People embrace even the frightening parts of religion during existential threats

Evidence

Fear of sinning is a major religious preoccupation. Religions are populated with scary creatures who torment souls. This raises an interesting puzzle—how to explain the wide-ranging evidence (discussed earlier) that in the face of existential threats, people embrace religion, and not only the feel-good parts? — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 619

Categorization

• QUESTION: Interesting mechanistic question: why does threat push people toward punishing deities rather than only comforting ones — worth chasing the competing-coherence explanation.
• XREF: connects to: Americans recurrently embrace religiously framed conspiracy panics about children and the Devil — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 236