Morally concerned deities appear as societies scale up

Evidence

Gods who do double duty as supernatural punishers are found in cultures that have high levels of jurisdictional hierarchy—that is to say, societies with large group size and social complexity. Thus, omniscient, all-powerful, morally concerned deities who directly observe, reward, and punish social behavior are rare in smaller groups, and become increasingly common as societies scale up. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 418

Categorization

• XREF: Direct evidence for the Big God mechanism the reader is testing against Father Rodrigues in Silence — the omniscient moral gaze correlates with group scale.
• QUESTION: The correlational caveat — does big-society religion select Big Gods, or do Big Gods enable big societies? The causal direction remains open.