Why Do People Act Badly? | The Story of God

in small-scale societies and ancestral
communities there were only a couple of
hundred individuals and it was
relatively easy to keep tabs on one
another and that was really important
because social reputation matters the
problem is that the larger the society
becomes the more easy it is to take
advantage of other people within the
group so that’s where this construct or
this idea of a moralistic
interventionist God that can read our
thoughts that can punish us for our
misdeeds that can act on our behaviors
in some symbolic way it really comes
into the picture these communities that
had this idea of such an entity would
have been at an advantage over those
that lacked the idea of such moralistic
gods because they kept people basically
in check would you rob a bank if you
thought that nobody could possibly know
that you’ve done that I think if we’re
honest with ourselves and we think that
there’s no hidden camera there’s no
security guard it’s completely empty
there’s a bank vault that’s filled with
all sorts of the currency and jewels
many of us would walk in there and
actually take all that currency so I
think the idea or the impression or the
the sense that something is watching us
and will punish us for our Mis behaviors
is a very potent very powerful social
factor