‘God threshold’ of one million people triggers religion in society

SOCIETIES hit a “God threshold” at around one million people when they need a moralising, rule-making deity to keep order, a study suggests.

Previously it was thought that the expansion of complex societies went hand-in-hand with controlling reli- gions, which installed principles of right and wrong and allowed large numbers to live together peacefully.

But a new study by Oxford University and Keio University in Japan found that only “megasocieties” of more than a million people required the kind of unyielding cohesive beliefs that gave rise to major religions such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Buddhism.

The authors examined 414 societies spanning the past 10,000 years, measuring social complexity and the supernatural enforcement of morality.

They found that, contrary to previous predictions, powerful “big gods” issuing supernatural punishments followed the emergence of large-scale cooperation, proving religion played a crucial role in human evolution.

Harvey Whitehouse, professor of social anthropology at Oxford University and a study co-author, said: “Around the time that societies hit the one million population mark [they] become vulnerable to internal tensions and conflict, perhaps because they somehow have to hold together multiple ethnic groups.

“Moralising gods might have provided a way of enabling societies to continue to prosper cooperatively in spite of those tensions, for fear of offending a higher power.” The study found that the first appearance of moralising gods was in Egypt, where the concept of the supernatural enforcement of Maat, or order, was recorded by around 2800BC, as the population approached one million. Similar systems emerged in Anataloia by 1500BC and China by 1000BC.

Modern secular societies still needed rule-making and the fear of being watched and judged to keep them in order, the authors argue.

Prof Whitehouse said: “It’s possible that other forms of surveillance, eg security cameras, online activity tracking … etc have the potential perhaps to replace the role of moralising gods.”

Patrick Savage, the lead author from Keio University, said: “The take-home message is that religion is not just a historical accident but has played a crucial functional role in human evolution throughout world history.”

The research was published in the journal Nature.