Atheists and Christians can be Discerned from their Faces

At least, so says the Journal of Nonverbal Behavior in its recently-published original paper.

The Bible tells us to "try the spirits" (I John 4:1-5). It also says that man looks on the outward appearance, but God knows the heart. (I Samuel 16:7)

We all know where the CCP and other centrist-control powers would take this ability.

So you tell me - is it plausible?

And even more importantly, will the centrists use it to declare Atheists a new protected class, regardless?

Full article is behind the publisher's subscription paywall.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10919-024-00467-8

Atheists and Christians can be Discerned from their Faces

G. Shane Pitts & Nicholas O. Rule   |    July 26, 2024

Abstract

Whereas research has documented how atheists are perceived, none has considered their perceptibility. Atheists must first be identified as atheists in order to experience the stigma associated with them (i.e., as distrusted, disliked, and widely maligned). Although atheism is considered a concealable aspect of one's identity, substantial research has found that a variety of ostensibly concealable attributes about a person are indeed legible from small and subtle cues. We merged these lines of inquiry here by considering the perceptibility of religious and spiritual (dis)belief. Studies 1A-1B showed that atheists could be reliably discerned from Christians based on brief glimpses of 100 standardized male facees. Experiment 2 replicated these results using female faces. Experiments 3 A-E then interrogated the facial features that support perceivers' detection of atheism, showing that various parts of faces suffice for independently conveying atheism. Experiment 4 investigated and showed a potential mechanism for atheism detection - expressive suppression. Thus, across nine sudies (N=677), these data show robust evidence that atheists can be categorized from facial cues.