One of the more predictable outcomes of a government shutdown --in fact, the hyperbolic chatter alone regarding the uncertainties of such a major disruption is enough to do the trick--is that there will be a noticeable surge in the nation’s religious beliefs. According to Duke University psychologist Aaron Kay and his colleagues, God and government are more than just two sides of the same US-issued coin. In fact, they share a common cognitive denominator. For most people, both God and government function alongside one another to provide us, unthinkingly so, with a supportive sense of external control.
This is meaningful, reason these psychologists, because only in a stable, predictable, organized world can we fragile human beings feel as though we have any personal influence over our surroundings; faith in such a "just world"--especially, the feeling that our rule-based actions will be met predictably rather than arbitrarily and capriciously--serves a core emotional need for our species. The relative degree by which we invest psychologically in an all-powerful God or a viable manmade government is inconsequential, argues Kay; either way, we’re sipping from the same salubrious well of self-efficacy.
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