Author: Luke W. Galen
Luke W. Galen is associate professor of psychology at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. Jeremy Beahan teaches world religions, aesthetics, and introduction to philosophy at Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids. He is the producer and cohost of the popular skeptical podcast Reasonable Doubts.
A Skeptical Review of Religious Prosociality Research
It should come as no surprise to readers that the general public overwhelmingly assumes that religion is tied to morality. This can be de scribed as the “Religion Makes You Good” theory. In more scientific terms, this “religious prosociality hypothesis” predicts that religious belief is associated with a variety of positive social behaviors ranging from …
Profiles of the Godless; Results from a survey of the nonreligious
The nonreligious segment of the population is not only increasing but is also increasingly visible in the public square. Still, self-described religious believers constitute the vast majority of the American population, and so more attention has been paid by social scientists and survey researchers to distinctions such as religious denomination (say, evangelicals vs. mainline) or …