At the margin, these beliefs cause believers to behave more morally than they would otherwise. And from the point of view of a perfectly selfish organism, this extra “good” behavior is an unfortunate cost. The ideal situation would be for the brain to be able to have its cake (convincing others that it fears God’s wrath) and eat it too (go on behaving as if it didn’t fear God at all). But human brains aren’t powerful enough to pull off such perfect hypocrisy, especially when others are constantly probing our beliefs. So the next best thing is often to internalize the belief, while remaining
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