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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 30, 2021

More Signal, Less Noise

A while back, I left formal academia. In the post where I announced that decision,...

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,...

July 2021

July 31, 2021

The Catholic Latin Mass is a Strong Credibility-Enhancing Display

Pope Francis recently restricted the Catholic Tridentine Latin mass. The resulting firestorm of controversy may...

June 2021

June 14, 2021

Music and Dance in Human Evolution

Humans everywhere play music and dance. But other animals don't — so where did these...

February 2021

February 10, 2021

Is Academia a Failed Initiation Rite?

Now that I’m (mostly) outside the world of American higher education, I’ve been looking in...

November 2020

November 23, 2020

Ritual, Play, and the Landscape of Value

Back in October, I was privileged to give the keynote talk at a Toronto School...

October 2020

October 29, 2020

Is Your Society Good for (Biological) Fitness?

Back in September, I described a computer model my collaborator Rich Sosis and I built...

September 2020

September 29, 2020

Religions as Complex Adaptive Systems

A shouting match is often perversely compelling in the same way that a road accident...

January 2020

January 28, 2020

Why Humans Imitate. And Imitate. And Imitate.

Life in 21st-century America – or any wealthy Western nation, really – is a nonstop...

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 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...

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...

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,...

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,...

January 2018

January 11, 2018

Why meaning is more important for humans than comfort

Religion does many things. It can form bonds between people, foment conflicts, and inspire people...

December 2017

December 13, 2017

Elitism Is a Problem. Being Elite Is the Solution.

It’s almost 2018. We survived the past year, but it was a stormy one. Global politics...

November 2017

November 22, 2017

How Religion Is Like Play

Is religion a form of play? I asked this question in a recent article in Orbiter,...

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...

April 2017

April 04, 2017

Is a global community really possible?

This was supposed to be an era of globalism and tolerance. But if we want...

February 2017

February 24, 2017

Want to study the science of religion? Start with this MOOC

A science of religion would help us understand some baffling things. Why do otherwise normal...

December 2016

December 21, 2016

Social media is toxic. Religious studies tells us why.

Why does social media bring out the worst in us? Religious studies tells us that...

November 2016

November 29, 2016

Overworked? Try a little ritual

Human ritual is an evolutionary product of the behavioral instinct for play. Without that instinct,...

February 2015

February 02, 2015

America’s public ritual gone terribly wrong

Sports exemplify the central role of play in human culture, the crucial importance of arbitrary...

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...

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...

February 2014

February 04, 2014

Holden Caulfield and the Super Bowl

Is the Super Bowl stupid? Sure. But let's stop the Holden Caulfield Syndrome of mocking...

January 2014

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 06, 2013

Religion, imagination, and secret worlds

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