Big Gods and large-scale cooperation mutually reinforced each other’s expansion

Evidence

There is a simple solution to each puzzle, which is that each answers the other. In this book, I present an argument that solves both riddles simultaneously by considering that they gave mutual rise to the prosocial religions and large-scale cooperation. Prosocial religions, with their Big Gods who watch, intervene, and demand hard-to-fake loyalty displays, facilitated the rise of cooperation in large groups of anonymous strangers. In turn, these expanding groups took their prosocial religious beliefs and practices with them, further ratcheting up large-scale cooperation in a runaway process of cultural evolution. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 43

Categorization

• DEFINE: Core definition of the book’s thesis: the mutual-causation loop between watchful gods and anonymous-stranger cooperation.