God and the sanctioning of violence

Years of reading communications research that tries to document the effects of television violence on violence in the “real world,” has tended to make me a strong skeptic of claims that there is any strong and direct causal connection. That reading makes me skeptical of this piece of research, as well, although it certainly is interesting to ask the question Brad Bushman asked. He wanted to find out if knowing that God sanctions violence would make it easier for people to be aggressive. The answer his research came up with is yes.