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Moralizing religions: Prosocial or a privilege of wealth?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2016

Scott Atran
Scott Atran*
Affiliation:
CNRS, Institut Jean Nicod – Ecole Normale Supérieure, 75005 Paris, France. satran@umich.edu http://sitemaker.umich.edu/satran/home
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Abstract

Today's major religions are moralizing religions that encourage material sacrifice for spiritual rewards. A key issue is whether moralizing religions gradually evolved over several millennia to enable cooperation among genetic strangers in the spiraling competition between increasingly large groups occupying Eurasia's middle latitudes, or whether they emerged only with the onset of the Axial Age, about 2,500 years ago, as societal wealth increased to allow privileging long-term goals over immediate needs.

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Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 39 , 2016 , e2
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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