Science On Religion
Eric Metaxas’s "scientific" argument for God makes religion too literal, placing it squarely in science’s crosshairs. But let's not make the opposite mistake: protecting religion from the objective facts won't keep it vital. Read more
Eric Metaxas’s "scientific" argument for God makes religion too literal, placing it squarely in science’s crosshairs. But let's not make the opposite mistake: protecting religion from the objective facts won't keep it vital. Read more
Agreeable, conscientious people are more likely to obey orders to harm other people. What does this mean for religion and tradition? Read more
Activism and tradition need each other. Lacking any prophets, the comfortable establishment just sinks deeper into self-satisfaction. Lacking any tradition or deep commitments to history, revolutionaries become caught in rabid individualism and toxic addiction to the present. Read more
Our brains build up stable patterns of activity over time, and these patterns may inhibit dopamine release - leading to depression and melancholy. Can samatha Buddhist meditation free us from our engrained mental habits? Read more
Religious experience is something that comes from what bodies do. What goes on in our muscles, our guts, and on the surface of our skin actually matters. If you want to understand religion, or culture, or London, you need to understand humans -- and if you want to understand humans, you need to understand bodies. Read more
Theological conflict is already everywhere. We're just not calling it theology. And we don't have any experts to guide us. A return of articulate, impassioned public theology would allow us all to drag our theological agendas into the daylight, and to fight about them honorably where everyone can see. This, in turn, could increase the quality of people’s thinking about the big questions Read more
There is real good and real bad to be found in religious culture. It crafts meaning and it alienates the outsider. It builds comfortable rapport within its boundaries and sets limits on who’s in and who’s out. This paradox is not neatly resolvable. It;s a genuine incompatibility. Read more
Kate Stockly-Myerdirk Last week, Connor wrote about sex differences here. I happen to research one specific instance of sex difference: the fact that women tend to be more religious than men. Social scientists have come up with all sorts of unsatisfying theories for why this could be. Is it because women are socialized to be more submissive, gentle, and expressive, which are (apparently) religious values? Is it because church life is an extension of home and family life, in which... Read more
We should be suspicious of sweeping claims about sex differences. But for there to be no differences at all, our minds would have to be independent of our bodies. This argument might be a kind of imperialism in its own right – an assault against the legitimacy of the body. Read more
Countries with higher gross domestic products have higher suicide rates and less self-reported meaning in life than their poorer counterparts. Religion may be the reason why. Read more
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