Belief-commitment, not mental representation alone, distinguishes worshipped gods

Evidence

Put another way, we must explain one of the most critical features of religions, that of faith or passionate commitment to supernatural agents. There is a profound psychological difference between supernatural beliefs that are mentally represented but treated as fictional (fairies in folktales, the gods of other religions) and those that are mentally represented and worshipped (the gods of one’s own group). Cultural learning biases can explain why some counterintuitive representations galvanize profound commitment, while others are treated merely as entertaining curiosities, despite their transmission advantage. The distinction between mental representation and belief-commitment is crucial to explain cultural differences in the degree of religious commitment around the world, the existence of disbelief, and how certain gods, like Zeus—despite having similar cognitive content throughout the ages—can move from a worshipped deity to the fictional character of myths and stories. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 367

Categorization

• XREF: The representation-versus-commitment distinction maps onto why the fumi-e works: Kojiro’s officialized apostasy forces Rodrigues to treat his god as merely represented (fictional), not committed — the very mechanism the reader is integrating.
• DEFINE: Introduces the pivotal representation-versus-commitment distinction Norenzayan uses throughout the argument.
• SEED: Article angle: apostasy ceremonies (fumi-e, coerced conversion) as technologies that strip belief-commitment by forcing the believer’s performance, not mental state.