Why Zeus of All Gods?
On the Particularity of Religious Ideas
Cultural Psychology describes the persistence of “sometimes unexpected” ideas, what modern people might term “religion.” The author cites research indicating that “minimally counterintuitive ideas,” which “violate our expectations but are not too unusual,” are more memorable (Heine, 93). However, while “religious” ideas (for lack of a better term) are more memorable, one wonders why only certain ideas persist while others do not. For example, stereotypes, though inaccurate or reductive depictions of others, rationalize preexisting relations between communities. Analogously, some cognitive scientists suggest that humans may be prone to see supernatural agency in their environments because of selective adaptations related to threat detection. However, hyperactive agency detection device (HADD) theory only provides a possible explanation for the general human tendency toward belief in the supernatural, not whether a particular religious idea will persist in a community (Lanman, 2019). While minimally counterintuitive ideas appear to be memorable, not all such ideas become authoritative in a community. So why do some gods persist while others do not?
How “unexpected” ideas become normative in a community may become clearer if one nuances the research Heine presents. For example, stories of Zeus were authoritative ideas…
