Science on Religion Research News
Religion’s effect on moral decisions
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- Published on 14 June 2013
- Written by Nicholas C. DiDonato
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The relationship between religion and morality continues to be hotly contested. In one corner, some have argued that religion poisons everything and distorts moral judgment. In the opposing corner, others have maintained that religion makes people more moral. Wanting to test the relationship between religion and morality empirically, Alan Walker, Jason DeBode (both Auburn University), and James Smither (La Salle University) found nuanced results sure to displease people in both corners.
Prayer encourages forgiveness
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- Published on 08 June 2013
- Written by Nicholas C. DiDonato
- Hits: 96
All too often when people think of prayer, they think of asking for a material product from a divine power. People pray for cars or houses or even just good old-fashioned cash. While asking the divine for worldly goods is interesting in and of itself, psychologist Nathaniel Lambert (Florida State University) and colleagues wondered about the effects of praying for the well-being of others, and found that praying for others leads to an increased willingness to forgive them.
Why do we moralize?
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- Published on 04 June 2013
- Written by Connor Wood
- Hits: 93
We humans are one of the most social species in the world. We live together in hives of millions and, as children, we fail to thrive unless we’re given adequate social support. But all this social integration comes at a cost – living in such close quarters and depending on each other for our well-being, we have to be alert for people who might try to cheat, harm, or take advantage of us. Researchers have theorized that moralizing, the tendency to harshly judge certain behaviors, is one strategy for guarding against exploitive peers. Recently, though, a Danish researcher has found that how much you moralize may depend on how many friends you have – and whether those friends are religious.
Ritual works by bypassing conscious cognition
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- Published on 23 May 2013
- Written by Connor Wood
- Hits: 223
Pretend you’re an alien anthropologist come to Earth to study humans. What do you notice most about these strange, bipedal creatures? Their glittering cities? Their fondness for chocolate? Their use of daringly creative insults during traffic jams? Maybe, but let’s not forget one behavior that distinguishes humans almost more than anything else: ritual, and lots of it. No other animal participates in, invents, or performs rituals as complex and detailed as humans. But why? Our bemused alien anthropologist might benefit from new Danish research describing how ritual, using what's called “cognitive resource depletion,” helps cultures pass knowledge and values down to new members.
Five ways religion can influence political beliefs
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- Published on 18 May 2013
- Written by Nicholas C. DiDonato
- Hits: 166
Typically, when people think of “religion and politics,” they think of social issues such as abortion, contraceptives, and gay marriage. While that’s not a bad place to start, it does in fact start at the group level rather than focusing on individuals. Wanting instead to see how religion can affect political beliefs at the individual level, Ryan LaMothe (St. Meinrad School of Theology) found five ways in which this can happen.
The Boston Marathon bombings and the scientific study of religion
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- Published on 11 May 2013
- Written by Nicholas C. DiDonato
- Hits: 166
Much to the chagrin of the vast majority of Muslims around the world, the brothers responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing were Muslim. Once again, a fringe group within Islam has cast a dark shadow on all of Islam. While one should not associate Islam with terrorism, neither should one completely dismiss the role religion played in motivating the bombers. Aiming to shed light on the issue of the religious motivations of the Boston bombers, anthropologist Scott Atran (John Jay college) notes the homegrown, decentralized nature of modern Islamic terrorism.
The neurology of spirit writing
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- Published on 06 May 2013
- Written by Connor Wood
- Hits: 275
Mediums – people who say they can channel spirits or other supernatural beings to communicate with the living – often get a bad rap. They’re the subjects of debunking attempts, they’re accused of fraud, and most people think they’re just plain odd. But what if we deferred our judgments and tried to find out just what’s actually going on physically and neurologically in the act of channeling? A team of researchers in the US and Brazil did just that, finding that, whatever else is happening, mediums show some very unique patterns of brain activity. And even more interestingly, those patterns differ depending on the mediums’ amount of experience.
How religion shapes genetics
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- Published on 01 May 2013
- Written by Connor Wood
- Hits: 215
In the United States, religion is usually said to be a personal affair – one’s own private decision about how and what to believe. But this remarkably private and individualistic approach is somewhat odd when compared with the vast majority of cultures and religions throughout history. Far more often, religion has been a public affiliation, determining cultural identities, affecting marriage and family choices, and defining groups in relation to each other. A fascinating recent study published in PLOS Genetics shows just how inextricable religion often is from culture, finding that religious identity has decisively shaped the genetic landscape of the Levant - so decisively, in fact, that Lebanese Muslims are more closely related to fellow Muslims from Morocco or Yemen than they are to their Christian or Jewish compatriots.
Criminals use religion to justify their crimes
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- Published on 27 April 2013
- Written by Nicholas C. DiDonato
- Hits: 218
Redemption stories are the stuff of movie magic: a hardened criminal goes to jail, has a religious conversion, and then turns his life around and becomes a force for good. While this makes for compelling drama, it does not make for an accurate description of criminals’ actual appropriation of religion. Research by criminologists Volkan Topalli, Timothy Brezina, and Mindy Bernhardt (all Georgetown State University) suggests that “[t]hrough purposeful distortion or genuine ignorance” criminals take advantage of religious beliefs in order to justify their ongoing criminal behavior.
Earn $63,628 worth of happiness: pray
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- Published on 20 April 2013
- Written by Nicholas C. DiDonato
- Hits: 232
People commonly say that “money can’t by happiness,” but such people do not bother economists. Economists like to quantify everything in terms of money, including happiness. And when they got wind of research that religion increases long-term happiness, they naturally asked, “By how much (in US dollars)?” More exactly, Timothy Tyler Brown (University of California, Berkeley) investigated the value of happiness prayer yields for the average individual per year in dollars, and found that the answer is $63,628.
Parallel evolution: reexamining evolution’s “randomness”
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- Published on 16 April 2013
- Written by Nicholas C. DiDonato
- Hits: 294
Evolution, when taken as the only narrative of how organisms came into existence, paints a rather bleak picture: purposeless forces randomly give rise to humans who could just as easily have not existed at all. This may disturb some religious people, whose religious narratives say that humans have a purpose. But new research suggests that evolution may not be as random as is typically thought: experiments in “parallel evolution” show that the same genetic structures evolve in the same circumstances.
More Articles...
- Does religious belief make you a better person?
- The persuasive power of the “new atheists”
- Health, forgiveness, and religion
- How the brain escapes the self
- Rewriting the script: We change our own religious memories
- How WEIRD are you?
- Psychology and the religion-science conflict: Part 2
- Psychology and the religion-science conflict: Part 1
- Video games: they have what atheists crave
- Does God accept the real you?
- An evidence-based rethinking of the religion-science conflict
- Religious households are more likely to save money and plan for the future
- Does suffering drive us to religion?
- Religion as the opiate of the poor: Was Karl Marx right?
- Attending religious services predicts reduced deviance in prisoners
- Do you believe in magic? Seriously.
- Interview: Michael Ruse on evolution, creationism, and religion
- How religious values are passed down
- Belief in the occult growing in Europe
- Why atheist scientists bring their children to church
