Devotional Unity and Coalitional Division: How Religion plays both Jekyll and Hyde to Religious Tole

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Devotional Unity and Coalitional Division How
Religion plays both Jekyll and Hyde to Religious
Tolerance
Predicts intolerance
Coalitional division
Devotional unity
Predicts tolerance
Ian Hansen
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With thanks to

• Ara Norenzayan
• Jeremy Ginges
• Sheldon Solomon
• John Rector
• Ilan Dar-Nimrod
• Hakwan Lau

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Religion is evil. Not only is it false, but it
will make you religiously intolerant and violent
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Why religion is bad, in a nutshell

• Incompatible religious doctrines have balkanized
  our world into separate moral communities, and
  these divisions have become a continuous source
  of human conflict.
• Sam Harris, atheist, author of The End of Faith

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An example of violent religiously intolerant
sentiment

• We are at war with Islam It is not merely that
  we are at war with an otherwise peaceful religion
  that has been hijacked by extremists.  We are
  at war with precisely the vision of life that is
  prescribed to all Muslims in the Koran...

Pat Robertson, of Christian Coalition infamy
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Oops, actually that wasnt Pat Robertson. It was
Sam Harris again

• More wit and wisdom from Sam
• What will we do if an Islamist regimeacquires
  long-range nuclear weaponry? In such a
  situation, the only thing likely to ensure our
  survival may be
• a nuclear first strike of our own.

BOOM!
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Joking aside, Pat Robertson is still scary

• Maybe we need a very small nuke thrown off on
  Foggy Bottom to shake things up
• --Pat Robertson, on the 700 club

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Seekers dilemma should you adopt a religious or
non-religious worldview?
Nuked if you do
Nuked if you dont
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What predicts intolerance?

• Dogmatism, fundamentalism, exclusivity,
  authoritarianism--coalitional rigidity

Coalitional rigidity

When controlling for religious devotion
Religious intolerance
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What predicts coalitional rigidity?

• Prayer, belief in God, devotion to the divine,
  devotion to ones religious belief, intrinsic
  religiosityreligious devotion

Coalitional rigidity


When controlling for religious intolerance
Religious intolerance
Religious devotion
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Incomprehensible Triangle

• Religious devotion has a NEGATIVE direct
  relationship to religious intolerance, although
  indirectly positively related

Coalitional rigidity


-
Religious intolerance
Religious devotion
When controlling for coalitional rigidity
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Re-draw the triangle?

• Devotion and rigidity two faces of the same
  thing?
• These inclinations are very highly correlated

Coalitional rigidity


Religious intolerance
Religious devotion
-
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The religious package is Janus-faced with regard
to religious intolerance
Religious Tolerance
Religious intolerance
Religious devotion
Coalitional rigidity
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Janus-faced on Scapegoating
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Janus-faced on War and Oppression
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Janus-faced on Anti-Pluralism
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Janus-faced on intolerance generally
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Janus-faced even among Mormons
Political intolerance for Multireligious people,
Hindus, Muslims, Catholics, Jews and Atheists
p lt .1 p lt .01
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How is Janus-faced prediction possible?

• The principle of transitivity objection
• If A B and B C, then how can A C?
• Answer
• The principle of transitivity applies only to is
  exactly the same as, not independently predicts

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What is the sound of one hand clapping?

• Both processes complementary, but very
  differentand when examined independently of each
  other may predict very different things.

Religious devotion
Rising to all-embracing altruistic loving unity
Religion!
Coalitional rigidity
Pragmatically pushing back limits of altruistic
love to a manageable, quality- controlled ingroup
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Devotion and rigidity as two complementary yet
opposing processes of adaptive ingroup favoritism

• Religious devotion aids the imaginative
  expansion of the boundary of moral inclusion
• Coalitional rigidity aids the pragmatic
  hardening of the boundary of moral exclusion

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What about experimental evidence?
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Terror Management evidenceWhat makes people
hate others also makes them like God
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But it also makes them like Buddha
Belief in Buddha among Christians
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and Shamanic Spirits
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And makes them more sanguine about Islam
conquering the West
Support for a Godly-Islam -will-overthrow-the- fai
thless-West essay
N
N
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Priming God-esteem increases preference for
pacifism over warrior values
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Priming God-esteem decreases authoritarianism and
political intolerance
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This mirrors Ginges et al (2007)
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Theoretical implications

• Religion is not black and white

WRONG!
rigidity
liberalism
VS.






devotion
intolerance
tolerance
atheism
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Think of things more in terms of complementary
colors
Intolerance
Tolerance
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Think of things more in terms of complementary
colors
Coalitional rigidity
Liberal-mindedness
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Think of things more in terms of complementary
colors
Religious Devotion
Irreligious non-devotion
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Think of things more in terms of complementary
colors
Intolerance
Tolerance
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With Janus-faced adjustment
Religious package Religious-devotion/coalitional
-rigidity
Religious tolerance and nonviolence
Religious intolerance and violence
Non-religious package Liberal-mindedness/irrelig
ious non-devotion
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Not all divides equally likely
Mother Teresa vs. Christopher Hitchens
Texas vs. Sweden
Mohandas Gandhi vs. Winston Churchill
Common
Common
Rare
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A very commonperhaps natural?psychological
divide
(Religious) Right
Left (Irreligious)
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Psych tip for the Pentagon
How to get both Right and Left behind the War of
Civilizations
BOOM!
BOOM!
RIGID
devoted
ATHEIST
liberal
Pump up the Right with rigidity
Pump up the Left with atheism
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Burning questionArent some religions and
ideologies more tolerant than others?
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Watch the Muslims Part 1 (Malaysia)
Muslims most intolerant
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Watch the Muslims Part 2 (10 nations)
Muslims least intolerant
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Review

• Does religion contribute to war, oppression and
  intolerance in the world?
• --Likely, but it can also contributes to peace,
  freedom and tolerance
• Do more religious religions have more potential
  for intolerance and violence?
• --Yes, but also more potential for tolerance and
  nonviolence
• Can religions be rank ordered by intolerance and
  support for violence?
• --Yes, but the rank ordering is very volatile and
  can be turned on its head from one measure of
  intolerance to the next, one country to the next,
  one period of history to the next.

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Chicken Egg issues

• Coalitional rigidity pragmatically shadows
  pro-social religious devotion?
• Or
• Religious devotion gives people memorable content
  to be adaptively rigid about?

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Pleistocene accident or proximal psychological
process?

• Are devotion and rigidity separate processes that
  adaptively balance each other?
• or
• Does proximal stimulation of devotion cause
  rigidity or vice versa?

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Sociology vs. Psychology

• Even if religious devotion is psychologically
  related to tolerance for the individual, do
  sociological pressures ensure that rigidity will
  overshadow devotion?

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Conclusion