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2021-04-06T18:10:58-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The End of the Conflict Between Religion and Science

Last updated on: April 6, 2021 at 6:10 pm By Connor Wood

Religion and science used to be at each other's throats, especially in the heady days of New Atheism. But now postmodernism might have swallowed them both. Read more

Atheism

Editorial

Ideology and religion

Modern culture and religion

2021-02-10T12:23:15-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Is Academia a Failed Initiation Rite?

Last updated on: February 10, 2021 at 12:23 pm By Connor Wood

Now that I’m (mostly) outside the world of American higher education, I’ve been looking in at it from a slight remove, mulling on where it’s working and where I think it’s struggling. One area where our university system particularly shines is its ability to support what the philosopher Thomas Kuhn called normal science: the laborious, time-intensive process of devising experiments, collecting data, and slowly building out the implications of established theories or research programs. In a completely different sphere, I... Read more

Editorial

Ideology and religion

Modern culture and religion

academia

college

Copernican revolution

2021-01-19T17:04:16-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Symbolism of Old Gods and the U.S. Capitol Assault

Last updated on: January 19, 2021 at 5:04 pm By Connor Wood

On January 6th, 2021, a herd of conspiracy maniacs stormed the United States Capitol. A zealot with Norse pagan tattoos is now the face of Christianism. Read more

2021-02-16T22:51:09-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Academia and I Have Decided to Leave Each Other

Last updated on: February 16, 2021 at 10:51 pm By Connor Wood

Even stronger than the feeling of regret is the giddy anticipation of what comes next, combined with the enormous relief of leaving a profession whose future looks increasingly cloudy, and where the truly curious are increasingly unwelcome. Read more

2020-11-23T12:10:01-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Ritual, Play, and the Landscape of Value

Last updated on: November 23, 2020 at 12:10 pm By Connor Wood

Back in October, I was privileged to give the keynote talk at a Toronto School of Theology conference on how ritual and play structure "Value and Valuing." My argument? Animal ritualization and human ritual, which both share some crucial features with play, are indispensable tools for sending clear messages about complex or ambiguous social facts. Read more

Cognitive Science of Religion

Evolution of Religion

Toronto School of Theology

value

2020-11-09T13:43:27-05:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Voice of Scientific Authority Is Aghast…and Clueless

Last updated on: November 9, 2020 at 1:43 pm By Connor Wood

It took four days after the 2020 U.S. presidential election for the country to identify a clear winner. The delay shouldn’t be terribly surprising, given the complications of a coronavirus pandemic, mail-in voting, the closeness of many of the key races, and the generally bizarro nature of the year 2020. (Remember the enormous Australian mega-wildfires back in January? Yeah, me neither.) But the most prestigious scientific publication in the world, Nature, seems completely shocked that Democrat Joe Biden didn’t crush... Read more

2020-10-29T11:58:47-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Is Your Society Good for (Biological) Fitness?

Last updated on: October 29, 2020 at 11:58 am By Connor Wood

Back in September, I described a computer model my collaborator Rich Sosis and I built that simulates religious communities as complex adaptive systems. The model married complex-systems theory to human behavioral ecology, or the study of how human beings change their behavior according to different contexts and incentives — specifically, the evolutionary incentives of survival and reproduction. Applying this framework to human life leads to a striking conclusion: how loyal we are to our societies may hinge on whether those... Read more

Cognitive Science of Religion

Costly investment theory

Modeling Religion Project

behavioral ecology

collective action

complex adaptive systems

general purpose system

2020-09-29T12:56:12-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Religions as Complex Adaptive Systems

Last updated on: September 29, 2020 at 12:56 pm By Connor Wood

A shouting match is often perversely compelling in the same way that a road accident is: it’s ugly, but it commands your attention. Very occasionally, however, a viciously heated conversation manages to achieve aching tedium at the same time. For an example of this paradox, ask some religious studies scholars what religion is. The ensuing debate will be a painstaking, often bitter exchange of views that ultimately boils down to the deflationary proposition that there is, in fact, no such... Read more

Cognitive Science of Religion

Evolution of Religion

Modeling Religion Project

authority

behavioral ecology

belief

complex adaptive system

2020-08-28T10:56:09-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Human Need for Culture

Last updated on: August 28, 2020 at 10:56 am By Connor Wood

Some interesting battle lines have formed in the past few months.* We Americans had gotten used to thinking of ourselves as polarized between the Blue Tribe and the Red Tribe. But in recent years, decidedly illiberal factions have calved off from both these tribes, giving rise respectively to the identity-politics left and the populist right. In response, a growing chorus of old-school liberals have begun urgently defending the values and commitments of liberalism: free speech and debate, individual rights, procedural... Read more

Editorial

Ideology and religion

2020-08-07T12:32:18-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Religious Experience and Homo Duplex

Last updated on: August 7, 2020 at 12:32 pm By Connor Wood

Where does religious experience come from? In a new article, I combine Durkheim's concept of Homo Duplex, Victor Turner's concept of antistructure, and a healthy dose of contemporary social cognitive science to offer a new approach to this question. Read more

Cognitive Science of Religion

Religion and perception

Scientific study of religion

Spirituality

Ann Taves

antistructure

Carsten Herrmann-Pillath

communitas

complex adaptive systems

predictive processing

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