The Origin of the Punisher God Concept: A Cultural Evolutionary Hypothesis

Muslim women praying 

Istiqlal mosque, Jakarta, Indonesia

The NPR Hidden Brain program, Creating God, focuses on the biological and social origins and utility of the concept of God. Social psychology professor Azim Shariff at the Center for Applied Moral Psychology at the University of British Columbia has studied this question in detail. He argues that about 12,000 years ago, as humans invented agriculture, settled down and began to live in groups of more than about 150 people, an urgent need to protect people from cheaters and liars arose. Humans are not adept at knowing more than about 150 people well. Cooperation required knowing people well. 

As groups living in villages of hundreds or thousands of people arose, there had to be a way to insure good, cooperative behavior for civilization to progress. In small groups where everyone knew everyone else, you would get punished if you told a lie, stole someone's dinner, failed to defend the group against enemies or otherwise acted in an immoral way. Cheats and liars could not get away with cheating and lying very well. There was no way to disappear into a crowd. 

To deal with cheats and liars God was invented and the God was envisioned to be a supernatural punisher of bad deeds. People unknown to each other who held a common religion had a basis to trust and cooperate. They knew their God would punish the one who lies or cheats. In essence, a punitive God was invented to deter immoral behavior. 

 

Empirical evidence

Shariff tested the hypothesis that belief in a punisher God would be at least correlated with less cheating behavior and maybe even caused by the religious belief. He wrote this in a 2011 research paper: 

“Fear of supernatural punishment may serve as a deterrent to counternormative behavior, even in anonymous situations free from human social monitoring. The authors conducted two studies to test this hypothesis, examining the relationship between cheating behavior in an anonymous setting and views of God as loving and compassionate, or as an angry and punishing agent. Overall levels of religious devotion or belief in God did not directly predict cheating. However, viewing God as a more punishing, less loving figure was reliably associated with lower levels of cheating. This relationship remained after controlling for relevant personality dimensions, ethnicity, religious affiliation, and gender.”

The historical record indicates that the punishing God concept arose when societies were struggling with increasing social size, complexity or resource scarcity. Under conditions of such stress, Shariff argues that the need for moral cooperation was more urgent. Other research suggests that belief in a punishing God at least correlates with less bad behavior. 

Modern applications

People hostile to religion for various reasons tend to be hostile to the concept that belief in a punisher God could be beneficial to a society or individuals. The hostility is postulated to stem from discomfort with the idea that religion can have any beneficial effects. Unfortunately for those folks, there is a large body of empirical evidence showing that various beneficial effects attach to religious belief regardless of whether the God(s) is a punisher or loving and forgiving.

On the other hand, some devout religious people resent this kind of cultural evolutionary research because in essence, it provides a competing narrative for the origin of God that is entirely secular and human. That thought is discomforting to at least some devoutly religious people, probably most.

Social scientists see progress of human civilization as necessarily a dual inheritance phenomenon. It is both a cultural evolutionary inheritance phenomenon and a Darwinian inheritance phenomenon. Modern religions are cultural structures that arose from millennia of trial and error about what beliefs and rituals served society reasonably well and what did not. The big modern religions arose from cultural evolutionary inheritance. When seen this way, religion served practical functions to help civilization advance.

Some questions that arise from this line of research center on whether modern religions still mostly serve or mostly hinder complex, technological societies with tens of millions of people in them. Have religions adapted to new circumstances? If they have not, are they now more damaging than helpful in the US or any other country? What are the impacts of religious beliefs in a punisher God that hold people should have as many children as they can, while refraining from using birth control?

Reconsidering religion

This research and the cultural evolution concept casts modern religion in a very different light than I had previously was aware even existed in the science literature. The endless contest between people who want their religion to stay frozen in time and those who want to modernize it is an important source of modern cultural conflict. In that lies a deep reservoir of potential conflict that propagandists and social dividers can tap into for their own ends. In this regard, it seems clear to me that this is a rich vein of mental resource to mine for demagogues, tyrants, kleptocrats and other immoral people who use dark free speech (epistemic terrorism) to deceive, divide, distract, irrationally emotionally manipulate (foment fear, anger, bigotry, distrust, etc.) and bamboozle with self-serving bogus reasoning (motivated reasoning). 

