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June 2014

June 03, 2014

Awesome theories of religion, Part 2

This week, I’m focusing on four thinkers who have advanced our understanding of how ritual...

May 2014

May 27, 2014

4 neat theories of religion

Here's Part 1 of a list of very smart and interesting people with profound theories...

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...

May 05, 2014

Internet comments: the poisoned well

Highly negative comments inspire readers to react in polarized ways to news articles, forcing splits...

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 14, 2014

Awe increases religious belief

Two researchers from California have found that awe-inspiring images make people believe more in God....

April 07, 2014

Where religion pervades, prejudice reigns

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

March 2014

March 31, 2014

Don’t understand religion? Experiment with it.

As William James reminded his readers a century ago, our internal mental states and attitudes...

March 21, 2014

Is science more “unnatural” than religion?

Is religion more "natural" than science? Cognitive scientist Robert McCauley says yes, because religion depends...

March 12, 2014

Big changes are coming to politics in America. Here’s why

Libertarians and social conservatives are headed for divorce. So are liberal Democrats and working-class minorities....

February 2014

February 19, 2014

Sinai and Synapses: A video about studying religion

Together with my friend and colleague Tim Maness, I made a couple of videos last...

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 13, 2014

My employer: The Institute for the Bio-Cultural Study of Religion

The Institute for the Bio-Cultural Study of Religion, also known as IBCSR, is an independent...

January 06, 2014

Does atheism arise from wealth?

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

December 2013

December 31, 2013

Farewell to Ian Barbour

Ian Barbour, the physicist and religious studies scholar who passed away at the end of...

December 23, 2013

Is religion anthropomorphism?

Anthropologist Stewart Guthrie argues that religion arises from humans' inborn tendency to anthropomorphize the world...

December 13, 2013

Inclusive fitness, models, and religious evolution

New research in evolutionary theory sheds light on a long-simmering debate in the scientific study...

December 06, 2013

Religion, imagination, and secret worlds

Why do religions seem to create such strong communities? Partly, it's because they help people...

November 2013

November 29, 2013

We are all teachers. Or at least we should be.

Internet comments and opinion pieces show that we're all pretty impatient with those who disagree...

November 21, 2013

Religion makes you prejudiced. God doesn’t.

Some kinds of religious priming makes people more prejudiced against minorities. Others seem to make...

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 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...

September 2013

September 26, 2013

Why conservatives hate Obamacare

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

September 04, 2013

Ritual creates tribes…and tribalism

In a lot of ways religion is a Catch-22. It primes us to be strongly...

August 2013

August 27, 2013

Calling an End to the Culture Wars

Connor Wood argues that conservative and liberal thought are both invaluable: conservatives are experts on...

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...

August 13, 2013

The “Religion vs. Creativity” Debate Rages On

Even in the most integrated, holistic community, where everyone shares the same basic cosmological assumptions,...

August 08, 2013

Social Capital (and Religion?) Helped the Spread of Nazism

Areas of Germany with high social integration and social capital saw a much quicker expansion...