The reasons behind the cultural persistence of religious beliefs throughout human history and prehistory still generate unanswered questions requiring scientific explanations. Within the framework of the cognitive science of religion, this article reviews experimental evidence supporting human predisposition for religious thinking and focuses on the hypothesis that a reason why religious belief...

Ever since Darwin people have worried about the sceptical implications of evolution. If our minds are products of evolution like those of other animals, why suppose that the beliefs they produce are true, rather than merely useful? We consider this problem for beliefs in three different domains: religion, morality, and commonsense and scientific claims about matters of empirical fact. We identi...

Motivated thinking leads people to perceive similarity between the self and ingroups, but under some conditions, people may recognize that personal beliefs are misaligned with the beliefs of ingroups. In two focal experiments and two replications, we find evidence that perceived belief similarity moderates ingroup favoritism. As part of a charity donation task, participants donated money to a c...

In the social sciences, talk about belief is ubiquitous . Since social scientists are typically self-conscious about their methods, there is also a lot of talk about talk about belief And since belief is a genuinely curious and perplexing phenomenon , showing many different faces to the world , there is abundant controversy. Sometimes belief attribution appears to be a dark, risky, and imponder...

regarding the utilization of cultural and religious beliefs in the treatment of physical and mental disorders, this article presents the cases of 3 iranian psychiatric patients with severe physical and mental symptoms, preceded by a long history of different psychiatric treatments. these cases illustrate that bu relying on patients religious beliefs and faith, the therapist can increase his / h...

Students' religious beliefs and religious cultures have been shown to be the main factors predicting whether they will accept evolution, yet college biology instructors teaching evolution at public institutions often have religious beliefs and cultures that are different from their religious students. This difference in religious beliefs and cultures may be a barrier to effective evolution educ...

OBJECTIVE To determine the acceptability of porcine and bovine surgical implants among persons of Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu faiths whose beliefs prohibit them from consuming porcine and bovine products. DATA SOURCES An evaluation of current literature concerning religious beliefs among persons of Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu faiths was undertaken to determine if animal-derived surgical implants ...

The relationship between religiosity and health has been investigated in many studies, with most finding positive associations. However, little is known about the role of religiosity in dietary factors, particularly among African American women. We used a self-administered questionnaire to examine the association between religiosity and dietary beliefs and behaviors among African American women...

This article examines whether shared religious beliefs and religious social relationships (Durkheim) and belief in a personal, moral God (Stark) negatively affect attitudes toward the acceptability of white-collar crime. In addition, using a large cross-national sample and estimating multilevel models, we test whether effects are conditional on modernization and religious contexts characterized...

Background and Objectives: Family is the most sacred institution in the religion of Islam, and women’s health is the keystone of family and society’s health. Therefore, addressing all aspects of women’s health, including sexual health, contributes to strengthening the foundation of the family. This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between religious beliefs and sexual h...