although effects of religious beliefs on mental health have not been greately studied, however available evidence in this field has shown that these beleifs have substantial effects on all aspects of human life, e.g., they may prevent drug or alcohol abuse. deep religious beliefs buffer the outcome of stress, depression, delinquency and divorce in religious people and substantially reduce suici...

An analytic cognitive style denotes a propensity to set aside highly salient intuitions when engaging in problem solving. We assess the hypothesis that an analytic cognitive style is associated with a history of questioning, altering, and rejecting (i.e., unbelieving) supernatural claims, both religious and paranormal. In two studies, we examined associations of God beliefs, religious engagemen...

How does religion shape the nature of insurgency? Do Islamist insurgents fight differently from those with secular aims, like national selfdetermination? Do they select different types of targets, use different military strategies, respond to different types of incentives? Scholarly attention to the role of religion in civil and interstate war has increased in recent years, but there remains li...

The paper analyzes the relation between religious beliefs, religious participation and social cooperation. In particular, we focus on religions that instill beliefs about the connection between rewards and punishments and social behaviour. We show how religious organizations arise endogenously, analyze their e¤ect on social interactions in society and identify a "spiritual" as well as a "materi...

Going to college has long been assumed to liberalize students' religious beliefs. Using longitudinal data from the National Survey of Youth and Religion, we compare change in the content of religious beliefs of those who do and do not attend college. We find that, in general, college students are no more likely to develop liberal religious beliefs than nonstudents. In some cases, collegians act...