Big Gods
ISBN: 9781400848324
Platform/Publisher: Project MUSE / Princeton University Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Chapters; Download: Chapters
Subjects: Conflict management; Cooperation; Faith development; Psychology; Psychology Religious.;

Why did Christianity and Islam flourish while other faiths faded into obscurity? What binds complex societies together and enables strangers to live cooperatively within them? Norenzayan, a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, claims that these two questions answer each other. Religions that have omniscient "Big Gods" who monitor and punish adherents for moral transgressions gave rise to large-scale societies of strangers out of small groups of related hunter-gatherers. Ranging across quantitative studies, historical cross-cultural examples, theological texts, and the practices of believers, Norenzayan convincingly argues that religions with Big Gods are successful because they generate a sense of being watched and regulated, require extravagant displays of commitment that weed out religious impostors, and encourage solidarity and trust. While the author only briefly sketches why Big Gods incite war and violence, he speculates that we may be on the verge of cooperative societies without God. Prosperous and peaceful Scandinavian countries with a majority of atheists rely on secular institutions to enforce cooperation. They "climbed the ladder of religion, and then kicked it away," he writes. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Ara Norenzayan is professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia. His work has been featured on the BBC and CNN, and in the New York Times Magazine .

hidden image for function call