For me, this is another of those significant mind-opening experiences that will take some time to consider in my thinking about people doing politics.

Book Review: Dime’s Worth of Difference

“There's not a dime's worth of difference between the Democrat and Republican parties.” -- white racist and former Alabama governor George Wallace, 1968 American Independent Party candidate for president (before he died, Wallace recanted his virulent racism and apologized for it)

“Integration, therefore, at this turn of the century, has become another promise, not exactly broken, but finagled to mean whatever does not cross the borders of white comfort. Perhaps separate can be equalized after all.” -- Greg Moses, Chapter 19, Civil Rights Down Through the Presidencies

“In the Clinton-Bush years, the number of incarcerated people per 100,000 US residents increased from 163 to 231. We hold the record in this category. The two parties do not differ on the issue of prisons, because both are wedded to corporate power, and the prisons, for that power, provide a vital service.” -- Vijay Prashad, Chapter 20, Capitalism’s Warehouses

“The Big Greens, all democrats, get defeated on forests every time and every time, it’s by a wider margin. Is it mere ineptness? Or, is something darker going on here? Is losing a reflex? Or are they throwing the game and blaming Bush and Republican ultras for their own political purposes?” -- Michael Donnelly, Chapter 11, One Wyden, Many Masters

The 2004 book, Dime’s Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two Evils, is an extended attack on the democratic party and politicians, especially Bill Clinton. The book’s central thesis is that the republican party is awful but the democratic party is not much better. The book consists of 23 essays by various authors and was edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair. The book was published by CounterPunch, a left wing political website and magazine (mostly factual fact rating). 

The authors build a case that economic, military and trade policy overlaps much more than it diverges. The books argues that the main difference between the parties is that the Republican party is open about its pro-corporate, homophobic and racist objectives, while the Democratic party deceives its constituents with lip service about human rights and and equality. The essay authors argue that progressive activists need to concentrate on building grassroots, participatory movements without reliance on party elites or leaders. 

One example of the criticisms centers on how Clinton’s sex scandal accidentally wound up saving social security from privatization and subsequent private sector looting. Chapter 3, How Monica Lewinsky Saved Social Security, starts with this blast: 

“Had it not been for Monica’s captivating smile and the first inviting snap of that famous thong, President Bill Clinton would have consummated the politics of triangulation, heeding the counsel of a secret White House team and deputy treasury secretary Larry Summers. Late in 1998, or in the State of the Union of 1999 a solemn Clinton would have told the congress and nation that, just like welfare, Social Security was near broke, and had to be ‘reformed’ and its immense pool of capital tendered in part to the mutual funds industry. .... But in 1998 the Lewinsky scandal burst upon the president .... [and] Clinton’s polls told him that his only hope was to nourish the widespread popular dislike for the hoity-toity elites intoning Clinton’s death warrant. In an instant Clinton spun on the dime and became Social Security’s mighty champion, coining the slogan ‘Save Social Security First.’”

Well, when one puts it that way, maybe Clinton was a bit too much like the republicans, deceitfully self-serving and callously laissez-faire capitalist. 

From what I can tell, this book probably reflects the frustration of most true liberals with the democratic party. From this point of view, it is easier to understand why some people will not vote for Biden no matter what. The betrayals and lies the democrats have relied on are hard to take. For people who really do not believe that there are no meaningful major differences between the two parties, this book tries its very best to demolish that belief. And, it does a pretty good demolition job. 

This book does make it harder to get past the lesser of evils argument to justify a Biden vote, but nonetheless 16 years later and under 2020 conditions, the lesser evil is still justifiable and a sound act. 

What is the Fundamental Basis of Democracy?

