The report disappointed me. I went to read it because I am sympethetic to the view that we are inclined to interpret facts in light of our own pre-conceived opinions, whether the facts are scientific ones or the words written in the Bible. However, I don't see the research as suggesting that "they are projecting their own personal biases on to the text, rather than honestly assessing what it actually say." It only suggests that people who believe in God, believe that the moral thing to do is what God says is the moral thing to do. And as far as I know God hasn't said much about things such as affirmative action, so the believer has to try and apply the Christian virtues to the given case in a way that give the appropriate considerations of the facts and context. And so on. Right?
This is fairly preliminary work, so there is always room for different interpretations, but there have been quite a few studies done like this that come to a similar conclusion, only using different techniques.
The researchers did two things in an attempt to rule out the conclusion that you have come to. Firstly, they got people to change their minds about an issue that they had previously given answers to, by exposing them to either strong or poor arguments, for or against that position. And secondly, they imaged the brain to find out what part the subjects were using to think about each of the questions.
The part of the brain that is used to think about your own opinion is very different to that of other peoples opinion. In fact, that part of the brain is well established as being associated with referential thinking — or in other words, when you are thinking of the self, rather than of other people or entities. So, we use an entirely different part of the brain to think about what we think, as opposed to what other people might think.
And as they found out, people tend to use the same part of the brain (associated with referential thinking) to think both about themselves and God. Now, you may rightly say that it doesn't "prove" that they are in fact thinking about themselves when they are thinking about what God believes, and you'd be right. But the case is strengthened by the fact that God's opinion also changed, in line with their own, when their own position changed, as well. And this wasn't over time, so that they had the chance to look at the text or to think about what God might be asking of them. So, it's not as if they went away and thought about the issue for a few months and decided that, actually, God appears to want this from me, so I had better change my view accordingly. And they didn't use religious arguments to persuade people to change their mind, either.
So, that is quite strong evidence, because even if they had been persuaded by arguments against their former position, that doesn't explain why God's opinion also changed. Lot's of religious believers are happy to say that they believe one thing, but that they are not sure whether it really lines up with God's thinking, also.
However, if you can get someone to change their own mind with one strong argument against their prior position, and that also alters what they believe God's position to be, that is fairly strong evidence that, for at least some issues, they are projecting their own opinion on to God, rather than honestly assessing what it is that God's believes.
it's a great concept. The world would be a much better place if the line went: