Science on Religion

Do your political views affect how you pray?

On the brink of election season, it's sometimes easy to imagine that liberals and conservatives inhabit different worlds. But does this mean that they also pray differently? Past research has shown that personality is directly linked with both political worldview and religiosity. This connection is examined more closely by new research on how liberals and conservatives pray. They differ, but not as we might expect.

The limits of “new atheism”

“New atheists” such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens insist on a fundamental incompatibility between religion and science. They see science as destined to replace religion, especially as science makes a religious worldview less and less plausible. For them, scientific advances reveal the truly natural and so negate religious additions. Against this “subtraction story,” Andrew Linscott (Boston University), following Charles Taylor, argues that the new atheists underestimate the complexity of what “natural” means.

Mysticism and mountains

Religions make some pretty outrageous claims. Many traditions assert that angels have visited important people here on Earth. Most insist that life after death is real. But one fact about religious claims that’s often lost in contemporary debates is that even the wildest religious propositions don’t just come from out of the blue. They often arise, as theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher pointed out, from religious experiences. And researchers from Israel and Switzerland think that many of these experiences may be triggered by high-altitude environments on mountainsides.

Mystical unity: A Chinese example

To believers, spiritual experiences often feels very real. In fact, religious thinkers of many different traditions have claimed that spiritual experiences are, in fact, more real than everyday life. But one of the most important hypotheses in contemporary religious studies is social constructivism, which is the idea that all religious concepts and beliefs are actually creations of human cultures. Social constructivists argue that religious and mystical experiences don’t reflect any higher reality, but in fact are merely products of history, culture, and society. But new research from China suggests that mystical experiences may go deeper than culture.

Americans: religious, scientific claims mostly in harmony

To believe the hype around science and religion, you’d think that nearly all religious folks in the United States were sunlight-fearing science-haters. And in fact, most social scientists assume that conservative religious people reject all basic scientific methods of gaining knowledge, preferring instead to stick with Scripture and religious authority. But new research makes a different claim: according to John H. Evans of the University of California, San Diego, religious Americans accept science in general – and are often highly scientifically literate – but they distrust scientists in a few key areas where the theological stakes are high.

Could religion help fend off depression?

Many church members would attest to the social and perhaps even emotional benefits of participation and belief. Could one of these benefits include prevention of a major depressive disorder (MDD)? This was the question asked by S. Kasen, P. Wickramaratne, M.J. Gameroff, and M.M. Weismann at Columbia University. The results indicate that religious service attendance can aid in the prevention of certain mental disorders in the offspring of non-depressed parents, and in the offspring of depressed parents who did not have a prior MDD.

Effects of social factors vary widely in different religions

In everyday conversation, people speak of “religion” as if it existed as a single entity. Even in scientific journals, researchers find x effect on “religion,” meaning religion as a whole (whatever that means). However, sometimes religion’s complexity throws researchers a curveball. For instance, research by sociologist Brandon Vaidyanathan (University of Notre Dame) found that parental religiosity, church support, religious education, and youth group involvement impacts church attendance in widely different ways across Christian denominations.

Protestants, Catholics, and the fundamental attribution error

The fundamental attribution error, also known as correspondence bias or the attribution effect, is a cognitive bias that unduly favors personality or internally based explanations of behavior over situational or externally based explanations. For example, if someone does poorly on a test you might consider the following explanations: that the person is not intelligent, that she or he did not study adequately, or some other factor based on individual responsibility. However, if you are this person who received a poor grade you are more likely to cite situational or external factors such as the difficulty of the test or lack of sleep. Much work has been done to explain this phenomenon and to figure out ways to reduce this error; however, until now little research has been conducted on the role religious ideas might play in this bias.

Institutions encourage good behavior

One of the most common critiques of religion, particularly from young, educated “nones” (people who affiliate with no religious tradition), is that institutional religion is oppressive. Such critiques claim that organized religion often generates prejudice, outgroup hostility, and conflict – indeed, for many people the most powerful illustration of “religion” is the image of planes flying into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. But new research from Stanford and MIT suggests that, paradoxically, large institutions may also have the most power to counteract such violence.

Meaning in life is good for life

Quality or quantity? Is it better to live a short life to its fullest, or to live a less rewarding but long life? Rather than seeing these two options as opposed to each other, research by Patricia A. Boyle, Lisa L. Barnes, Aron S. Buchman, and David A. Bennett (all of the Rush University Medical Center) suggests that quality and quantity of life go hand-in-hand. More precisely, having meaning in life elongates life.