Content on Belief
“The Mysterious” Versus “The Unknown”
For those of us who pray, do we need to know how and why God answers?
The ‘Mystery’ of Believing Without a Causal Story
Why do we sometimes believe things that we don’t fully understand?
Centering the Soul: A Conversation With Dr. Lisa Miller
How do we define spirituality in an age where it means so many things to so many different people? What is keeping us from being our most aware, fullest selves? And how can we pass this knowledge on to our children, in the face of massive uncertainty? Dr. Lisa Miller, professor at Teachers’ College, Columbia University, has investigated these topics with empirical rigor in her New York Times-bestselling book, The Spiritual Child: The New Science on Parenting for Health…
Order Amidst Chaos: How Judaism and Psychology Respond to Trauma
Jewish tradition is about confronting rather than denying negative events, not to be morbid, but as a way to reconcile with one’s past in order to move forward.
Quantum Physics and Faith, Who Knew?
The rules that I believe God wrote to govern the universe are all about probabilities, which means that in theory, or perhaps, better, hypothetically, nothing is impossible, that everything has at least a scintilla of possibility.
How Civic Religion Creates Civic Reality
We do understand that saying words doesn’t automatically make them true. But we also understand that at certain times — such as at inaugurations — words do have power.
Why America Is Ripe for Election Conspiracy Theorizing
The psychological need for understanding the world is joined by two other needs that underlie conspiracism—feeling safe, and belonging to social groups that affirm or encourage self-respect.
Corona and Keter, Disease and Divinity
Rather than seeing God as decreeing disease, we’re better off recognizing how human beings affect the cosmos and, in turn, the divine.
The Worth of an Angry God
How did supernatural beliefs allow societies to bond and spread?
How Can Educational Research Inform Science Communication?
Scientists and science communicators often believe that hearts and minds could be changed about complex scientific issues if only the public had access to more, and better, information. Yet evidence indicates that this is not the case.
The Science We Take on Faith
Science demands proof for what it believes. But there is something that scientists believe without proof, and that cannot be proved: the central doctrine of science.
Is Faith Like ‘Fake News’?
As a scientist, it takes years of training and failing, and occasionally succeeding, to become comfortable with knowing that some day you might be proven wrong. How different that looks through the lens of faith!