Reminders of effective secular authority specifically reduce distrust of atheists

Evidence

In one study, we randomly assigned Canadian believing participants in Vancouver to watch a video that detailed the many successes of the Vancouver Police Department in 2010. (It was, in fact, a portion of the Vancouver Police Chief’s year-end report, the same year that Vancouver hosted the Winter Olympics.) In the control condition, believing participants were randomly assigned to watch a traveler’s impression of Vancouver as a tourist attraction (“the city lives outdoors,” “bland architecture”). Following this treatment, all participants were asked how they felt toward a variety of groups, including atheists. We found that reminders of effective secular authority reduced distrust of atheists, but did not affect feelings toward three other groups—gay men, Muslims, and Jewish people. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 309

In one study, we randomly assigned Canadian believing participants in Vancouver to watch a video that detailed the many successes of the Vancouver Police Department in 2010. (It was, in fact, a portion of the Vancouver Police Chief’s year-end report, the same year that Vancouver hosted the Winter Olympics.) In the control condition, believing participants were randomly assigned to watch a traveler’s impression of Vancouver as a tourist attraction (“the city lives outdoors,” “bland architecture”). Following this treatment, all participants were asked how they felt toward a variety of groups, including atheists. We found that reminders of effective secular authority reduced distrust of atheists, but did not affect feelings toward three other groups—gay men, Muslims, and Jewish people. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 309

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s stated project: secular authority functions as a substitute for the Big God mechanism in enforcing prosocial norms—links to Norenzayan’s own earlier chapters on surveillance and religion as social glue.
• QUESTION: If secular authority substitutes for supernatural surveillance specifically against atheist distrust, does the fumi-e ritual’s spectacle function as the inverse—state authority weaponizing public apostasy to destroy rather than build trust?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 309