Group size predicts Big Gods independent of stratification and missionary contact

Evidence

This association is obviously correlational, meaning that we cannot conclusively determine what causes what. However, when Roes and Raymond controlled for some obvious alternative possibilities, the association remained unchanged. For example, large societies have Big Gods not simply because large groups happen to be more likely to have been exposed to Christian and Muslim missionary activity. Moreover, large groups have Big Gods not just because Big Gods legitimize social and economic inequality. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 418

Categorization

• XREF: Rivals the missionary-diffusion and social-inequality-legitimacy explanations the reader’s partner-choice framework would also need to rule out. — connects to: Big God belief enabled group cooperation that agriculture alone could not achieve.; Big Gods and costly rituals coevolved to enhance cooperation and outcompete rivals; Big God religion and large-scale cooperation co-evolved in feedback (+7 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 418

Broader Connections

• Group expansion drives religion toward moral, demanding, interventionist gods #corroborates (0.90)
• Big Gods and costly rituals coevolved to enhance cooperation and outcompete rivals #corroborates (0.85)
• Big God religion and large-scale cooperation co-evolved in feedback #corroborates (0.85)
• Large-scale cooperation and religion’s endurance explain each other #corroborates (0.80)
• The social scale a religion can bind grows with the deity’s remoteness #qualifies (0.75)