How did human societies scale up from small, tight-knit groups of hunter-gatherers to the large, anonymous, cooperative societies of today--even though anonymity is the enemy of cooperation? How did organized religions with "Big Gods"--the great monotheistic and polytheistic faiths--spread to colonize most minds in the world? In Big Gods, Ara Norenzayan makes the surprising and provocative argument that these fundamental puzzles about the origins of civilization are one and the same, and answer each other.
Once human minds could conceive of supernatural beings, Norenzayan argues, the stage was set for rapid cultural and historical changes that eventually led to large societies with Big Gods--powerful, omniscient, interventionist deities concerned with regulating the moral behavior of humans. How? As the saying goes, "watched people are nice people." It follows that people play nice when they think Big Gods are watching them, even when no one else is. Yet at the same time that sincere faith in Big Gods unleashed unprecedented cooperation within ever-expanding groups, it also introduced a new source of potential conflict between competing groups.
In some parts of the world, such as northern Europe, secular institutions have precipitated religion's decline by usurping its community-building functions. These societies with atheist majorities--some of the most cooperative, peaceful, and prosperous in the world--climbed religion's ladder, and then kicked it away. So while Big Gods answers fundamental questions about the origins and spread of world religions, it also helps us understand another, more recent social transition--the rise of cooperative societies without belief in gods.
Ara Norenzayan is professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia. His work has been featured on CNN and in the New York Times Magazine, the Economist, Der Spiegel, the Boston Globe, the Toronto Star, Scientific American, and New Scientist. He grew up in Beirut and lives in Vancouver.
"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."--Publishers Weekly
"I found this book insightful, well-written, and to the point."--Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution
"The book is a breakthrough, and will undoubtedly influence scientific perspectives on religion and secularism. . . . Without a doubt, Big Gods is a seminal and outstanding book, rocketing the psychological and evolutionary understanding of faith and secularization to new heights and new questions. I strongly recommend it to anyone interested in human evolution, psychology, and the scientific study of religion."--Michael Blume, Evolution: This View of Life
"Once in a while, a whole field of research is pushed forward by a seminal work. Ara Norenzayan's Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict is one of those rare books bound to becoming a classic for a generation of colleagues and students."--Michael Blume, SciLogs
"People love origin stories, and this is ours--a fascinating and accessible account of how Big Gods helped us make the leap from hunter-gatherers to gigantic and religiously diverse societies. But this book is not just about the past. Norenzayan gives us a nuanced account of secularism, and offers us some surprising tools we can use to create more ethical organizations and societies going forward."--Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations ix
The Eight Principles of Big Gods xiii
Chapter 1 Religious Evolution 1
Chapter 2 S upernatural Watchers 13
Chapter 3 Pressure from Above 33
Chapter 4 I n Big Gods We Trust 55
Chapter 5 Freethinkers as Freeriders 76
Chapter 6 True Believers 94
Chapter 7 Big Gods for Big Groups 118
Chapter 8 The Gods of Cooperation and Competition 140
Chapter 9 From Religious Cooperation to Religious Conflict 155
Chapter 10 Cooperation without God 170