Some deities possess spatially bounded omniscience limited to their own territory

Evidence

In this strictly defined subsample, he found that the gods and spirits occasionally intervene, but typically care little about human affairs that we would consider falling under the label moral. Despite substantial coverage of each society’s religion, few reveal supernatural sanctions for lying, stealing, disrespect to elders, adultery, fighting, or cheating. For example, only four of the eighteen societies have gods that prohibit cheating, and only seven prohibit murder, even though all societies disapprove of and socially sanction these behaviors. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 415 (#expands, via linked claim)

“Perceiving” gods, therefore, is an act that is fundamentally tied to our ability to perceive other minds. There are several sources of evidence that point to this hypothesis about the cognitive origins of belief in gods. First, believers spontaneously reason about God as if God had humanlike mental states. Explicitly omniscient gods should be implicitly represented as having limited, humanlike (and ungodlike) mental abilities. In a now classic study, psychologists Justin Barrett and Frank Keil presented participants with a story of God performing various actions. For example, God could perform multiple mental activities simultaneously, and could perceive events without sensory inputs. Later, the participants were asked to recall the story. Overwhelmingly, participants, including believers who explicitly told the researchers that they believe God is omniscient, mentally recast the omniscient God as having humanlike mental limitations—this recast God needed to finish one task before embarking on another, and needed to see events to know that they occurred. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 76 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Believers implicitly represent even an omniscient God as having humanlike mental limits — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 76; Religious belief requires intuitive mentalizing about a personal God; Hunter-gatherer gods lacked wide moral concern and omniscience — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 415 (+2 more)

Related

• Even believers affirming divine omniscience intuitively treat God as limited (similarity 0.86)
• Religious belief requires intuitive mentalizing about a personal God (similarity 0.85)
• Believers implicitly represent even an omniscient God as having humanlike mental limits (similarity 0.85)
• Hunter-gatherer religion exists entirely without moralizing deities or organized worship. (similarity 0.84)
• Hunter-gatherer gods are weak, morally indifferent, and self-interested (similarity 0.83)
• Hunter-gatherer gods lacked wide moral concern and omniscience (similarity 0.82)
• Mind-reading capacity supplies the cognitive basis for belief in disembodied gods (similarity 0.81)
• Early hunter-gatherer gods cared about ritual, not moral behavior. (similarity 0.81)
• Potent supernatural monitors must balance transcendence with human-like graspability (similarity 0.80)
• Morally concerned deities appear as societies scale up (similarity 0.80)
• Omniscient-god beliefs only change behavior when the deity is actively on the believer’s mind. (similarity 0.79)
• Believing in God is inseparable from anthropomorphizing God as a personlike mind (similarity 0.79)
• Lay believers perceive God as a personlike mind, not an abstract force (similarity 0.79)
• Mind-reading capacities are prerequisites for believers to interact with and be policed by gods (similarity 0.78)
• Small-scale foraging societies lack omniscient moralizing gods, refuting gene-only accounts (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Hunter-gatherer gods are weak, morally indifferent, and self-interested #expands (0.88)
• Hunter-gatherer gods lacked wide moral concern and omniscience #expands (0.85) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 415
• Believers implicitly represent even an omniscient God as having humanlike mental limits #qualifies (0.82) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 76
• Religious belief requires intuitive mentalizing about a personal God #qualifies (0.75)