Traditional God Images and Attitudes Towards Voluntary Euthanasia

I use data from the General Social Survey (N = 8905) to evaluate whether imagining God in traditional ways is associated with attitudes towards voluntary euthanasia. Bivariate analysis reveals that individuals who imagine God as a father, a master, and a king have negative attitudes towards voluntar...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Review of religious research
Main Author: Sharp, Shane (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer [2017]
In: Review of religious research
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B USA / Religion / Idea of God / Terminal care
RelBib Classification:AD Sociology of religion; religious policy
KBQ North America
NBC Doctrine of God
NCH Medical ethics
Further subjects:B Religious Belief
B God Images
B Euthanasia
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:I use data from the General Social Survey (N = 8905) to evaluate whether imagining God in traditional ways is associated with attitudes towards voluntary euthanasia. Bivariate analysis reveals that individuals who imagine God as a father, a master, and a king have negative attitudes towards voluntary euthanasia. The associations between imagining God as a father and as a master and attitudes towards voluntary euthanasia hold after controlling for religious affiliation, frequency of religious attendance, views of the Bible, and other sociodemographic characteristics that predict attitudes towards voluntary euthanasia; however, the association between imagining God as a king do not. I also find that while there is no association between imagining God as a judge on voluntary euthanasia attitudes at the bivariate level, there is a significant and positive association with having favorable voluntary euthanasia attitudes in the full model, revealing a suppression effect. These findings highlight the importance of evaluating if different, distinct beliefs about the same religious object have differential associations with social attitudes and behaviors.
ISSN:2211-4866
Contains:Enthalten in: Review of religious research
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s13644-017-0304-7