Variation in shared in-group beliefs likely explains variation in in-group sharing. Yet, such explanations are likely to be insignificant, compared to explanations that do not involve the variable of - religiosity (religious belief). Even in the case where the reason for the in-group's existence is religion.

How much behaviour does a person's religiosity explain after all? I don't personally know, as the literature on this doesn't particularly interest me, but I'd be willing to bet that it's not a very significant variable in predictive modelling.

The major variables one really ought to know, in terms of personality-belief-behaviour effects, are the Big Five personality dimensions. Together, they explain a significant amount of variation in behaviour.

Locus of control, self-efficacy and need for achievement are also very influential variables in determining behaviour and life outcomes.

The latter point is not shown in the study (that Christians who view their God as more punitive would share more with distant co-religious adherents), as there is no data given or control carried out for religious adherence, only geographic adherence. Given that certain religions put more stock on punishment than others that seems like a strange oversight and I can't help but think that this is data they would or should have pursued. We already know from other studies that Christians and Muslims tend to view co-religious believers more favorably than we see in other religions for example, so that leaves the question of why the researchers did not test for such an obvious potential false positive.

Color me not convinced, I smell tailored presentation of results.

Even if it were true that religion was an important factor in building large complex societies, it is no longer needed now. It served its purpose. Let's move on.

I think most people (especially rational atheists) would agree that threatening young children with eternal torture if they don't do this, or that, is paramount to abuse.

Would you be okay if the babysitter you hired said to your kid, "I personally know the Jabberwok! He's a monster that eats people alive! If you don't behave or displease me in any way, I will tell him to come eat you!"

Or more accurately....for facilitating group cohesion and the required bravery in the face of war: that comes more easily with belief in an after-life.

Indeed, people have considered that the emergence of religion is related to natural group-selection mechanisms.

Easier to understand when you combine this with the fact that in a tough medieval/pre-medieval world people yearned for a sense of 'hope': religion's primary product.

I am confused. Are you reading a different article? Here is a link to the methodology. Each participant is surveyed on how moralistic, punishing, and knowledgeable their god is. The main variable was between adherents to religions with more moralistic, punishing, and knowledgeable gods, versus adherents to religions with a less moralistic, punishing, and knowledgeable god.

I think this is well supported by FA Hayek's thesis which seems to be along the lines that the institutions that arose did so because the individual cannot be expected to understand (or operate) the complexity needed for sustainability.

Then I think there is an implication, that in relation to the brain which also evolved in relation to such complexity (and so with a complexity of its own), might actually require this kind of metaphorical teaching method, especially in infancy.

To say "We don't need this, lets do away with it" in this sense then, is actually quite religious and not supported by Dawkins as stable evolution. Then again Dawkins did say something about outgrowing our paradigms by using ingenuity, but I think we're generally being too hasty.

I find the subject on the evolution of religion and gods interesting and it makes sense that this was an important (but not the only) mechanism.

I'm not sure I agree with this. Natural group selection occurs in many animals that don't possess the cognitive abilities to come up with religion. Unless you're talking about our group selection of plants and animals for our own use. But I didn't think you were.

This is no doubt true. But I still think the biggest cause for belief in gods is the human need to make sense of things. What could've possibly caused that lightning and thunder, or tsunami on a clear day? When earthquakes, volcanoes, and storms killed scores of people, what else did they have to blame it on, but an invisible supernatural god?

Most that was just a throwaway line about it being a BS filter that I probably should have kept private.

It is in principle possible that punitive religions encourage prosocial behavior among strangers in prior societies, but doesn't do so in modern societies. But this finding makes it more likely to be true that punitive religions encourage religions in modern societies as well. I find that useful information when dealing with low-evidence questions like this, where my priors tend to be too dominant.

Second, I'm mostly just assuming a consequentialist moral theory here. An entirely satisfactory response to my argument would be to say that it is always wrong to cause mental trauma and anguish to children, even if doing so leads to an overall social benefit (that was the point of my bringing up that LeGuin story).

