![]() ![]() While nation-states were a stronger predictor of cultural traits than religious traditions, the cultural similarity of coreligionists remained robust, controlling for demographic characteristics, geographic and linguistic distances between groups, and government restriction on religion. Nonreligious individuals across countries also shared cultural values, offering evidence for the cultural evolution of secularization. Moreover, distances between denominations within a world religion echoed shared historical descent. Individuals who shared a religious tradition and level of commitment to religion were more culturally similar, both within and across countries, than those with different affiliations and levels of religiosity, even after excluding overtly religious values. To test this hypothesis, we measured cultural distance between religious groups within and between countries, using the Cultural Fixation Index ( C F S T) applied to the World Values Survey (88 countries, n = 243,118). It follows that affiliation with religious traditions would be reliably associated with global variation in cultural traits. ![]() Cultural evolutionary theories suggest that world religions have consolidated beliefs, values, and practices within a superethnic cultural identity. ![]()
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