The evolutionary psychology of religion is the study of religious belief using evolutionary psychology principles. It is one approach to the psychology of religion. As with all other organs and organ functions, the brain and cognition's functional structure have been argued to have a genetic basis, and are therefore subject to the effects of natural selection and evolution. Like other organs and tissues, this functional structure should be universally shared amongst humans and should solve important problems of survival and reproduction. Evolutionary psychologists seek to understand cognitive processes, religion in this case, by understanding the survival and reproductive functions they might serve.

There is general agreement among scientists that a propensity to engage in religious behavior evolved early in human history. However, there is disagreement on the exact mechanisms that drove the evolution of the religious mind. There are two schools of thought. One is that religion itself evolved due to natural selection and is an adaptation, in which case religion conferred some sort of evolutionary advantage. Alternatively, religious beliefs and behaviors may have emerged as by-products of other adaptive traits without initially being selected for because of their own benefits.

Religious behavior often involves significant costs including economic costs, celibacy, dangerous rituals, or by spending time that could be used otherwise. This would suggest that natural selection should act against religious behavior unless it or something else causing religious behavior to have significant advantages.[1]

Richard Sosis and Candace Alcorta have reviewed several of the prominent theories for the adaptive value of religion.[2] Many are "social solidarity theories", which view religion as having evolved to enhance cooperation and cohesion within groups. Group membership in turn provides benefits which can enhance an individual's chances for survival and reproduction.

These social solidarity theories may help to explain the painful or dangerous nature of many religious rituals. Costly-signaling theory suggests that such rituals might serve as public and hard to fake signals that an individual's commitment to the group is sincere. Since there would be a considerable benefit in trying to cheat the system - taking advantage of group living benefits without taking on any possible costs - the ritual would not be something simple that can be taken lightly.[2] Warfare is a good example of a cost of group living, and Richard Sosis, Howard C. Kress, and James S. Boster carried out a cross-cultural survey which demonstrated that men in societies which engage in war do submit to the costliest rituals.[3]

Studies that show more direct positive associations between religious practice and health and longevity are more controversial. Harold G. Koenig and Harvey J. Cohen summarized and assessed the results of 100 evidence-based studies that systematically examined the relationship between religion and human well-being, finding that 79% showed a positive influence.[4] These studies are popular in the media, as seen in a recent NPR program including University of Miami Professor Gail Ironson's findings that belief in God and a strong sense of spirituality were good predictors of a lower viral load and improved immune cell levels in HIV patients.[5] However, Dr. Richard P. Sloan of Columbia University was quoted in the New York Times as saying that "...there is no really good compelling evidence that there is a relationship between religious involvement and health."[6] There is still debate over the validity of these findings, and they do not necessarily prove a direct cause-and-effect relationship between religion and health. Mark Stibich claims there is a clear correlation but the reason for it is unclear.[7] A criticism of such placebo effects, as well as the advantage of religion giving a sense of meaning, is that it seems likely that less complex mechanisms than religious behavior could achieve such goals.[1]

Stephen Jay Gould cites religion as an example of an exaptation or spandrel, but he does not himself select a definite trait which he thinks was actually acted on by natural selection. He does, however, bring up Freud's suggestion that our large brains, which evolved for other reasons, led to consciousness. The beginning of consciousness forced humans to deal with the concept of personal mortality. Religion may have been one solution to this problem.[8]

Other researchers have proposed specific psychological processes which may have been co-opted for religion. Such mechanisms may include the ability to infer the presence of organisms that might do harm (agent detection), the ability to come up with causal narratives for natural events (etiology), and the ability to recognize that other people have minds of their own with their own beliefs, desires and intentions (theory of mind). These three adaptations (among others) allow human beings to imagine purposeful agents behind many observations that could not readily be explained otherwise, e.g. thunder, lightning, movement of planets, complexity of life, etc.[9]

