Recent technical advances in the life and medical sciences have revolutionized our understanding of the brain, while the emerging disciplines of social, cognitive, and affective neuroscience continue to reveal the connections of the higher cognitive functions and emotional states associated with religious experience to underlying brain states. At the same time, a host of developing theories in ...

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...

The recent interest in the psychopharmacological underpinnings of religious experiences has led to both the laboratory characterizations of drug-induced mystical events and psychobiological models of religious experiences rooted in evolution and fitness. Our examination of this literature suggests that these theories may be congruent only within more modern religious and cultural settings and a...

The family is the principal context for religious and spiritual socialization. Although religion remains a central force in the lives of most African Americans, research has failed to explore the role and impact of family on religious socialization within this population. This study addresses that gap in the literature by (1) exploring adults' perceptions of the influence of their parents, gran...

BACKGROUND Religiosity in health care delivery has attracted some attention in contemporary literature. The religious beliefs and practices of patients play an important role in the recovery of the patient. Pregnant women and women in labour exhibit their faith and use religious artefacts. This phenomenon is poorly understood in Ghana. The study sought to investigate the religious beliefs and p...

WE SYSTEMATICALLY REVIEWED THE RESEARCH LITERATURE ON SPIRITUALLY AND RELIGIOUSLY INTEGRATED GROUP PSYCHOTHERAPY TO ANSWER THE FOLLOWING THREE QUESTIONS: first, how are spirituality and religiosity defined; second, how are spiritual and religious factors characterized and integrated into group psychotherapy; and, third, what is the outcome of the group psychotherapies? We searched in two databa...

Revered in some cultures but persecuted by most others, epilepsy patients have, throughout history, been linked with the divine, demonic, and supernatural. Clinical observations during the past 150 years support an association between religious experiences during (ictal), after (postictal), and in between (interictal) seizures. In addition, epileptic seizures may increase, alter, or decrease re...

Religion is a ubiquitous aspect of human culture, yet until recently, relatively little was known about its natural origins and effects on human minds and societies. This is changing, as scientifi c interest in religion is on the rise. Debates about the evolutionary origins and functions of religion, including its origins in genetic and cultural evolution, hinge on a set of empirical claims abo...