Psychologists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have reconstructed what Americans think God bet like , using a new proficiency .
A squad of psychologists showed a sample group of 511 Christians hundreds of randomly vary face pairs . The participants were asked to choose which from the pair of faces they think looked most like how they imagined God looked like . In this study , all reference to God refer to the Christian deity .
The research worker then meld these select face to create the final aspect – an average of howAmericans think God front .
Far from the common image of a fully grown beardy old white man , the study showed that many American Christians saw God as more womanly and young than has traditionally been render .
Unsurprisingly , they also institute that how the great unwashed viewed God was shape by their political opinion , with conservatives see God as more Caucasic and more " powerful " than progressive , who see God as more loving and womanly .
Overall , the left face shown below depicts the final merger of all the typeface selected for suffer God - like quality , whilst the right shows a portmanteau word of least God - like faces .
Or , to put it more or less more dramatically : TREMBLE PUNY HUMAN AND BEHOLD THE FACE OF GOD .
Essentially , the study found that when you ask people what God looks like , they pick out something that looks an frightening caboodle like themselves .
" main ratings evoke that , as predicted , perception of God ’s face are shaped by self-centeredness , " the authors save in the study , published inPLOS One .
" Older participants saw an older God , more attractive participants saw a more attractive God , and African Americans see a marginally more African American God . "
Just as the Bible say God created man in his own image , it turns out we make our gods in ours . However , perceptions of God ’s font did n’t vary across gender , with both men and women see God as likewise manlike .
" People ’s tendency to think in a God that looks like them is logical with an egocentric diagonal , " sound out Professor Kurt Gray , the study ’s aged generator , in astatement .
" citizenry often cast their beliefs and trait onto others , and our report show that God ’s appearance is no different – people conceive in a God who not only call back like them , but also looks like them . "
