View source for NOV 5

==21: NOV 5. ==

===Assigned===

:*Henrich C4 – “The Gods are Watching. Behave!” (123-152; 29) – Dictator game, “god-priming” research, moralizing gods, Big Gods and the random allocation game, hell, free will, and moral universalism.

===In-Class===

:*Talking about Religion in a Naturalist Context.  
:*Designing a Religion with Cultural Evolution in Mind.

===Talking about Religion in a Naturalist Context - Some caveats===

:*Naturalism and the Supernatural

:*Methodological principle - “Whatever else might be true…”

:*The beauty and importance of faith commitments.

:*Belief in supernatural beings is on the decline.  In light of the real work religious culture has done for humans (acc to cultural evolutionists), this is a critical problem.  

==== Henrich C4 – “The Gods are Watching. Behave!” ====

:*'''Major explanatory model for evolution of religious culture''' (128-133):
::*Three forces may help explain the evolution of belief in supernatural beliefs: 

:::*1 - the power of cultural learning over personal experience (cf. Churchland and Tomasello). Likely adaptive - humans who could take on cultural norms outcompeted others.

:::*2 - some of our cognitive capacities - e.g. “mentalizing abilities” facilitated belief in the supernatural. Cognitive traits like empathy favor religious belief among women and ethnicities with high empathy, big brains can imagine non-existent objects (like theoretical objects and alternative futures) - bias toward dualism, mind / body.  Culture on mind/body switches 130.  

:::*3 - intergroup competition helps explain specific difference among religions and the emergence on “moralizing Gods” (Big God religions). Big God religions out competed Local God religions.
:::*Credibility Enhancing Displays (CREDs) play a role in enhancing religious commitment. (E.g. martyrdom) “costly and hard to fake commitments”. 

:*'''Big God v Local God religions'''
::*Local God religions (131) hunter gatherer gods are partially human, not always moral, not Omni-
::*Big God religions - Gods have concerns about human behavior and punish immoral behavior, surveil us, omni-potent, omni-present.  More likely in pastoralist and agricultural societies.

:*'''Major theses supported by evidence in this chapter''':
::*Religions vary in the types of gods they believe in.  Local god religions v Big God religions, but also note change over time within a religion: OT God v NT God 
::*The wide range of religious belief (from Local Gods to Big Gods) have diverse effects on fitness.  
::*Big God religions support large cities. 
::*Big God religions improve prosocial norm compliance, impersonal fairness, and other cooperative social behaviors. 
::*Big God religions support more impartiality to distant co-religionist distant strangers. 137
::*Gods typically want certain things that are also fitness enhancing.  133
::*Local God religions may still promote food sharing and pro sociality in smaller groups.
::*The Big God religions of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and (later) Islam all support beliefs in contingent afterlives, free will, and moral universalism.  (Note relevance for our last unit.)

:*'''Evidence for these theses.'''

:*God primes — 123: test subjects primed with religious terms give more in the Dictator Game (impersonal fairness).  But these effects only work for religious folks and toward religious benefactors. 
:*Secular primes might be equally powerful and work for both believers and non-believers. 125
:*God primes in everyday life - Muslim call to prayer, porn consumption.

:*In the evolution of religion toward Big God religions, we find God caring about many of the things that affect cooperation and group cohesiveness:  Adultery (and paternity), norm compliance (through monitoring and punishment).  Suggests connection with evolution.

:*Study to test claims about cooperative power of Big God religions 134. Henrich & others created a measure of relative God-size and then found test subject across this spectrum.  Test subjects allocated coins to either an anonymous co-religionist in distant village or either themselves (Self game) or a local co-religionist (Local Coreligionist game).  Result: ''When people believed their God would punish bad behavior they were less biased against distant co-religionists''. Similar results using Dictator game.  

:*Study to assess claims about Big God religions and scaling up of societies in large cities with complex dependencies (cooperation).  141.  Watts et al used data from pre-Western contact societies (and their gods) to estimate probability of scaling up.  Close to zero prob for societies with non-punishing gods. 40% with.  

:*Evidence on belief in: 147-148
::*Contingent afterlife - >economic prosperity and <crime. Belief in heaven but not hell doesn’t help.
::*Free Will - <less likely to cheat on math test. Read at 148.

===Designing (or Redesigning) religion for the 21st century===

:*Cultural evolution of religion suggests that religions played (and may still play) a big role helping cultures meet evolutionary challenges that depend upon values (cooperation, norm compliance, impersonal prosociality, impersonal honesty, trust, etc.)

:*But religious belief is on the decline.  Also, many of the positive effects from religion only extend to co-religionists (sectarianism).  This wasn’t a problem when societies were religiously homogeneous, but they aren’t now.  Add to this: we have new cooperative challenges like climate change and global resource use

:*What is the future of Big God religions?  Do we still need punishing gods?  How have religions already changed in the last few millennia?  (OT —> NT gods, de-emphasis on Hell, etc.).  [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laudato_si' Laudato Si!]

:*Questions:
::*Should we be thinking about a new direction for religions, perhaps toward ecumenism or syncretism, or should we be looking beyond religion for other beliefs that would help us “scale up” cooperation? Is there a way around the groupishness of religion? Could a secular or humanistic commitment to human dignity and universalism motivate people today?