Sure, neither I nor the study claims that this is more than one of many mechanisms leading to the rise of prosocial behavior among strangers. Sorry if I seemed to imply otherwise. I'm also not claiming that it is now or ever has been a necessary cause of these prosocial behaviors.

I'm not sure where you are disagreeing with me though. You say it probably does contribute to prosocial behavior. Insofar as you think that is a good thing, you'll have to count that as a positive good that comes out of punitive religion.

Not a magical property. Just a little more likely to be impartial in dealing with strangers. Not saying anything about civilization's collapse either. Please stop reading everything here in such dramatic tones.

Maybe I wasn't clear before, so let me assure you now, this is my view: The argument against the claim that teaching kids that hell is real being discussed here is dependent on assuming the correctness of the theory being discussed. I think there is some mild evidence for that theory, enough so that I'd be interested in discussing some of the moral implications of it being correct. But I don't think the evidence is very strong as of yet, and it is certainly still rational to reject it or favor some other hypothesis.

No, I don't think Dawkins, et al should have been persuaded by this theory. Some people are skeptical of cultural evolution. Some people are not consequentialists. Some people think modern civilization is not a net benefit. Some people will think the harm caused is much greater than the listed benefit, etc. None of those people should be persuaded by my argument.

Second, I've not advocated for the view that people should teach their children that hell is real, only against the view that they shouldn't, or that it is wrong to do so.

I think that this has real implications for our practical lives in at least two ways. I don't believe in hell, but I know many people who do. Should I try to influence them not to do so, or let them do as they wish? For instance, I try to influence my evangelical friends to be more gay-friendly. I don't generally do this by first trying to deconvert them from being a Christian, but rather by advocating for ways within their religious tradition to be more accepting of gays. Should I do the same for the belief in hell or not?

This is a very practical question for me as that is exactly what I have done, arguing for Christian versions of universalism or annihilation over the traditional eternal torment viewpoint.

Second, just as a social matter, I tend to favor more moderate liberal versions of Christianity because of my dislike of traditional views on hell and the image of God it presents. But maybe this is an unwarranted prejudice, and more traditional versions are more effective religions.

Two points. First, no one here is claiming that punitive religion was somehow necessary for civilization. Second, no one is assuming a uniform religious culture. In fact, the study was intentionally done in pluralistic societies with multiple religions including both the moralistic, punitive kinds and the less moralistic tribal spirits or gods.

You used the phrase "paramount to" but I suspect you meant "tantamount to." And if you meant "tantamount to" then would you say that it's any different from saying "is"?

I'm interested to see a show of hands of those who would assent to the claim "teaching kids that hell is real is child abuse."

Without my permission? No. But I wouldn't assent to a lot of random things your hypothetical babysitter might do. It's not really an analogous situation, especially as there's a LOT of other theological thought that goes into the concept of hell that doesn't exist in your Jabberwok hypothetical.

No, I am not confused, but I do need people to pay attention. There is no survey or control for which religion. If we assume different religions might have a greater sense of cohesion (which we already pretty much know, so this is not controversial), this should have been tested for in direct control analysis or factor analysis - this is to avoid false positives in the results.

This is best explained by analogy: Consider if you in the US want to test how party allegiance correlates to belief in punitive Gods. You want to test your hypothesis that belief in punitive Gods leads voters to a specific party. Can you think of reasons why it would be wise to consider which religion the participants belong to?

The first is pretty much claimed in the article your OP is about. To quote:
Second, you praised large complex societies early in the tread. I assumed you did this because you found the study relevant to that phenomena. The study speaks of increasing pro-social behavior in adherents of the same religion, and thus can't really explain much of the success of the early religiously pluralistic civilizations.

For the record: I don't think religion is very important to the development of large societies, but I would agree that it often has a large influence on such development. The distinction between these two is important to understand.

Nor do I think the pro-social effect it fosters between the co-religious is anything you couldn't foster with both more reasonable and more productive beliefs.

I was thinking tantamount and somehow typed paramount. Embarrassing error. Of course I meant is tantamount.

