Religious belief cannot be understood apart from secular authority structures

Evidence

These findings show, contrary to popular belief, how intertwined divine and secular authority can be. We cannot understand religious belief in isolation from secular cultural beliefs. This insight also points to one of the paths toward secularization: when societies develop strong government institutions that boost peoples’ faith in them. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 570

Categorization

• XREF: Core to the reader’s argument: secular/divine authority substitution predicts a path to secularization via state strength — inverse of the Tokugawa authorities’ project of crushing religious faith to consolidate their own already-strong control.