Religious belief spreads through witnessed displays that can also reverse into doubt.

Evidence

Last, a close cousin of apatheism is InCREDulous atheism. This term of course draws on the work of Joseph Henrich, who, you might recall, coined the term CREDs (credibility-enhancing displays), to point out that many of the extravagant practices and rituals found in prosocial religions and other cultural groups serve a persuasive function. When observers witness acts that reveal sincere commitment or belief—that is, when actions speaker louder than words—they are more inclined to see these beliefs as genuine and more willing to adopt them. In turn, this causes them to display the same CREDs to others. In this way, repeated waves of belief-behavior packages may turn into cultural epidemics. This is what we mean when we say religion spreads in a population. But when children grow up in families with parents who claim to be Christian but hardly ever spend a Sunday morning at church, they are less likely themselves to feel or express religious fervor. There arises a reverse cascade of irreligion. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 623

Categorization

• XREF: Directly extends the CRED mechanism from Henrich that the reader’s framework already uses (Big God / omniscient gaze vs. fumi-e ritual). The fumi-e trampling is itself a reverse display — public apostasy as anti-CRED, which this cascade logic complements.
• DEFINE: Defines inCREDulous atheism and its causal mechanism: children acquire disbelief by observing parents who claim faith but skip practice.