Pascal Boyer suggests, in his book Religion Explained, that there is no simple explanation for religious consciousness. He builds on the ideas of cognitive anthropologists Dan Sperber and Scott Atran, who argued that religious cognition represents a by-product of various evolutionary adaptations, including folk psychology. He argues that one such factor is that it has, in most cases, been advantageous for humans to remember "minimally counter-intuitive" concepts which are somewhat different from the daily routine and somewhat violate innate expectations about how the world is constructed. A god that is in many aspects like humans but much more powerful is such a concept while the often much more abstract god discussed at length by theologians is often too counter-intuitive. Experiments support that religious people think about their god in anthropomorphic terms even if this contradicts the more complex theological doctrines of their religion.[1]

Pierre Lienard and Pascal Boyer suggest that humans have evolved a "hazard-precaution system" which allows us to detect potential threats in the environment and attempt to respond appropriately.[10] Several features of ritual behaviors, often a major feature of religion, are held to trigger this system. These include the occasion for the ritual, often the prevention or elimination of danger or evil, the harm believed to result from nonperformance of the ritual, and the detailed proscriptions for proper performance of the ritual. Lienard and Boyer discuss the possibility that a sensitive hazard-precaution system itself may have provided fitness benefits, and that religion then "associates individual, unmanageable anxieties with coordinated action with others and thereby makes them more tolerable or meaningful".

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Evolutionary psychology of religion - Wikipedia, the free ...

When Google released its top trending search terms for 2014, the search engine invited us to peer into the abyss and ponder a terrifying question: what do these searches say about us? If the trending calorie searches tell us anything, its that Americans cant be trusted to feed ourselves. The list is split almost evenly between fruits/vegetables and junk food (how many calories in a Big Mac? alongside how many calories in an apple?) suggesting a binge-and-restrict approach that cant be good for our national health. But its the diet searches that reveal Americas love for a good lifestyle hack. While some old chestnuts wont diethe cheeseburger-no-bun Atkins Diet, the sensible and slightly romantic Mediterranean Dietmany of 2014s trendiest diets prove Americans love junk science almost as much as they love junk food. From co-opting Gwyneth Paltrows gluten sensitivity to injecting themselves with hormones, here are the most trendy ways we tried to reduce ourselves in 2014.

The Paleo Diet

This diet continued to have legsstrong, swift CrossFitted legsthis year because it promises that you can think like a lady (get that bikini body!) and eat like a caveman (all of the lard!). Paleo eaters get to eliminate dairy along with a lot of unnamed toxins and nebulously harmful contaminants (found in, I guess, beans?) while sounding virile, not fussyall thanks to evolutionary biology. The Paleo Diet claims to be a lifestyle diet that works with our genetics, not against them. Paleo looks to ancestral wisdomwhether from cave-dwelling Paleolithic ancestors or remote native populations untouched by Western diseasefor guidance on what to eat and how to live, says a basics article in Paleo Magazine. Its food spirituality for the recreational Krav Maga set, a way to give up gluten without taking up meditation.

Gluten-Free Diet

In the recent horse race of food sensitivities, real and imagined, gluten retained its lead this year. The practice of avoiding it has been co-opted from people with awful and inconvenient gastrointestinal disorders and severe allergies by those looking for a trendy yet science-y reason to avoid the bread basket in restaurants. While celiac disease patients are actually allergic to the wheat proteins, for trend-followers its also the next step in emulating Gwyneth Paltrows super-sensitive lifestyle brand.

The Military Diet

The Military Diet claims to be designed by top secret nutritionists at the U.S. military to get soldiers into tip top shape, which it does through a one-two punch of interval fasting and shame. According to the website, The people that fail on the Military Diet simply dont have the drive and determination that you do. They complain about hunger or low energy because they are used to eating way more calories in a day. Thats how they gained weight in the first place. The Military Diet involves eating the bare minimum of sad foods like hot dogs, cottage cheese, saltines and canned tuna for three days, then eating a reasonable amount of tasty foods on the four days off. In the interest of national security, top secret military nutritionists comments on the nutritional validity of hot dogs have been redacted.

