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July 2022

July 05, 2022

Why Rites of Passage Are Painful

At the podcast "How God Works," I discuss the worldwide phenomenon of painful adolescent rites...

December 2021

December 20, 2021

The Natural History of Music

I’m teaching a course on the evolution of music through Scholarium in January and February. Or,...

April 2021

April 30, 2021

The Joys and Challenges of Interdisciplinary Research

Academia can be a fiercely jealous environment — jealous, that is, of the boundaries between...

July 2020

July 31, 2020

Religious Experience and Homo Duplex

Where does religious experience come from? In a new article, I combine Durkheim's concept of...

April 2020

April 15, 2020

Maybe Modern Liberal Democracy Is a Side Effect of Protestantism

Why do some countries offer more fertile soil for democracy than others? A study in...

February 2020

February 21, 2020

Will Cognitive Gadgets Replace Evolutionary Psychology?

Psychologist Cecilia Heyes thinks that evolutionary psychology's main claim – that the mind is made...

January 2020

January 15, 2020

Extreme Rituals and Health: A Surprising Match

With the possible exception of scrolling through Twitter, it’s hard to imagine an activity less...

November 2019

November 23, 2019

Videos on War and Painful Ritual

Back in the spring, the Center for Mind and Culture and I hosted a colloquium for...

November 09, 2019

What Distinguishes Humans from Chimps? Vocal Learning and Ritual.

The neuroscientist Björn Merker argues that humans, unlike chimpanzees, have "ritual culture" – culture that...

June 2019

June 13, 2019

Tradition and Innovation as Worldviews: Is Research into Religion a Fool’s Errand?

Tradition and religion are a poor fit in the innovation-driven economy that professionals inhabit. Is...

May 2019

May 28, 2019

Did Big Gods Come Before or After Big Societies?

Do "big gods" – supernatural beings who care about human morality and fairness – help...

April 2019

April 04, 2019

Catholic Marriage Rules May Explain Why Western Societies are So WEIRD

Residents of Western Europe and North America are WEIRD – individualistic, analytically minded, and impersonally...

March 2019

March 16, 2019

How to Do Interdisciplinary Work that Works

This past weekend, a group of senior scholars met for a colloquium in Boston to...

January 2019

January 09, 2019

Gods Are Everywhere Because It’s Hard to Bargain With Them

Why do so many people worship invisible beings, accept the authority of millennia-old texts, or...

November 2018

November 14, 2018

Are Your Political Beliefs Like a Religion?

If you’ve gotten into a political argument on Facebook recently, you might be excused for...

September 2018

September 21, 2018

New Project: Synthesizing Empirical Findings and Theory in the Scientific Study of Religion

There are a lot of fields of study in the modern university. You could major...

August 2018

August 30, 2018

Fun Conference Recap: The International Association for the Cognitive Science of Religion 2018

A lot of science happens when scientists are alone. There are the late nights coding...

June 2018

June 28, 2018

Does Marching to the Same Rhythm Always Unite Us? Our New Study Says No

We humans love rhythm. Music, dancing, clapping, singing – no matter what form it comes...

June 20, 2018

A Cognitive (and Social) View of Ritual

Imagine two scenes. In the first, a person chucks a book casually on a table,...

May 2018

May 25, 2018

Cognitive Style, Religious Beliefs, and Individualism

People whose cognitive style is analytical or reflective are less likely to be religious than...

April 2018

April 18, 2018

Why Is Shamanism So Common?

A few years back, I wrote a post here called “Spirit Possession: Everyone’s Doing It.”...

February 2018

February 28, 2018

Why I Left the Humanities for the Sciences

I didn’t start out as a scientist. As an undergraduate, I majored in English,...

October 2017

October 31, 2017

Yes, religion is connected with morality. Here’s how

One of the most common ideas about religion is that it’s somehow intrinsically connected with...

September 2017

September 30, 2017

How the Brain’s Predictions Shape Religion

A cognitive process called predictive processing may be how the brain generates religious and spiritual...

August 2017

August 30, 2017

Religion and self-regulation: a model (and a trip to Norway)

Last week, I had the good fortune to attend a conference in Norway. For four...

June 2017

June 26, 2017

Rituals boost self-control

Maybe you’ve heard of the “marshmallow experiment” for testing people's self-control. In this classic psychology...

June 06, 2017

Religious beliefs are a kind of play

Why do people believe in God or gods? One philosopher argues that religious beliefs are...

May 2017

May 11, 2017

Cognitive biases don’t explain religion, after all

A new study finds that the reason why Slovakians are religious, but their close neighbors...

April 2017

April 26, 2017

In New Zealand, religion reduces prejudice – but media inflames it

In New Zealand, strongly religious people have less prejudice for Muslims and immigrants. But nightly...

April 11, 2017

Cool new research in religion

If you ever want to get seriously frustrated, I suggest getting advanced graduate training in...