Category: Research Report: Does Religion Really Make Us Better People?

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 …

Here’s a question you won’t find on a Gallup or Pew survey: “How much do you hate religious proselytizing?” Wouldn’t it be nice to know how Americans really feel about being evangelized? Don’t expect the answer soon! The problem is that neither major polling organizations nor such major funders of research as the Templeton and …

In 2009, when I published my book The God Virus, I received an overwhelming number of e-mails and phone calls from people asking for help dealing with the emotional and psychological trauma in connection with their leaving religion. In response, I founded Recovering from Religion, now a rapidly growing organization headed by Executive Director Sarah …

  The future is already here—it’s just not very evenly distributed. —Attributed to William F. Gibson Many people are convinced that the end of the world is nigh—even aft er the failure of predictions in 2012 based on the Mayan calendar—due to what they believe is stated in the Book of Revelation. To be sure, …