Elaborate rituals and monuments co-emerge with larger complex societies

Evidence

Although both types of rituals can co-occur in a group, chances are that if one type is more prevalent, the other is less common. Doctrinal rituals are the stuff of organized religion. They are associated with greater reliance on agriculture, which in turn demands greater levels of ingroup cooperation. These agricultural societies are the ones that were historically shaped by prosocial religious groups. In contrast, rare but emotionally arousing imagistic rituals tended to occur in smaller-scale groups that are less likely to depend on agriculture, and much less likely to be associated with moralistic Big Gods. It’s not that the imagistic mode is absent from organized religion. It does occur and can galvanize and renew faith and commitment. However, the imagistic mode is less predictable, and as a result, when it occurs in prosocial religions, it is actively managed by religious authorities and tolerated only to the extent that it doesn’t challenge the central dogma or the group’s interests. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 427 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Agricultural societies favor doctrinal rituals and moralistic Big Gods — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 427

Related

• Agricultural societies favor doctrinal rituals and moralistic Big Gods (similarity 0.89)
• Agricultural societies correlate with doctrinal rituals; small foraging groups use imagistic ones (similarity 0.89)
• Water-scarce societies tend to develop moralizing gods (similarity 0.86)
• Big God belief enabled group cooperation that agriculture alone could not achieve. (similarity 0.85)
• Organized religion may have preceded agriculture rather than followed it (similarity 0.84)
• Big God prosocial religions contributed to, not merely resulted from, large-scale societies (similarity 0.82)
• Religious worship may have driven the agricultural revolution rather than resulting from it. (similarity 0.81)
• As groups grow, moral enforcement and religion become intertwined. (similarity 0.81)
• The religion-morality link emerged culturally and recently in history (similarity 0.81)
• Big Gods are absent among hunter-gatherer societies like the Hadza (similarity 0.80)
• Written records reveal religions evolving toward moralizing Big Gods with scale (similarity 0.80)
• Big Gods prevalence should increase with group size (similarity 0.80)
• Resource conflict, large groups, and watchful gods co-occur across world societies. (similarity 0.80)
• Prosocial religions outcompeted rival groups historically and scaled up human social organization (similarity 0.80)
• Moralizing gods and costly rituals coevolved to boost in-group cooperation and out-compete rivals. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Agricultural societies favor doctrinal rituals and moralistic Big Gods #corroborates (0.75) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 427