I'll raise my hand. Psychological abuse can be just as bad, if not sometimes worse, than physical abuse. Maybe it's hard to understand if you don't experience it yourself. I'm sure many people get through it okay. But religious teachings left me with emotional scars. I never claimed to be that intelligent, but I was always a deep thinker about things even as a little kid.

Through the ages 5-9 I thought deeply about heaven and hell, God and Satan. It gave me a very warped and depressing perspective of the world and our existence in it. During my nightly prayers I would obsess over god helping all the kids I knew who were starving and had little, while I had a full stomach and a nice warm bed to sleep in. I also had a series of deaths in my family and would worry about whether they were sent to heaven or hell. I worried about my own eternal future. Obviously, I didn't want to be sent to hell, but even the thought of eternal heaven scared (or depressed?) me. I couldn't wrap my head around infinity (still can't), but no matter how good existence in heaven was, the thought of being trapped there for eternity and having to be good, was very disconcerting. I couldn't imagine what it was.

Now I might have had psychological issues to begin lol. But these are very disturbing (and unnecessary) thoughts to weigh on a young child's mind. So I contend that it can turn into a form of child abuse even if it's taught with the best of intentions.

What does your permission have to do with it? It is either an acceptable threat to give a child, or it's not. Do you think it's okay for teachers to smack kids with rulers and/or make them wear dunce caps in school for those who's parents give their consent, but it's not okay for those parents who do not?

Remember the OP's question asked about right and wrong and we're supposed to be looking at this with the child's best welfare in mind. Not whether they have stupid or bad parents.

If you're trying to somehow say that hell is less scary to a thinking child, than a fictional monster, I disagree. They are both gruesome threats based on fiction and both very scary to a child who is not old enough to know any better.

They can be scary for people with a lot of life experience too. Seeing elderly or sick adults in despair because they don't think they will go to paradise (or even go to some sort of hell in extreme cases) is not exactly an uncommon occurrence for health personnel who works with people near death.

I'd compare it to scaring your child with a monster in the closet. If you don't behave, he'll come out and night and punish you. I realize of course there is a difference: We can presume the parents who teach punitive religion believes in the punitive religion, thus they are doing what they think is best for their child. That obviously plays into the ethical judgment of their act. Consequentalists might chose to ignore it, but most others would look at deception (or lack thereof) as relevant towards judging the act.

I have no problem with the statement you made when taken at face value and with no reference to specific forms of abuse. I think to deny this is deeply problematic.

I'm skipping your personal experience not to discount its role in your life, but to point to the larger question being asked.

Notice how you changed the phrasing. You're not raising your hand to say that "teaching kids that hell is real" *IS* child abuse, but rather *CAN* be child abuse. This is the exact same trajectory of the other thread that I linked.

No. This black and white thinking is far too clumsy to be the start of a meaningful conversation. Some parenting decisions are made on the basis of the individual temperaments of the children. Others are made on the basis of parenting philosophy and practical realities. I think if you step back, you'll agree to take that back as a useful way to ground yourself.

You're welcome to disagree. But based on how you've structured your argument so far, I don't see any reason to accept that you're going to be able to construct a successful argument. At best, you can say that it was really scary for you and perhaps some other children. But generalizing your personal experience to the experience of "a thinking child" is going to run into problems. I was a "thinking child." I was more disturbed and scared by other things even though I accepted the existence of hell.

If you scare your child into obedience because that elf is going to tell Santa that you've been naughty, you're also trying to create behaviors by intentional deception. Child abuse? (No.)

I want to press into this a little further. Do you believe you were abused as a child?

I know I was abused as a child. Do I feel being taught religion was one of the abuses that ****ed me up? I'd have to say yes.

Not getting toys <<<<<< burning in hell for eternity. (Yes).

I also generally believe threats by fiction is wrong anyway. I never told my kids they better be good because Santa won't bring him toys, etc. I think that's lazy parenting. I preferred teaching them the why and what the real benefit and/or consequences of a particular behavior can have.

Actually that paragraph doesn't say that punitive religion is necessary for civilization. Instead, it is says that punitive religion causes people to be "more likely to share beliefs and behaviors that foster the development" of these societies, and that this "helps to partly explain" the rise of large and complex societies. Nowhere does it claim that such religions are necessary to rise of these societies.

