this paper yet? I’ve read some ridiculous psych papers before, and this one is among the worst. It’s really unscientific. Furthermore, it looks like the researchers never realized they are unqualified to be conducting research on phenomena with such a heavy cultural dimension, and thus failed to include the anthropologists necessary for such research. A big fail on the rigor scale. Oh well.
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I am getting a more Jimmy Fallon vibe.
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What a stunning lack of imagination these Christians have.
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The actual study started with an average American face, made minor modifications to it, then asked people to choose the most god-like of these. So no flowing white beards were presented for consideration.
They did present the least god-like version, describing it as the “anti-face” of god:
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I didn’t realize the question was settled by voting.
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God is a Pittsburgh bus driver. God is Jimmy Fallon. God is the image of the “antiGod” they voted on.
I will continue to be vexed by a religion that asserts that God is everything but whose followers often fail to see that truth in the eyes of their fellow living beings or in any expression of creation on this material plane.
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That would explain a few things.
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I’m pretty sure Jack Chick thought even imagining the face of God was itself a sin.
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