In the iconic Pale Blue Dot image captured by Voyager 1, Earth appears as a tiny speck of dust suspended in a sunbeam, a fleeting glimmer against the vast cosmic canvas. If the world we occupy is a whisper in the vastness of the universe, what does a single individual signify on this scale? Throughout human history, humans have regarded themselves as the center of the universe, speculating that they will be punished for violating religious codes, such as eating forbidden food or engaging in premarital sex. Why would the creator of a trillion galaxies, if they even exist, care about such trivial behaviors in this infinite cosmos? 

This perspective of Earth as a speck adrift the cosmic void mirrors Pascal’s (1670/2003) humbling paradox of double infinity: “Man is equally incapable of seeing the Nothing from which he was made, and the Infinite in which he is swallowed up” (p. 61). Just as the Pale Blue Dot reduces our planet to a “fleeting glimmer,” Pascal’s framework suspends humanity between the vastness of the cosmos and the inscrutable infinitesimal. This duality underscores our existential precariousness, which Pascal described as “a mean between nothing and everything” (p. 61). Thus, humans are too small to grasp the celestial scales that dwarf us, yet too vast to comprehend the microscopic intricacies that construct our reality. Caught in between infinities, humanity’s claim to know the divine falters. 

As Kant even observed, “we can have cognition of no object as a thing in itself (Ding an sich) [noumenon], but only insofar as it is an object of sensible intuition [phenomenon]” (Kant, 1787/1998, Bxxvi). Humanity cannot grasp either extreme, which exposes our intellectual fragility and challenges the arrogance of those who claim absolute knowledge. If Earth’s grandeur collapses into a pixel under the cosmic gaze, how could we presume to discern the will of a trillion-galaxy creator? Like Pascal, Kant’s noumenon reminds us that our moral codes, whether they condemn the consumption of bacon or having premarital sex, are confined to the human experience and our stories whispered on dust, trying to map the unknowable.

The divine force’s alleged characteristics—the reasons it cares, gets angry, or punishes—are fundamentally unknowable. At the scale humans can understand, the divine force is subjective, confined to our perspectives, but the objective truth remains unknowable. In other words, the divine anger that many religious people fear in response to specific behaviors, like eating bacon or premarital sex, is not necessarily real, since the divine is simply a noumenal reality. Instead, humans tell stories of God’s anger. Humans tell stories to make sense of the world and explain phenomena they witness. These stories are not just personal interpretations since they become collective frameworks. By sharing stories, humans gradually build a common understanding. In doing so, they form communities bound together by these shared narratives, which provide stability, meaning, and a sense of belonging.

To discuss God’s anger, it is necessary to examine where this anger originates, from a theological perspective—that is, from a human narrative crafted to

make sense of phenomena they observe and experience. Jews and Christians understood the Old Testament law as direct divine revelation, or the very words and will of God (Helm, 2020). A threefold division separates the Old Testament Laws into moral laws, which encompass universal moral principles; civil laws, which governing political and social life; and ceremonial laws, which pertain to the sacrificial system, ritual purity, and festivals (Helm, 2020). Food taboos like pork consumption belong to the category of ceremonial law, which includes Old Testament dietary and ritual commands meant to set the chosen people apart from other nations. In contrast, Jews and Christians also expected divine anger at premarital sex or adultery as indications that they have violated moral laws, like the Ten Commandments, that reflected God’s ethical standards (Kaiser Jr, 1991).

Since divine nature is fundamentally unknowable, the question of why God gets angry at certain behaviors shifts to why humans constructed narratives about divine anger in the first place. This perceived anger likely emerges from how humans interpret phenomena through their environmental and cultural lenses, as demonstrated by the contrasting religious systems of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia (Frankfort et al., 1949). The Nile River’s predictable floods, which brought fertile silt with minimal destruction, fostered a worldview of benevolent and orderly deities. Egyptians conceptualized their gods as harmonious and life-giving—Ra (or Amon-Ra) embodied Ma’at (cosmic order and stability), while Osiris symbolized cyclical renewal, mirroring the Nile’s dependable patterns. In stark contrast, the unpredictable and destructive floods of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Mesopotamia shaped a theology of capricious gods, such as Enlil (the storm god) and Ishtar (the goddess of war and fertility), who demanded constant appeasement (Frankfort et al., 1949). Befittingly, Mesopotamians viewed themselves as servants of temperamental deities whose favor was never guaranteed (Norenzayan, 2013). This dichotomy illustrates that wrathful divine attributes, such as those in Mesopotamia, arise when humans project their environmental challenges onto the divine as an explanation for their suffering (Norenzayan, 2013).