Vietnam war - we all know exactly what this is

This was part of the evil too

The fundamental basis of democracy is facts, true truths and sound reasoning; 

Lying to and manipulating the public usurps democracy and advances tyranny

In her 1999 book, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life, moral philosopher, Sisella Bok wrote this in chapter 12, Lies for the Public Good, about the presidential election before America launched into America’s tragically unjustified, disastrous and profoundly immoral, actually evil, Vietnam War:

“[Johnson repeatedly told the American people] ‘the first responsibility, the only real issue in this campaign, the only thing you ought to be concerned about at all, is: Who can best keep the peace?’ The stratagem succeeded; the election was won; the war escalated. .... President Johnson thus denied the electorate of any chance to give or refuse consent to the escalation of the war in Vietnam. Believing they had voted for the candidate of peace, American citizens were, within months, deeply embroiled in one of the cruelest wars in their history. Deception of this kind strikes at the very essence of democratic government.” 

Note the argument that deception strikes at the very essence of democratic government. That is the main point.

As Bok pointed out, Johnson fully intended to escalate the war while at the same time lying to the American people in his campaign for president. He lied to Americans by telling them that he would de-escalate the war. In essence, Bok argued that when people in a democracy form beliefs and make decisions on the basis of lies and deceit, that deprives citizens of their right to make a choice on the basis of truth. The source of the lies and deceit do not matter.[1]

The moral reasoning is straightforward: Citizens who base their decisions on political, special interest or ideologue dark free speech** deprive those citizens of their right to make a choice to consent or dissent on the basis of truth. It really is that simple.

** Dark free speech: lies, deceit, unjustifiable, irrational emotional manipulation, unjustifiable, irrational motivated reasoning, unwarranted character assassination, race baiting, irrational homophobia, irrational xenophobia, etc.

Moral courage requires an ability to face and accept inconvenient facts, truths and reasoning. Moral cowardice lies in ignoring, denying or distorting such inconvenience. Inconvenience is replaced by lies, deceit, manipulation and motivated reasoning. It isn't just politicians and partisan ideologues who are bereft of moral courage. Much of the private sector relies on moral cowardice to make money, just like political moral cowards use it to gain power or influence. The coward oil and plastic industry intentionally deceived and still deceives the American people into a false belief that plastics are mostly recyclable. The coward oil industry tries hard, often quietly with lobbyists and money, to deny anthropogenic climate change.

What shields moral cowards is a combination of ignorance and dark free speech among the public. Significant ignorance is understandable because moral cowards are lying, deceiving and hiding truths as hard as they can.

As I define the concept, all dark free speech is legal. The courts protect dark free speech every bit as much as they protect honest speech. There is no legal difference. 

It isn't dark free speech, it is epistemic terrorism

One of my common interlocutors here has repeatedly criticized my use of "dark free speech" as too wuss. His argument is basically that the label dark free speech is unacceptable because the concept is much more toxic than merely dark. He calls it epistemic terrorism. The google definition of epistemic is "relating to knowledge or to the degree of its validation." Is that label too vague for most people to understand? 

Regardless, maybe deceiving and irrationally manipulating people to win hearts and minds is a form of terrorism. 

Is it? Or, is this too wonky to pay much attention to, e.g., splitting hairs and whatnot?

Footnote: 

1. In a real tyranny, the people have no meaningful voice. It does not matter much if their decisions are based on truth or lies. The tyrant decides, not the people. 

Vietnam

We were deceived

They were innocent

The President is Infected With Coronavirus

The New York Times writes:

“President Trump revealed early Friday morning that he and the first lady, Melania Trump, had tested positive for the coronavirus, throwing the nation’s leadership into uncertainty and escalating the crisis posed by a pandemic that has already killed more than 207,000 Americans and devastated the economy. 

The dramatic disclosure came in a Twitter message just before 1 a.m. after a suspenseful evening following reports that Mr. Trump’s close adviser Hope Hicks had tested positive. In her own tweet about 30 minutes later, Mrs. Trump wrote that the first couple were “feeling good,” but the White House did not say whether they were experiencing symptoms. The president’s physician said he could carry out his duties “without disruption” from the Executive Mansion.”

Whether the president is feeling good or not is an open question. Since he lies about his health, and most everything else, there is no way to know what his health status is. Presumably it is early in the infection, so he probably is feeling good.

Maybe if he had taken this seriously and made the people around him wear masks this would not have happened. But he didn't and it did. 

This is nothing to gloat or be happy about. It reflects how poorly the US, and the president in particular, have dealt with the pandemic.