The HCG Diet

Its hard to know where to start with this one. Named after a hormone the female body produces during pregnancy, the space-agey hCG Diet demands severe calorie restriction and daily injections of the hormone hCG, under the super-legit claim that itll help youll lose fat but not muscle. Who would have thought that if you restrict yourself to 500 calories a day, youd lose weight? Youll probably lose your hair, too. The pregnancy hormones are supposed to take care of those inconvenient pangs of hunger while you starve yourself. Thank the geniuses over at the Dr. Oz Show for publicizing it.

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2014: Our year in trendy diets

8 hours ago by Susan Maury, The Conversation Cranking out a tune cements our social networks. Julie/Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA

We're enjoying the one time of year when protests of "I can't sing!" are laid aside and we sing carols with others. For some this is a once-a-year special event; the rest of the year is left to the professionals to handle the singing (except, perhaps, some alone time in the shower or car).

Music and singing in particular, as the oldest and only ubiquitous form of music creation plays a central role in our lives and shared community experiences, and this has been true for every culture for as far back as we can trace our human ancestors.

So does singing in a group provide specific and tangible benefits, or is it merely a curious ability that provides entertainment through creative expression?

This is a question currently of great interest to evolutionary theorists, linguists, psychologists and musicologists. The debate took off when psychologist Steven Pinker stated his opinion that music is a spandrel a useless evolutionary by-product of another, useful, trait. In this case, he suggested that music is a spandrel of language development, providing no advantage and serving no purpose.

There are strong links between music and language development, although there is no consensus on the actual nature of the relationship. Arguments include theories that:

A strong body of research conducted with choirs indicates that membership has many benefits to individual wellbeing and physical health. It is possible these effects are due to people the singers participating in something they enjoy doing. Or, there may be something more elemental taking place.

If these findings are viewed through an evolutionary lens, though, there is compelling evidence that music making provided some very specific benefits for our ancestors. Specifically, there are three theories which have been proposed that, if true, may explain these effects while suggesting that group singing is still beneficial to all:

Sing us a song, you're the hominid

Our hominid ancestors used music to create shared emotional experiences. This would have been particularly important for early hominids struggling to survive, because emotions serve as a kind of "red flag" to our cognitive processing systems, signalling that something critical requires attention.

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All together now three evolutionary perks of singing

In these four sentences Professor Dawkins has described both the scientific view of the 'human condition', and the main motivations for following the Buddhist path.

Defying the tyranny of the genes All animals, including ourselves, have genetically programmed drives to eat, reproduce, fight for territory and mates, kill prey, help our kin and so on. These drives appear to our mind as attachment and aversion.

Manifestations of attachment include sexual desire, hunger and the need for security. Manifestations of aversion include fighting, fleeing and avoiding painful and dangerous situations. All these mental reactions have evolved because they gave our ancestors a selective advantage. They are, or were, essential for preservation of the individual and procreation of its genes.

Defying the tyranny of the memes

A meme is a delusional mind-virus which spreads by thought-contagion among people in the same manner that a computer virus spreads among PCs. Many cults have a memetic component.

The term 'meme' was coined by Richard Dawkins in the 1970's, but the idea goes back at least to the 1890's when Winston Churchill compared a certain religion (no prizes for guessing which!) to the rabies virus - 'as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog'.

If a religion or cult shows most of the following features then it is a pernicious meme:

On the other hand, if a religion is based on wisdom, tolerance, free enquiry, rationality and universal compassion, then it is a beneficial spiritual path.

Memes are 'intellectually formed delusions', as distinct from the genetically-programmed innate delusions. However, memes often interact with and derive their power from innate delusions. For example, the meme that infects socially-inadequate, sex-starved young men and causes virulent hatred against the infidel, together with a desire to become a martyr in order to have an eternity of sex with 72 virgins, derives its power from testosterone-fueled innate delusions of aggression and lust.

