By Cheyenne Macdonald For Dailymail.com
Published: 00:11 GMT, 7 March 2019 | Updated: 00:18 GMT, 7 March 2019
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Belief in a god capable of doling out punishment may once have been the glue that held large societies together.
In a new study, researchers attempted to investigate the pro-social effects of religious belief beyond the close-knit community.
Through interviews and behavioral experiments with thousands of volunteers from 15 different schools of thought, the team concluded that the evolution of ‘moralizing gods’ likely aided cooperation between people from different groups.
Belief in a god capable of doling out punishment may once have been the glue that held large societies together. In a new study, researchers attempted to investigate the pro-social effects of religious belief beyond a close-knit community. Stock image
Thinkers have been pondering why people believe in god for centuries.
One popular theory cites 'cognitive and social adaptations' as the reasoning behind belief in god.
For example, 'cognitive decoupling,' or the common phenomenon of attaching behaviors or actions to someone who isn't in front of us could explain why people are religious.
It is a small leap from being able to imagine the mind of someone we know to imagining
