Cheryl Says She's An Atheist

Proposal for a social psychology experiment:

We'll use four separate, sizable groups of people, say 75 people in each group. (Not that I know if that amount is any good or not, or if we want our overall pool to be similar socioeconomically. I'm not a statistician.)

Ask each member of Group One:

What arguments would you use to try and persuade an atheist to consider that there might be a God after all?

[It's likely that at least a few people in each group will be atheists, but that's no reason they shouldn't try to answer the question.]

Ask each member of Group Two:

Cheryl tells you she is an atheist. What arguments would you use to try and persuade her there might be a God after all?

We're trying to see if by giving our atheist a name, so a potential personal, individual history, we elicit responses here and there that are different in type from what we generally got in Group One.

Ask two questions of each member of Group Three:

Group Three Question 1: Cheryl says she is an atheist. What arguments would you use to try and persuade her there might be a God after all?

It's important that the subjects complete the first question before seeing the second.

( The crucial question is under the cut )

( How to have fun in groups )

( Four hypotheses )

( Fishing expedition )