Religious belief is likely a by-product of human moral reasoning, suggest psychologists Monday. In an opinion piece in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Ilkka Pyysiainen of Finland’s University of Helsinki and Marc Hauser of Harvard, looked at recent experiments in moral psychology to argue for religion’s roots. “We were interested
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Obama has reinvigorated my hopes for his presidency this year beginning with his renewed commitment to push Congress to repeal the“don’t ask, don’t tell” policy—which bars gays and lesbians from openly serving in the armed forces—in his first State of the Union Address.  Other positive news includes the administrations global health imitative
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As we approach February 12–the anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birthday and International Darwin Day–it’s worth reflecting on current attitudes about evolution in our country. The overall data is not good. Based on a 2006 study, acceptance of the theory of evolution by natural selection is abysmal compared to many other
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Years ago, Religious Right leaders made it clear that controlling what students learn in public schools was critical to their goal of changing the nation’s political culture. Perhaps in no other state has that strategy advanced as far as it has in Texas. Conservative evangelical Christians set out to take
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Harvard’s Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein is making the rounds promoting his new book, Good Without God. Recently he was interviewed by Sally Quinn of the Washington Post as part of their Divine Impulses series (see video). Epstein makes the point that Humanism “has always been just a little bit dangerous to
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The Pew Research Center recently compiled a lengthy and exhaustive study on the state of science education in the United States.  The project–which sampled about 1,000 randomly selected US citizens–tackled a variety of issues in the public perception of science. Some of the results were surprising–84% of Americans think that
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American sociologist Phil Zuckerman discusses religion and secularism in Denmark. Sam Harris writes in his newsletter: Contrary to the views of many conservative pundits and the Christian Right, the least religious countries in the world today are not full of chaos and immorality, but are actually among the safest, healthiest,
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