The Big Gods Hypothesis

...without supernatural enforcement of cooperative, “moral” behavior, ancient Egypt—as well as nearly every other large-scale society in history—wouldn't have been able to get off the ground. All-knowing big gods are “crazily effective” at enforcing social norms, says Norenzayan's collaborator Edward Slingerland, a historian at UBC Vancouver. “Not only can they see you everywhere you are, but they can actually look inside your mind.” And once big gods and big societies existed, the moralizing gods helped religions as dissimilar as Islam and Mormonism spread by making groups of the faithful more cooperative, and therefore more successful.

Lizzie Wade, Birth of the moralizing gods (August 2015)

• civilization
• theology