Memorability of god concepts alone cannot explain which gods get worshipped

Evidence

However, here is the puzzle: memorability and cultural dispersal are not the same thing as sincere belief in and passionate commitment to religious concepts. There are many minimally counterintuitive agents people know about and think about, but only a subset of these many agents are worshipped. If these cognitive biases operating on belief content are sufficient to explain the persistence of religious beliefs, why do people come to believe in only one or a few supernatural agent concepts, when so many concepts share the same or similar content conducive to cultural success? — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 366

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• QUESTION: This is the pivot that motivates the chapter’s argument about credible commitment and watchful gods — worth holding as the central puzzle the reader’s partner-choice framework must answer.

Related

• Memorability alone cannot explain which supernatural agents get worshipped (similarity 0.91)
• Cultural learning biases explain passionate commitment to some gods but not others (similarity 0.84)
• The most culturally successful supernatural beliefs mildly violate intuitive expectations. (similarity 0.83)
• Religious concepts persist through minimal counterintuitiveness that is memorable without rupturing meaning (similarity 0.82)
• Supernatural beliefs require cultural commitment to become religion, not just cognitive content. (similarity 0.81)
• Surviving supernatural beliefs mildly violate intuitive expectations rather than wildly or never doing so (similarity 0.81)
• Religious belief stems from both intuitive cognition and cultural transmission mechanisms. (similarity 0.81)
• Belief in supernatural watchers depends on both intuitive cognition and cultural transmission (similarity 0.81)
• Belief-commitment differs fundamentally from mere mental representation of gods (similarity 0.80)
• Atheism has multiple independent causal pathways, not one (similarity 0.79)
• God concepts must first pass a cognitive hurdle before they can acquire anxiety-soothing functions (similarity 0.79)
• Belief and disbelief arise through the same four cognitive pathways. (similarity 0.79)
• Religious belief rests on ordinary cognition that predates motivational influence. (similarity 0.79)
• Religious thought defaults while disbelief requires deliberate cognitive effort (similarity 0.79)
• Belief in any idea requires adult testimony and credible displays of devotion (similarity 0.79)