Dr. David DeSteno

Maybe people didn't take their medication the right way.

Maybe it only works for a certain type of people.

And so you can try it again and again in different cases.

And you can kind of build up a sense of, is there evidence here that this drug works or doesn't over time?

And if it doesn't in any case, you might say, eh, maybe there's nothing there.

With God, you can't even run the experiment.

So I'm a psychologist.

And so most of what I do is I bring people into my lab.

I study how emotions change their behavior.

And so I'll bring people in and I'll create two groups.

I'll balance gender and ideology and intelligence and all of those things.

And to one of them, we'll change their emotional state and I'll see if it'll do something.

With God, you can't run an experiment.

You can't manipulate God if God exists, right?

People say, oh, Dave, I prayed for X, Y, and Z, and it didn't come true.

So therefore, God must not exist.

And I'm like, well...

Do you know the mind of God?

Maybe God only helps people God likes.

Maybe God only helps people on every third Tuesday.