In That’s Your Cue, Arnold Kling argues that many bits of religious and political dogma serve as “trust cues” to enable teamwork with strangers — and that’s why rational empiricism rarely wins out:
The most trustworthy groups are groups where membership is valuable and excommunication is costly. They are groups that monitor the behavior of their members closely.The most trustworthy individuals are individuals who regularly show a willingness to sacrifice for the group. Attending religious worship every week, paying a tithe, and participating in ritual fasts are examples of demonstrating religious loyalty. These sorts of sacrifices are indicators that the individual values membership in the group, and they show that the individual would fear excommunication from the group.
The best trust cues are those that can be presented at low cost by members of the group but would be costly to fake for non-members. Thus, odd dialects and unusual phrases can serve as trust cues.