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Accepting our Evolutionary History does not Mean Rejecting ...

God is a personification, not a person an undeniable interpretation, not an otherworldly tyrant. If we fail to grasp this, we cannot possibly understand religion or religious differences.

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesnt go away. ~ Philip K. Dick

Birth, life, death, the cycles and rhythms of Nature, the elemental forces of the Universe: these are inescapably real. Like it or not, we have always found ourselves in relationship with a Reality we could neither predict nor control. And given the nature of the human brain, there is one thing that people in every culture and throughout history have instinctively done: Weve used metaphors and analogies to refer and relate to that which is unavoidably, undeniably real and/or mysterious. Indeed, it seems that we cantnot do this. Consciously or unconsciously, we regularly interpret our life and our world using relational metaphors.

AsStewart Guthrie shows in his acclaimed book, Faces in the Clouds (Oxford University Press),all images and concepts of God are meaning-rich interpretations and personifications. Images and concepts that evoke trust and the courage to forge ahead no matter what the obstacles are immensely useful.Practical realism in this way trumpsfactual realism if the mindset induced leads to greater evolutionary fitness.

Factual Truth vs. Practical Truth

In his 2003 book, Darwins Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society,David Sloan Wilson (Distinguished Professor of Biology and Anthropology at Binghamton University) draws a crucial distinction between practical realism and factual realism. Practical realism, also known as practical truth, is that which reliably produces personal wholeness and social coherence by motivating people to think and behave in ways that benefit themselves and the larger community. Factual realism (factual truth) is that which is evidentially real. Wilson writes,

What do I mean by factual and practical realism? A belief is factually realistic when it accurately describes whats really out there (e.g., there are no people up there sitting on clouds). A belief is practically realistic when it causes the believer to behave adaptively in the real world.

An example of why practical realism historically has trumped factual realism is this: In group-to-group conflicts, any culture that offers the promise of an afterlife to those who heroically martyr themselves will likely triumph over an army of atheists who have the rational belief that death marks the absolute end of individual existence. Over the eons of human evolution, such selective processes would tend to favor the maintenance of beliefs in that which was felt experientially as real, whether or not those beliefs had any basis in measurable, factual reality. David Sloan Wilson also writes,

If there is a trade-off between the two forms of realism, such that our beliefs can become more adaptive only by becoming factually less true, then factual realism will be the loser every time. Factual realists detached from practical reality were not among our ancestors. It is the person who elevates factual truth above practical truth who must be accused of mental weakness from an evolutionary perspective.

Religion Is About Right Relationship to Reality, Not the Supernatural

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Evolutionary Christianity

Posted by Harriet Hall on July 3, 2012 ( Comments)

3 years ago I wrote an article critical of evolutionary medicine as it was presented in a new book. Recently a correspondent asked me if I thought another book, Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine, by Randolph M. Nesse, MD and George C. Williams, PhD, was a more reasonable approach to the subject. It was published in 1994 and got good reviews from respected scientists like Richard Dawkins (Buy two copies and give one to your doctor.) and E.O. Wilson (bringing the evolutionary vision systematically into one of the last unconquered provinces). I was able to obtain a copy through interlibrary loan.

The book was interesting and gave me some things to think about, but it didnt convince me that Darwinian medicine is a new science, that its existence as a separate discipline is justified, or that its unique approach offers any real practical benefits for improving medical care.

Why do we get sick? A simplistic view of evolution holds that it systematically eliminates any factors that decrease fitness for survival. So why does disease persist? Why didnt we evolve to be fit enough to never get sick? Because evolution is not a straightforward process.

