Big Gods Book Review

The book I chose for this book review was, Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict, by Ara Norenzayan. Norenzayan is a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia. Other works by Norenzayan have been featured in New York Times Magazine and on CNN. The main topics of this book is to show how human behavior relates to religion and how religion is what holds large civilizations together. Norenzayan’s main purpose for writing this book was to see how big religions like Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have been able to survive the test of time, while many others have died over several millennia. In this book you learn about how human action reflects how humans think and how others might think of them. Throughout …show more content…
The first principle is that, watched people are nice people. People who believe they are being watched act nicer. People will also act in more prosocial behavior. When people act as they are supposed to, there is less conflict among strangers. His second principle is, religion is more in the situation than in the person. This principle states that people will act in accord with their beliefs when the situation is appropriate. On Sundays, Christians have a tendency to be more charitable to others, and will not engage in acts that are considered sinful. The third principle is, Hell is stronger than Heaven. This argument states that fear is stronger than love. In his experiment, Norenzayan had two group of college students in separate rooms and were given a test. Throughout this test, students were given the opportunity to cheat. One group was exposed to words God, vengeful, and punishing, while the other was exposed to words like God, compassionate, and forgiving. Norenzayan noticed that when people were exposed to a vengeful God were less likely to cheat than those who were exposed to a nice God. Belief in a God that people love and fear makes them act in cooperative ways. This will also causes less conflict between strangers. The fourth principle says, trust people who trust God. When people have something in common in like religion, they will trust each other more. This is why different religions have conflicts with each other. They have a hard time trusting each other because they do not believe in each other. The fifth principle is, religious actions speak louder than words. This keeps people who do not adhere to the religious behavior of a group in check. This acts as a monitor so that people know who is doing what they are supposed to do. Thus strengthening a group’s solidarity. Principle number six say, unworshipped Gods are impotent Gods. This is why other religions died. With strict practices that