For half a decade, the cognitive science of religion has sought the evolutionary origins of religious belief. This burgeoning field has some deep and convincing explanations, but it may also stigmatize atheists as aberrations of evolution. Now, psychologists are countering this stigma by tracking the personality traits that naturally facilitate atheism. Their work gives us a personality profile that neutralizes atheism as one of many expected worldviews in any healthy, diverse community.
Read more... Add new comment
When you think of the word “spirituality,” what comes to mind? Luxury yachts, designer footwear, and shopping vacations in Europe, right? Nope – we didn’t think so. For most people, spirituality and religiousness seem to be deeply counterposed to materialistic desires and concerns. The Buddha renounced a life of royal luxury to seek enlightenment, for example, while Jesus urged his followers to give away all they owned. Now, research has found that merely asking people to think about spiritual experiences makes them less materialistic, regardless of their sense of meaning in life, levels of self-control, or even mood.
Complex and flexible behavior is a major mark of intelligence. But does complex behavior necessarily require a complex brain? The basic goal of the psychologist Louise Barrett’s engaging new book, 
Neurologists have long wondered whether a particular part of the brain can help explain a person’s experience of God. Stanley Koren and Michael Persinger, for example, famously developed the “God helmet,” a device that stimulated what they called "the God spot" and so induced its wearer to feel the presence of God. (Interestingly enough, the device had little effect on the popular atheist writer Richard Dawkins.) However, neuropsychologists Brick Johnstone and Bret Glass (both University of Missouri) challenge the plausibility of the “God spot,” arguing that spirituality involves many areas of the brain.
Religion and money have always had a bit of an awkward relationship. In the New Testament, Jesus overturns the money-changers’ tables in the Jerusalem Temple. In the Qur’an, the pursuit of money is a potential distraction from submission to Allah. Now, research from Spain adds to this ages-old opposition by showing that investment firms that choose stocks according to religious values perform more poorly than others. Making money, it seems, is just not a very religious thing to do – at least not when it comes to stocks.
If you watch the news or read the opinion pages, you could be forgiven for thinking that liberals and conservatives are members of completely different species. But why is it that these different groups have such a hard time getting along? A team of scientists from Nebraska thinks that the answer has to do with people’s bodies – specifically, how they’re physiologically predisposed to respond to the good and bad in their environments. The difference between conservatives and liberals, then, may go all the way down to the brainstem, and this difference can affect religious ideology too.
For many in the West, religion seems to oppress women. Conservative Christians not uncommonly reject the idea of female clergy, educators, and leaders. While this may (all too) roughly characterize Christianity, the question remains as to whether other religions fare any better. Drawing upon world-wide data, covering most of the world’s religions, Stephanie Seguino (University of Vermont) indeed found a correlation between how one views the importance of religion (whichever religion that may be) and one’s attitudes about gender inequality.
The religious brain is hot stuff right now. Publications as diverse as Science and Newsweek seem to be gaga about how meditation affects the frontal cortex, how praying soothes the amygdala, or how religious belief affects the psyche. But there’s a catch to all this excitement: nearly all the research focuses on either Christian or Buddhist forms of religious practice. Where are the other religions? A team of researchers from Malaysia recently helped to answer this question by studying how Muslim prayer affects alpha waves in the brain, and their results show a profound connection between mind and body.
When you think of the word “religion,” what comes to mind? Candles flickering in darkened chapels, cheerful baptisms, or ancient texts in dead languages? Sure, those images are pretty good. But how about disgusting bodily fluids and revolting lovemaking practices? Some types of Tantra, a variety of Hinduism often associated with the goddess Kali, enjoin practitioners to participate in some of the the most disgusting acts imaginable. And new research suggests that there might be important biological reasons for these behaviors. Specifically, disgusting acts transgress people’s innate biological desire to avoid pathogens, thus forcing a religious confrontation with death. (Warning: this article isn’t for the easily nauseated!)
When we picture boot camp, we think of yelling, push-ups, long marches, more yelling and… spiritual training? With the U.S. Army’s new Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program, (CSF), spiritual fitness may become just as important as all those push-ups. The army wants motivated, resilient, and morally grounded soldiers, so they’ve paid heed to the research linking spirituality with health. By 
Bad things happen to everyone, from failed projects to lost jobs, or broken bones to cancer. This was Buddha’s first noble truth: life is dukkha, or suffering. But we respond to suffering in a variety of ways. For religious believers, these tragic events can make or break their faith. In times of tragedy, some find comfort in their beliefs. Others, unable to reconcile themselves to a good God who does bad things, reject their faith. And there's a spectrum of responses in-between. But what makes us react these different ways?
The best things in life can’t be bought…but everyone has his or her price. The age-old wisdom about values and money can be contradictory. Fortunately, new research from both sides of the Atlantic helps clear things up – scientists using brain scanning technology have found that people will give up some values for money but not others. The values that people won’t sell light up regions of the brain associated with rules, not with utilitarian choices, implying that those values aren’t the products of mere cost-benefit analyses. Some “sacred” choices and values, it seems, just aren’t for sale.
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 interestingly, the source of this effect may be the generation of meaning itself.