Evolution is complicated.There are countless design flaws in the human body. For instance, we are subject to choking because of the crossed anatomy of our respiratory and digestive systems. Nesse and Williams point out that it would be more sensible to relocate the nostrils to somewhere on the neck, but that just aint gonna happen. Evolution is limited by pre-existing patterns and has to make compromises. Historical accidents result in developments that are far from optimum. A useless or even a harmful gene may be perpetuated because it is linked with a beneficial gene. We are in an arms race with pathogens: we evolve defenses and they evolve ways to overcome those defenses. Natural selection made us fit as small groups of hunter-gatherers on the plains of Africa. We are specifically adapted to Stone Age conditions. We face very different environments today where our evolved traits can be counterproductive.

Who are the fittest? Fitness doesnt mean fitness for the individuals welfare, but fitness for propagating the individuals genes. After the individual has reproduced, diseases of old age dont affect evolutionary fitness except in minor, indirect ways. (Grandparents past reproductive age can contribute to the survival of descendants by helping with childcare and providing accumulated knowledge and wisdom.)

Nesse and Williams differentiate between proximate and evolutionary explanations: heart attacks are caused by cholesterol deposits in the arteries, but they want to know why evolution shaped us to deposit cholesterol, crave fat, over-eat, etc. I want to know, too; but Im not so certain that knowing will reduce my chances of a heart attack.

Are evolutionary explanations just pseudoscientific equivalents of Kiplings Just-So Stories? They argue that they are not. They give the example of morning sickness. It has been hypothesized that the nausea, vomiting, and food aversions of early pregnancy are beneficial because they protect the vulnerable fetus from dietary toxins. This would predict that morning sickness preferentially results in avoidance of foods most likely to harm the fetus. This is a testable prediction and there is some evidence to support it; but there is no way to prove that this is the true explanation or the only one. They suggest that suppressing morning sickness might increase the risk of congenital defects. But there is no evidence for that. They recommend that women respect their nausea and remember that it may be beneficial. (It would likely decrease your survival prospects if you said that to your wife while she was throwing up for the umpteenth time!) They admit that relieving suffering is important too, but they recommend that any anti-nausea medicine should be carefully evaluated to make sure it doesnt cause any harm. Of course, we already do that for all medications used during pregnancy. I fail to see how evolutionary thinking adds anything to the care of pregnant women. In fact, I can see how it might result in unnecessary worry and suffering.

They suggest that sexual reproduction is an advantage because the genetic variations increase survival when a population faces an infection. As supporting evidence, they cite studies showing that asexual reproduction is more frequent in species and habitats with fewer parasites. Maybe. Correlation doesnt prove causation.

They speculate that schizophrenia must persist in our genomes because it offers some advantage that balances the severe costs. They even have a creative hypothesis about why we sleep.

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Do We Need Evolutionary Medicine? Science-Based ...

Text by Tricia Aquino | Lifestyle Section, InterAksyon.com Sunday, November 30, 2014 9:11 am

Knowing that God had been preparing the universe for millions of years so that humans could set foot on Earth should be cause for celebration. In photo, Pulilan Church in Bulacan. InterAksyon Lifestyle file photo by Bernard Testa.

Pope Francis may have caused a stir when his recent statement on the Big Bang Theory and evolution were not in conflict with Gods role in creation, but Church experts believe the controversy could have been prevented if Catholic leaders simply explained the faith better.

I think the problem is the Catholic Church has accepted evolution but it has not done the work in explaining how the faith would be contained in such a container, said Malate Church parish priest Fr. John Leydon, MSC in a press conference organized by the Ecology Ministry of the Archdiocese of Manila and the Congregation of the Missionary of St. Columban on November 19 at the Arzobispado de Manila.

Involved in environmental spirituality for the past 20 years, Leydon said that the facts were clear: in 1950, Pope Pius XII said in his encyclical Humanae Generis that evolution was an acceptable hypothesis. St. John Paul II expounded this to a theory in 1996 before the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

Leydon recalled being taught by priests in high school that evolution was not a problem in light of Catholic teaching. The only time this became an issue was when he would talk to other Catholics in evolutionary terms and they would think that this was a rejection of their faith.

That is not the Catholic position, he stressed.