Humans have long relied on stories about divine anger to enforce behaviors that promote survival and social cohesion. As Harari (2014) argues, myths, including those found in religion, enable large-scale cooperation among strangers by creating shared “fictions”. Harari suggests that humans think in stories and make sense of the world through narratives. Religion, for example, is a system of human norms and values founded on belief in a superhuman order. Islam, Buddhism, and even communism are all considered religions because they involve such belief systems (Harari, 2014). However, this raises a deeper question: do humans consciously design such stories to enforce cooperation and ensure survival? Or are these narratives shaped less by intentional foresight and more by adaptive success? The answer may lie somewhere between. While religious leaders and storytellers may articulate explicit moral goals, the larger myths often evolve, unconsciously selected and retained by societies because they promote cohesion and reproductive success. 

Like language or rituals, religious stories function adaptively even when their creators are unaware of their evolutionary role. Their success depends less on deliberate design and more on binding groups and regulating behavior. For instance, the prohibition of pork in Judaism and Islam can be traced to material conditions.  Harris (1989) explained that pigs were ecologically inefficient to raise in arid regions, requiring shade, mud, and large amounts of water that were already scarce in deserts. They also competed with humans for grain-based diets, unlike cattle and sheep. This made pigs less sustainable in the West Asia. Thus, the taboo on pork helped conserve resources and redirect labor to more adaptable livestock, such as goats and camels, thereby improving human survival.

In a macro sense, we have stories about God’s anger because groups that adopted these narratives survived. As Wilson (2002) observed, “religious groups often function as adaptive units, enabling members to cooperate and succeed in ways that unaffiliated individuals or groups cannot” (p. 55). This explains why narratives of divine anger persist. For example, if people violated marital moral laws through sex outside marriage, they had lower chances of forming stable families. Henrich (2018) documents how, in traditional societies, stable family structures were critical for child survival, while single-parent households faced higher child mortality. Given how hard it was to raise children in premodern times when child mortality rates were high, this situation represented reproductive failure (Henrich, 2018). 

Similarly, for other moral laws, Darwin (1871/2000) observed in The Descent of Man that tribes with members exhibiting “patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy” outcompeted others through natural selection (p. 166). These cooperative traits, reinforced by stories of divine punishment for violations, gave groups a survival advantage. Therefore, from this evolutionary perspective, people created stories about God’s anger toward specific behaviors because groups believed these narratives outcompeted others, ultimately surviving and spreading their beliefs (Wilson, 2003).

Humans created stories of divine anger befalling those who consumed pork. These stories not only promoted survival but fostered social cohesion, ensuring that community members adhered to the same norms and values. However, why did “God gets angry” work better in shaping social cohesion than practical justifications? Perhaps it is because the psychological impact of God’s anger is a strong motivator for people to behave morally. The stories endured because they worked. In our case, religious pork bans show how divine anger enforced ecological efficiency; taboos regarding premarital sex reveal how they optimized reproduction. In both cases, God’s “wrath” was a psychological tool to override individual desires for group survival. 

Stories of God are remarkably effective in regulating people’s behavior. Fear of divine punishment enforces moral behavior far more effectively than rational arguments. For instance, Haley and Fessler (2005) found that individuals donated approximately 1.55 times more money in a “Dictator Game” when shown an image of staring eyes, a subtle cue of surveillance. This suggests that even subconscious hints of being watched can significantly boost prosocial behavior. 