You are reading both the article and me as making a stronger claim that we actually are.

This misunderstands the thesis of the article. The article notes a fact, that large and complex societies have arisen in the relatively recent past, and that this fact is not easily explained by standard evolutionary accounts of pro-social behavior. Specifically, these standard explanations rely on facts that don't apply to strangers, such as kin and reciprocity factors. Thus, while small-scale societies can be explained by these factors, the rise of large and complex societies need another explanation.

The article claims we can bridge this explanatory gap by looking at cultural evolutionary factors, and focuses on one of these--the increasing prominence of religions with punitive, moralistic, and knowledgeable gods, as providing advantages to cultural groups by causing adherents to these religions to behave in more prosocial ways even to strangers if they are co-religionists. All the study does is empirically test the claim that these kinds of religions actually do cause their adherents to behave in more pro-social ways to strangers.

Thus, the mere fact of pluralism doesn't contradict this theory. For instance, compare two identical societies that both have two dominant religions. In society A both religions are non-punitive, in society B one of the religions is punitive. This thesis would predict that society B would have more pro-social behavior than society A because the members of the punitive religion would act more pro-socially towards other distant members of that religion.

To keep the conversation narrow to the topic at hand, I'll ask the question differently: Would you testify in court against your parents on the specific charge of child abuse by teaching about hell?

There are tons of non-abuses that lead to people being "****ed up" people (keeping to your self description). I'm trying to parse a little bit between the two and see how strongly you've drawn the line here.

So if you beat a child, spank him with a twitch, burn him when he does wrong, but the child turns out to be a relatively sane and productive citizen anyway, does that mean he wasn't abused? Abuse affects people differently. Some people get through it (I believe I have), others do not. That's why you can't use terms like *IS* or *ISN'T* when talking about child abuse. Methods that are possible to have a negative impact on a child, are abuse. Period. And should be avoided.

See above.

I'm not going to look it up right now (but will if I have to). I'm pretty sure there have been multiple studies which show that it's possible to rear children of all temperaments just as well without the use of certain physical punishments (such as spanking, threats of violence, etc.). There's no reason to think this is not the case for threats of physical harm. So I dismiss your premise above. Btw- I also think most practices are based on parenting philosophy rather than child temperament.

This isn't impressive. Many children who are beaten by their parents are nevertheless more scared of being placed with foster parents than staying with their abusive parents.

By picking extreme examples, you're kind of assuming your conclusion. Try again with things that you would consider to be a gray area of abuse. (There are some things in a gray area with you, aren't there?)

Yeah... Good luck with that. This is such an extreme definition that there's literally no conversation to have with you if you're going to hold to it.

Indeed. You've doubled down on this, making it impossible to have a meaningful conversation.

There are two ways to interpret "it's possible." You're interpreting it in the strong form, meaning "this can always be done." The other way to interpret it is "it can sometimes be done." If think you're going to present me a paper that shows something about the strong form, then you're severely misguided about the state of parenting research. Seriously, do you have no intuition on this?

You may think this, and there's a sense in which you could be right. But there's another sense in which parents alter their philosophies as they work with the children they have, and they start to understand that children are not cookie-cutter creatures that behave in the way you want them to.

Consider the shifts in parenting philosophy from first child to second child. First child parents are sometimes pretty paranoid about cleanliness. But by the time the second child rolls around, they've relaxed that mentality a bit.

Good. Neither is your "thinking child" claim. But as long as you try to approach this conversation in black and white terms, you're going to find that there's not a lot of productive conversation to be had and the reality of the conversation is that you're almost certainly on the wrong side of it.

Random collection of links pertaining to parenting. I think discussion of these in a more general context would be worthy of its own thread, and probably not in RGT. I'm putting them here as a reference point for the current discussion.

http://www.parentingscience.com/spanking-children.html

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...em-time-outs-0

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel...b_6006332.html

http://humansciences.okstate.edu/fac...aff/Larzelere/