China’s alleged lack of moralizing gods challenges the Big God thesis

Evidence

China represents one of the largest-scale civilizations known to us, and early China—and East Asian cultures more generally—have sometimes been portrayed as lacking moralizing gods, or even religion at all. For this reason, early Chinese religion is worth a detour, even if it must be brief. Did early China have supernatural monitoring? This is currently a matter of historical debate. But my colleague and historian of ancient Chinese religions Edward Slingerland makes a compelling case that supernatural monitoring played a critical role in early Chinese civilization. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 434

Categorization

• QUESTION: China serves as a natural falsification case for the moralizing-god-scaling claim; worth investigating whether Slingerland’s case convinces.
• XREF: connects to: Heaven in early China was an omniscient moralizing god from the Shang onward; Chinese civilization may have scaled up through secular alternatives to religion; Written records reveal religions evolving toward moralizing Big Gods with scale — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 432 (+1 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Heaven in early China was an omniscient moralizing god from the Shang onward; Chinese civilization may have scaled up through secular alternatives to religion; Written records reveal religions evolving toward moralizing Big Gods with scale — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 432 (+1 more)