Gods, games, and the socioecological landscape

The social sciences have long recognized a relationship between religion and ecology. Upon closer inspection, religious systems not only correspond to important features of society’s ecology, but also appear directly address these features. In this article, we examine the prospect that salient may be framed as game theoretical dilemmas argue contemporary approaches emphasize cognition and/or learning at expense ecology are inadequate in accounting for cross-cultural variation expression. Using ethnographic examples, show religions alleviate costs such variety ways by: 1) fostering beliefs motivate sustain beneficial practices; 2) incentivizing cooperative ventures; 3) encouraging ritual performances minimize costly conflicts bolster territorial conventions; 4) providing institutional forums coordinate resource distributions; 5) maintaining species diversity. .