The evolution of activists images of god(s) and communality of rites

Prof. dr. W.C. Ultee

Results 2005

• There is a relation between a society’s dominant subsistence technology and its godly images. The belief in a non-moral supreme creator flourish in the advanced horticulutal societies, whereas the belief in a moral supreme creator is most common in the agrarian and herding societies.
• The relation between a society’s dominant subsistence technology and its godly images is to a large extent mediated by aspects of the economic and political structure.
• Our research findings show that the micro-hypothesis that people reason in analogies is fruitful in explaining religous diversity. On the basis of this hypothesis we predicted the likelihood of the belief in (moral) supreme creators in societies with different levels of subsistence technology.
• Our research findings suggest that evolutionary theories from biology, which are diffusing to psychology, might also be of interest for the social sciences.