Believing in the wrong god is more acceptable than believing in none.

Evidence

Another survey conducted in 2008 by the Pew Forum asked Americans if other religions could lead to eternal life. A majority of Americans (80 percent of whom describe themselves as Christian) said that Judaism (74 percent), Islam (52 percent), and Hinduism (53 percent) can lead to eternal life. These numbers were somewhat lower when only white Evangelicals were considered, although, remarkably, a sizable percentage of them also said that other religions can lead to eternal life. But once again, atheists (42 percent) were the only group that could not garner a simple majority, and were again at the very bottom of the list of all the groups that survey respondents were asked about. It appears that believing in the “wrong” god is far better than believing in no god at all. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 230

Categorization

• XREF: This is the lynchpin for the reader’s core mechanism-tracing: even self-described Christians who grant eternal life to other faiths deny it to atheists — the mechanism enforces watchfulness itself, not correct belief. Direct evidence for why publicly trampling the fumi-e was the one act Rodrigues’ faith couldn’t survive.
• DEEPTHINKING: The pattern — tolerance for wrong gods but visceral rejection of no god — is the key mechanism supporting the Big God argument that what is socially enforced is the watchful-god belief itself, not theological correctness.