Book Of Joshua

[ambelamba]

I really can't pinpoint the source, but years ago an Israeli psychologist conducted a very controversial experiment. He took the Book of Joshua then changed the names of people and landmarks with some Asian ones. When he showed the modified Book of Joshua to elementary school children, they were uniformly reviled. But when the psychologist revealed that it was actually the Book of Joshua, kids' reactions were basically, "OK, that's acceptable."

This is a terrifying aspect of human nature. And I believe the Bible should be taught to the people who wants to study human nature. The Old Testament, especially the Book of Joshua and Deuteronomy are the excellent example of savage tribalism.

[Lt_Ripley]

tada a clue

Tamarin ran a fascinating control group in his experiment. A different group of 168 Israeli children were given the same text from the book of Joshua, but with Joshua's own name replaced by 'General Lin' and 'Israel' replaced by 'a Chinese kingdom 3,000 years ago'. Now the experiment gave opposite results. Only 7 per cent approved of General Lin's behavior, and 75 percent disapproved. In other words, when their loyalty to Judaism was removed from the calculation, the majority of the children agreed with the moral judgments that most modern humans would share. Joshua's action was a deed of barbaric genocide. But it all looks different from a religious point of view. And the difference starts early in life. It was religion that made the difference between children condemning genocide and condoning it.

http://machineslikeus.com/the-problem-with...f-children.html

very interesting !

Edited April 10, 2009 by Lt_Ripley