Prosocial religions succeeded by bundling several psychological mechanisms into religious solidarity

Evidence

In the next chapters, I explain how prosocial religious groups spread around the world and came out on top in the intensifying intergroup struggle that has shaped human history. How this happened is a complex cultural evolutionary story. These successful religious groups—the cultural ancestors of most human beings alive today—pieced together a whole cluster of psychological mechanisms that, building on supernatural monitoring and credible displays of sincere faith, fostered and cemented social solidarity. Credible displays of commitment to Big Gods were the joint foundation of these prosocial religions, but additional social bonding mechanisms, drawn from innate psychology and culturally learned practices, fused true believers into moral communities of cooperators. Taken together, this potent package of beliefs and behaviors make up religious solidarity. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 379

This objection is flawed on at least two counts. First, believers who intuitively link religion with morality fail to understand that there are multiple motivations and reasons to be nice and to do good. We have seen that religion, by harnessing supernatural monitoring and the bonds of community, is one such source of prosociality. But it is far from the only one. Feelings of being under social surveillance, for example, encourage nice behavior regardless of religiosity. Expectations of mutual gain push people to be nice with each other, even in situations devoid of religious meanings. Moral emotions such as feelings of empathy and compassion can also motivate profound acts of kindness. Empathy and compassion are viscerally easier to apply to one’s kin and to ingroup members, but children and adults can be socialized to extend these emotions as virtues to be cultivated and applied to a broader range of humanity. In such an expanding moral circle, we feel connected to complete strangers. Perceptions of shared fate or similarity can also be applied to wider and wider circles of strangers. The broadening of the moral compass in turn may recruit the moral emotions in a virtuous cycle of including more and more people into the moral circle. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 248

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘religious solidarity’ as the package of supernatural monitoring, credible displays, synchrony, self-control, and fictive kinship.
• XREF: Directly continues the Big God/partner-choice argument thread this reader is building across Norenzayan, Baumard, and Silence; — connects to: Traditional religions counteracted paranoia through collective structure; Child Evangelism Fellowship deliberately exploits child psychological vulnerability to recruit converts — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 988
• QUESTION: The ‘research is in its infancy’ caveat invites checking how much of the solidarity account is speculative vs. established.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 379; Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 248