Digital Evangelism Issues

The way that people behave differently in a group, and participate in a self-reinforcing bandwagon effect, is rather scary.

The famous Stanford ‘prison simulation’ experiment in the 70s was aborted after six days when things got out of hand. Though it was only on the instigation of his then girlfriend, now his wife, that Professor Zimbardo canceled the exercise:Read more.

A lesser-known experiment was conducted even earlier, in 1967 at Palo Alto, California; and a film The Wave has been made, based on this experience: Read more.

These demonstrate how easily we can fall into either sinful or delusional behavior.

But here’s an interesting study on babies demonstrating moral discernment. Babies are certainly fearfully and wonderfully made. I have long been impressed by the way a child too young to talk can imagine, and distinguish between imaginary activities, such as pretending to eat food from a picture, and eating real food. We are hard-wired for imagination and story.

Babies can also tell friend from foe long before they can talk, according to research published in Nature magazine. Use of puppets demonstrating ‘moral’ behavior, by seemingly helping or hindering another puppet to climb a slope, were noted by babies of six months, who all afterwards reached out to hold the ‘helpful’ puppet and rejected the ‘nasty’ one. So – another behavior that appears hard-wired rather than learned!

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