Theologies capitalize on this by emphasizing divine omniscience: the Qur’an (n.d.) says, “God knows the treachery of the eyes and what the hearts conceal” (n.d., 40:19). The Bible affirms that “the Lord searches every heart and understands every desire and every thought” (New International Version, 2011, 1 Chron. 28:9). During the 2010 debt crisis in Greece, Greek Orthodox bishops warned tax evaders that they would “answer to God.” In this case, the fear of eternal punishment outweighed the allure of short-term financial gain (Shariff & Rhemtulla, 2012). This underscores the power of belief in an unknowable force as a potent enforcer of behavior. Shariff and Rhemtulla (2012) further demonstrated that beliefs in heaven and hell have divergent effects on national crime rates. They found that higher rates of belief in hell were significantly associated with lower crime rates, including violent crimes such as murder, robbery, and rape. Conversely, belief in heaven was associated with higher crime rates. This suggests that fear of supernatural punishment, rather than the promise of supernatural benevolence, is a stronger deterrent to criminal behavior. Unlike pragmatic rules, actions framed as “sin” become non-negotiable, making divine narratives a potent tool for social control.

     The explanations provided above are based on human conjectures, drawing on ecological patterns, cultural practices, and evolutionary dynamics. It would be presumptuous to assert that these observations constitute cosmic truths, given the limited scale of our perception. The question remains: is there truly a divine force that established these immutable moral laws, and who becomes incensed when humans transgress them, such as engaging in sexual activity outside of marriage? While elucidating these matters through observable phenomena, the noumenon, the thing-in-itself, remains ultimately beyond comprehension.

Just as Pascal’s “double infinity” humbles our cosmic grasp, so too must we confront the limits of our understanding of divinity. Whether the creator gets angry about bacon or premarital sex is ultimately unknowable. Our conceptions of divine anger are not truths but reflect human needs, most profoundly our need to forge perceptions into stories. Some might argue that humans adopted moral laws in the first place because the creator planted this moral impulse in human minds. This could be true since the divine is noumenal. What is demonstrated is that divine anger is often portrayed in stories that codify cooperation and survival.

Nevertheless, this “noumenality” does not render moral laws meaningless. Their function remains vital. Moral frameworks, whether divinely inspired or human-made, bind societies together. They are tools through which we navigate our shared existence, regardless of whether a trillion-galaxy creator watches with judgment or indifference.

Ultimately, the question is not why God is angry, but why do we even care about how God feels. Our behaviors matter because we declare them meaningful through the lives we build, the relationships we nurture, and the societies we sustain through the collective stories we tell. While the universe may be silent in the Pale Blue Dot, the Earth remains tiny, and the divine is unknown, our moral choices echo loudly into the only realm we truly know: our own. 

References

Darwin, C. (2000). The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2300

Frankfort, H., Frankfort, H. A., Wilson, J. A., Jacobsen, T., & Irwin, W. A. (1949). Before philosophy: The intellectual adventure of ancient man: An essay on speculative thought in the ancient Near East. Penguin Books.

Haley, K. J., & Fessler, D. M. (2005). Nobody’s Watching?: Subtle Cues Affect Generosity in an Anonymous Economic Game. Evolution and Human Behavior, 26(3), 245–256. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1090513805000036

Harari, Y. N. (2014). Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. Random House.

Harris, M. (1989). Cows, pigs, wars, and witches: The riddles of culture. Vintage. 

Helm, P. (2020). John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. In M. Allen & S. R. Swain (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Reformed Theology (pp. 203–217). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198723912.013.13

Henrich, J. (2018). The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter. Princeton: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400873296

Kaiser Jr, W. C. (1991). Toward Old Testament Ethics. Zondervan.

Kant, I. (1998). Critique of Pure Reason. (P. Guyer & A. W. Wood, Eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

New International Version Bible. (2011). Bible Gateway. https://www.biblegateway.com/versions/New-International-Version-NIV-Bible

Norenzayan, A. (2013). Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict. Princeton: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400848324

Pascal, B. (2003). Pensées (W. F. Trotter, Trans.; T. S. Eliot, Intro.). Courier Corporation.

Shariff, A. F., & Rhemtulla, M. (2012). Divergent effects of beliefs in heaven and hell on national crime rates. PloS one, 7(6), e39048. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0039048 

The Qur’an. (n.d.). In Quran.com. Retrieved June 20, 2025, from https://quran.com/

Wilson, D. (2003). Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society. University of Chicago Press.