Religion Is of Reduced Importance When Not Needed to Solve the Problems of Social Living

Abstract

Purzycki and Sosis (2022) review six categories of how religious traditions solve problems of social living. We apply the six categories to the Pirahã, which the authors discuss as a religious small-scale society. We contend that the Pirahã are not religious, drawing on the six categories to explain why. All members of the Pirahã know each other. Supernatural punishment is thus not needed to curtail dishonesty and norm breaking. Food is sufficient and often abundant. Lack of competition for territory reduces a role for Gods in enforcing wise use of environmental resources. The Pirahã also have a powerful norm, the Immediacy of Experience Principle, which may reduce speculation and eventual reification of supernatural forces. We conclude that the powerful functions served by religion are not evidence that religion is fundamental to human psychology, but the opposite: religion emerges and grows in power as a result of pressure to solve compelling problems of group living. When these problems are absent or are solved by secular mechanisms, religion is absent or of reduced importance.