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Religion and ethics

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March 2016

March 21, 2016

How “big gods” make us play nice

Believing in gods that care about human morality may encourage people to treat each other...

August 2015

August 11, 2015

Reason™ is not going to save the world

Should we be all rational, all the time? Not if we want the planet to...

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...

July 2014

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...

May 2014

May 19, 2014

Religion influences ethics more in low-religiosity countries

Two researchers argue that religious believers are more likely to internalize their faiths’ values in...

April 2014

April 22, 2014

How religion will save the world

Cultures that hold nothing to be sacred, like our global marketplace, have little chance of...

April 07, 2014

Where religion pervades, prejudice reigns

A team of researchers has found that cultures with high levels of everyday religiosity are...

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 25, 2013

Trust issues? The answer might be rhythm

Why do religions have rituals like bowing or praying in time with a group? Recent...

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...

June 2013

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...

February 2013

February 12, 2013

Religious households more likely to save money, plan for the future

Research by economists Luc Renneboog and Christophe Spaenjers (both Tilburg University, Netherlands) suggests that religious...

December 2012

December 27, 2012

How are religious values passed down through families?

Focusing specifically on how grandmothers pass on their religious values to their granddaughters, psychologists Denise...

October 2012

October 30, 2012

Forgiveness may affect longevity, health

A new research paper in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine shows that attaching conditions to...

September 2012

September 30, 2012

Not conservatives, but religious people, more charitable

Sociologists Brandon Vaidyanathan, Christian Smith (both University of Notre Dame), and Jonathan Hill (Calvin College)...

September 22, 2012

Dalai Lama: We need ethics beyond religion

In a public statement, the Dalai Lama has claimed that humanity's ethics and morals need...

September 07, 2012

AAP: Health benefits of newborn male circumcision outweigh risks

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has updated their position on circumcision, concluding that it...

August 2012

August 31, 2012

A mystery in the history of Anabaptists

Luke J. Matthews (Harvard University) et al. found that violent ideology stems more from congregationally...

July 2012

July 24, 2012

Orthodox and progressives differ worldwide

Connor Wood From religion blogs to blockbuster academic books, debates and conversations on religion are...

June 2012

June 18, 2012

Religion-science reporting: We need to do better

A new research study from the Bay Area has been misreported throughout the Internet, falsely...

June 12, 2012

Does religion make us moral?

Does religion make us moral or not? Researcher Paul Bloom (an atheist, mind you) thinks...

June 08, 2012

Why do we think the soul persists after death?

Why do we think there's an afterlife? A California research team thinks that not only...

March 2012

March 09, 2012

Animals have empathy too!

Connor Wood You come home from a long day, tired and worn out. The boss...