Stark attempts to resituate Tylor's formulation of religion by calling into question Swanson's (1960) and Peregrine's (1996) findings that supernatural sanctions and moral behavior are consistently correlated in small-scale societies. Positing that Swanson's correlations were confounded by variables related to cultural complexity, Stark tests the association of presence of moralizing Gods with cultural complexity explicitly, as well as measures of morality in various nations as provided by the World Values Survey (1990-1991). The robust correlations across cultures noted below, as well as cross-national findings, provide support for the researcher's theory that it is particular conceptions of God rather than participation in rites and rituals which empower religion to sustain complex moral culture.

This article builds on previous cross-country and cross-state research into Tightness-Looseness (TL) theory, which proposes relationships between the incidence of ecological threat and cultural tightness, as well as tightness’ downstream effects on belief in a moralizing high god, inter-group contact and authoritarian leadership. To evaluate the generalizability of TL theory beyond complex cultures, the authors test these relationships among 86 nonindustrial societies from the ethnographic record. A structural equation model is presented of the results for nonindustrial societies; it is generally in accord with previous findings from more complex societies. Because the nonindustrial sample is more variable, they also look at relationships between societal complexity and kinship heterogeneity, aspects that vary in nonindustrial societies.

Does religion cause violent conflict? In order to examine this question, the researcher tests the correlation between occurrence of belief in a moralizing god and frequency of conflict events in sub-regional Africa, controlling for various geographic and biotic variables. A significant positive correlation prompts speculation about the theoretical mechanisms by which belief in a moralizing god, including unwillingness to compromise on sacred scripture and exclusionary group identity formation, could engender violent conflict.

This article retests several hypotheses from Swanson’s (1960) study on the origins of religious belief. The author finds support for an association between high gods and large communities, multiple levels of political hierarchy, and social differentiation. No support is found for Swanson’s other hypotheses concerning polytheism, ancestral spirits, reincarnation, the soul, witchcraft, and morality and their relations to social, political, and economic variables.

Does belief in moralizing and punitive gods promote sociality between coreligionists who are otherwise strangers? A recent dataset of behavioral economic experiment results and demographic and religious data among eight disparate populations allows the researchers to test their hypothesis of a positive association between deity's perceived interest in human morality and favorability of treatment of outsiders who share a religion. Their findings mostly support this hypothesis, which they suggest lends credibility to a theory in which religion encourages cooperation between large groups of people, and is thus a successful product of cultural evolution.

This paper examines the relationship between moralizing gods (gods that impose moral rules or punish those who break them) and social complexity. The authors argue that previous research, which relied on the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample's "moralizing high gods" variable as a proxy measure for the presence of moralizing gods, may have underestimated the presence of moralizing gods in societies. This is because the criteria used to define "moralizing high gods" are not relevant to whether a god is moralistic or punitive. The authors argue that this leads to a false positive association between moralizing gods and social complexity, and that ethnographic evidence suggests that moralizing gods are actually more prevalent in small-scale societies than had previously been thought. Future researchers, therefore, need to be careful about making assumptions about the moralizing gods of small scale societies based on "moralizing high gods", and find other ways to identify whether moralizing gods are present.

This paper examines the relationship between moralizing gods (gods that impose moral rules or punish those who break them) and social complexity. The authors argue that previous research, which relied on the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample's "moralizing high gods" variable as a proxy measure for the presence of moralizing gods, may have underestimated the presence of moralizing gods in societies. This is because the criteria used to define "moralizing high gods" are not relevant to whether a god is moralistic or punitive. The authors argue that this leads to a false positive association between moralizing gods and social complexity, and that ethnographic evidence suggests that moralizing gods are actually more prevalent in small-scale societies than had previously been thought. Future researchers, therefore, need to be careful about making assumptions about the moralizing gods of small scale societies based on "moralizing high gods", and find other ways to identify whether moralizing gods are present.

This paper seeks to understand the extent to which religion has been used to legitimize political power in the past, and the extent to which that carries into contemporary institutions. The authors seek to demonstrate that there is a strong link between the stratification of societies in the past and the presence of autocracies in many of those same areas today. They make their case by putting forward, and testing, three linked theories -- first, that stratified societies are more likely to develop religions based on moralizing high gods as a means of divine legitimization, second, that the societies that used religion for legitimacy in their past are more likely to have religion embedded in their institutions today, and third, that societies that used religion for legitimacy in the past are more likely to be autocracies today.

This article retests several hypotheses from Swanson’s (1960) study on the origins of religious belief. The author finds support for an association between high gods and large communities, multiple levels of political hierarchy, and social differentiation. No support is found for Swanson’s other hypotheses concerning polytheism, ancestral spirits, reincarnation, the soul, witchcraft, and morality and their relations to social, political, and economic variables.

This article examines the belief in high gods supportive of human morality. Empirical analyses suggest that this belief is associated with larger society size independent of region and social stratification. While stratification is also associated with a belief in high gods supportive of human morality, this relationship was not independent of regional differences or society size.