Religion may reduce anxiety response

Last updated on: March 30, 2012 at 2:48 pm By Connor Wood

Connor Wood You’ve felt it before: the embarrassed, self-conscious realization that you’ve just committed a major error, made a mistake when you should have been performing better. We all experience this unpleasant feeling. Measuring electrical activity in the brain, researchers call it “error-related negativity,” relating it particularly to a part of the midbrain called the anterior cingulate cortex. New research indicates that religiousness may reduce activity in this part of the brain, physiologically buffering people against their own mistakes. Most... Read more

Political views may affect how we pray

Last updated on: August 7, 2013 at 4:25 pm By Guest Contributor

Jonathan Morgan 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. (more…) Read more

Darwinism: It’s true. But it ain’t pretty

Last updated on: December 15, 2013 at 9:06 pm By Connor Wood

Connor Wood For the scientifically literate, few things are as confusing as the persistent, even rabid refusal of millions of Americans to accept the theory of evolution by natural selection. How, the science-minded want to know, can these blubbering know-nothings ignore the vast body of evidence that supports Darwinism? How is it possible for them to trust a millennia-old Hebraic tribal legend over the hardworking efforts of countless brilliant scientists? Are they simply that stupid? The viscerally satisfying answer to... Read more

Rituals may affect memory in different ways

Last updated on: March 21, 2012 at 5:57 pm By Connor Wood

Connor Wood Do you remember what you were doing when you heard about the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001? How about the details of the pastor’s outfit at your wedding? Memory is powerfully affected by the contexts and circumstances within which we form our memories, but perhaps nowhere is this more true than in the rites and rituals that undergird religion. István Czachesz, a researcher the University of Helsinki, Finland, thinks that affecting... Read more

Gamma waves help meditation change the brain

Last updated on: August 7, 2013 at 4:25 pm By Connor Wood

Connor Wood Long-term meditators know that meditation can change people’s experience of the world, usually for the better. Highly experienced practitioners of meditation often report greater feelings of equanimity, patience, and compassion for others – even at times when they’re not meditating, such as during the workday or at dinner with family. Now researchers at the University of Bonn in Germany say they have an explanation for the new states of consciousness that arise as a result of meditation –... Read more

Religion makes cooperation a winning strategy

Last updated on: August 7, 2013 at 4:26 pm By Connor Wood

Connor Wood Human life depends absolutely on cooperation. Unlike other animals, we don’t have big fangs, sharp claws, or leather-thick hides. Instead, we have our ability to work efficiently with each other. In modern industrial civilization, we take this flair for cooperation to the next level, depending each day on thousands of strangers to bring food to our cities, keep the roads clean, and mine coal to power our homes. And it just might be religion that makes this all... Read more

Liberal Buddhism: at the boundaries

Last updated on: August 7, 2013 at 4:29 pm By Connor Wood

Connor Wood In Europe and North America, most religious people are Christian. This means that debates between theological liberals and conservatives in these countries are often about things like the divinity of Christ, the validity of other world religions, and the existence of Hell. But a team at Boston University has been researching patterns in ideology that transcend just the Christian tradition, and contemporary Buddhism offers a powerful example of how conservative/liberal differences play out in non-Christian faiths. A series... Read more

Mountains and mysticism

Last updated on: August 7, 2013 at 4:27 pm By Connor Wood

Connor Wood 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... Read more

Animals have empathy too!

Last updated on: August 7, 2013 at 4:28 pm By Connor Wood

Connor Wood You come home from a long day, tired and worn out. The boss chewed you out, so you’re also anxious and blue. You flop down in your recliner, reach for the remote – and feel the familiar, loving nuzzle of your faithful dog. It’s a heartwarming image, but does your dog’s concerned-sounding whining and extra attentiveness really mean he feels empathy for you? New research – and one local news story – hint that the answer may be... Read more

Religious Americans: science is mostly okay

Last updated on: March 9, 2012 at 4:10 pm By Connor Wood

Connor Wood 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... Read more