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June 2016

June 01, 2016

Science explains why America is going off the rails

Any country's success depends on its social capital, or "asabiya." The United States is losing...

January 2016

January 21, 2016

Think the Muslim world needs to “reform?” Think again

If we want a future with less Islamist terrorism, we want the opposite of a...

April 2015

April 28, 2015

Anthropology, not demagoguery, is the way to understand ISIS

Blaming ISIS on generic religious irrationality makes us completely blind to the social processes that...

March 2015

March 05, 2015

Michael Shermer thinks he’s more moral than you

Skeptic thinker Michael Shermer believes that Western society is becoming more moral because we're very...

January 2015

January 24, 2015

Does Eben Alexander “prove heaven?” Sort of.

Instead of going back and forth between true believers in NDEs and skeptics, let’s take...

December 2014

December 04, 2014

A new theory for why Buddhist meditation makes us feel good

Our brains build up stable patterns of activity over time, and these patterns may inhibit...

September 2014

September 09, 2014

Entheogens may expand possible brain interconnections

By releasing the everyday patterns of stable, internal coherence between different regions of the brain,...

August 2014

August 25, 2014

Do we have free will when it comes to mental illness?

Mental illness arises from complex interactions between the self, the social environment, and our own...

August 18, 2014

Mental illness: it’s not just in our brains.

Our idea that mental illness just "happens" is dangerous. It's not your fault if you're...

August 11, 2014

Yes, fundamentalism is religion. And it starts wars.

The “no true Scotsman” fallacy is often used to claim that no real, believing Muslim...

July 2014

July 28, 2014

Informal Study Finds Bloggers Can’t Tell Fact from Fiction

A study shared widely in the TwitFaceBlogosphere says that religious children can't tell fact from...

July 07, 2014

Is religion good or bad for the world?

Across studies, there’s a regular but modest positive correlation between religiosity and prosocial behavior, and...

April 2014

April 28, 2014

Cosmic tribalism, Internet ego, and the future of humanity

Here’s one thing you can do to stop ecological catastrophe: stop turning your ideological opponents...

February 2014

February 11, 2014

The Nye-Ham debates, or why fundamentalism exists

The people who think the world was created in six days six thousand years ago...

January 2014

January 23, 2014

Spirit possession: everyone’s doing it

Anti-religion writers and cognitive scientists of religion alike tend to consider religion as if it...

January 06, 2014

Does atheism arise from wealth?

is atheism a luxury of the wealthy? Yes. But this isn't simply because the wealthy...

November 2013

November 05, 2013

Russell Brand is wrong about Western religions

What Brand forgets – or, more likely, has never learned, because no one teaches this...

October 2013

October 18, 2013

A friendly reminder: Science isn’t reality. Reality is reality.

The complementary opposite of science isn't religion, but embodiment. Despite their incredible effectiveness, scientific models...

October 11, 2013

Why Are There Atheists?

Certain aspects of personality orientation may naturally lead some people to religious belief and others...

October 07, 2013

Civil Religion: It’s What America Needs

As political battles reach new heights, and the fabric of the nation seems stretched to...

September 2013

September 26, 2013

Why conservatives hate Obamacare

Conservatives worry that offloading social responsibilities to an impersonal, systemic platform will corrode the collective...

August 2013

August 20, 2013

Steven Pinker: Stop bashing religion. You’re hurting science.

If you force people to choose between traditional meaning and objective knowledge, they will choose...

July 2013

July 26, 2013

Why IS liberal Protestantism dying, anyway?

Liberal Protestant churches are losing members left and right, while conservative churches are doing just...

July 20, 2013

Science and humility

Connor Wood thinks we should always be humble about what we believe – even if...

July 03, 2013

Why aren’t religious people as creative as unbelievers?

Let's be honest: religion and creativity don't always mix. The world's fashion designers, rock musicians,...

June 2013

June 18, 2013

5 Ways Religion Can Influence Political Beliefs

Sometimes religion leads to more political involvement, sometimes none at all; other times political involvement...

June 03, 2013

How criminals use religion to justify their crimes

Research by criminologists Volkan Topalli, Timothy Brezina, and Mindy Bernhardt (all Georgetown State University) suggests...

April 2013

April 29, 2013

Does religious belief make you a better person?

A new survey of the literature on religion and helping behavior calls into question the...

March 2013

March 27, 2013

How WEIRD are you?

New research from the University of Virginia and China shows a surprising finding – liberals...

February 2013

February 25, 2013

An evidence-based rethinking of the religion-science conflict

Research by sociologist John Evans (University of California, San Diego) concludes that (1) Christians know...