Gods grow more moral as anonymity spreads, not by genetic design

Evidence

There are important similarities between this hypothesis and the framework in this book that is grounded in cultural evolution. Both see supernatural punishment as a key driver of human prosociality, both are grounded in evolutionary logic, and both draw from some of the same evidence I have been reviewing in this book. However, the two also differ in several key details. First, whereas in the cultural evolutionary framework Big Gods were culturally selected for the advantages they afforded social groups, the supernatural punishment hypothesis argues for an innate fear of divine retribution that is a genetic adaptation; these beliefs function to restrain individuals from defection or cheating that would incur fitness costs. In the cultural evolutionary scenario, gods become more powerful and morally involved as anonymity invades relationships; in the supernatural punishment hypothesis, there is no such prediction. Instead, the idea is that supernatural punishment is a human universal. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 443

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s analytical integration: distinguishes the cultural-evolutionary mechanism (gods grow more moral as anonymity spreads) the reader is building on from the rival gene-only account.
• DEFINE: Precisely contrasts the cultural evolutionary Big Gods framework with the innate supernatural-punishment hypothesis, anchoring the key distinction the reader needs.

Related

• Cultural selection and genetic adaptation theories of supernatural punishment differ fundamentally (similarity 0.93)
• Gods’ moral involvement grows with group size culturally (similarity 0.86)
• Supernatural punishment belief is a naturally selected evolutionary adaptation (similarity 0.84)
• Small-scale foraging societies lack omniscient moralizing gods, refuting gene-only accounts (similarity 0.81)
• Supernatural punishment explains religion’s prosocial effects better than ideomotor priming (similarity 0.80)
• Morally concerned deities appear as societies scale up (similarity 0.80)
• The religion-morality link emerged culturally and recently in history (similarity 0.79)
• Benevolent God concepts fail to suppress antisocial behavior, unlike punishing gods. (similarity 0.79)
• Big Gods proliferated only where kin monitoring and reputation were insufficient (similarity 0.79)
• Supernatural watcher beliefs check selfish behavior once social worlds grew transparent (similarity 0.79)
• Supernatural punishment psychology is agreed upon despite evolutionary disputes (similarity 0.79)
• Vengeful Gods make more potent moral monitors than kind Gods (similarity 0.78)