On October 28, Pope Francis said (http://www.interaksyon.com/article/98137/pope-francis-says-big-bang-theory-does-not-contradict-role-of-god), The beginning of the world is not the work of chaos that owes its origin to something else, but it derives directly from a supreme principle that creates out of love.

The Big Bang, that today is considered to be the origin of the world, does not contradict the creative intervention of God, on the contrary it requires it, he added.

Pope Francis also said that evolution is not in contrast with the notion of (divine) creation because evolution requires the creation of the beings that evolve.

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Looking at creation through science should increase faith in God, says priest

The second question is one only a true skeptical academic could ask. As a clinician practicing in the USA in 2014, religion and spirituality are an important part of many peoples lives, and in my experience, it can lend significant benefits in resiliency. Ive seen non-spiritual folk struggle more, perhaps, with feelings they are unloved and unworthy when traumatized than those with a spiritual back-up who feel that, no matter what happens, they have a spiritual connection to something greater. In addition, the spiritual and religious dont seem to wrestle as much with those existential question of why am I here? What is my purpose? that can plague the non-spiritual. On the other hand, being religious can sometimes lead to greater vulnerability to holding onto guilty feelings about perceived wrongdoings and feeling, more deeply, a personal failure as a spiritual matter. Also, those involved in a religious community can experience devastating losses precipitating depression if views change and the person is expunged from the community. The scientific question of whether religion, on a personal level, helps or harms human psyche is legitimate.

Spirituality is a significant part of our human history and evolution, and that ability to conceptualize religious ideas or a connection to others is part of what separates us from the other animals. Evidence of spiritual practices existed in close hominid relatives, including Homo heidelbergensis and Neanderthals, who buried their dead. Humans were burying their dead with grave goods, special objects to take to the afterlife, in Qafzeh cave 100,000 years ago. The three modern Abrahamic religions, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, came from the Middle East along with agriculture, a rapid rise in world population, and pandemic infectious and sexually transmitted diseases, which may explain some of the cleanliness and sexual taboos found in these and other modern forms of religion, including the Indian and East Asian religious groups.

Burial mound http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fd/Wigber_Low_-_Ancient_Burial_Mound_and_Funerary_Platform_-_geograph.org.

Once weve established that spirituality is a part of being human and the practicality of the religious question, what is the actual data? In January of 2012, the first long-term longitudinal prospective study of religiosity and risk of major depression was published in the Green Journal by authors from Columbia University. The study was undertaken as many previous studies covering thousands of people seemed to show that the more religious someone reported him or herself to be, the less likely that person was to be depressed. In these cross-sectional studies, there can be significant association bias. For example, a deep depression could affect the spirituality of the suffering individual, and perhaps someone in a religious community where mental illness is not accepted would be less likely to report being depressed. On the other hand, many people seek counseling from clergy members, and the ready availability in religious populations may act as a preventative measure. Longer term data would be important to sort out some of the details.

In the 2012 study, 114 adult offspring of depressed and non-depressed parents were followed for 10 years. All participants were Catholic or Protestant, and their religiosity was measured by self-report of importance of spiritual beliefs and church attendance. Those who reported that religion and spirituality were highly important had about 1/4 the chance of being diagnosed with major depressive disorder in the 10 year study period than those who didnt. Frequent attendance at church service and denomination were not significantly protective or an increased risk factor. Further parsing of the data was hampered by the small sample size, but those with a previous episode of depression who self-reported as highly spiritual or religious had fewer repeat episodes of depression than those who were not religious.

In a second paper published at the end of 2013, these same authors added an interesting biological twist. They measured the thickness of the brain cortex in the study individuals via brain MRI at two points during five years. A thinner or damaged cortex in certain areas of the brain correlates with lack of empathy and more sociopathic behavior (1)(2) and a greater risk of depression. In healthy individuals, stimulating certain cortical areas with transcranial magnets evoked spiritual feelings (3). People who meditate regularly also have thicker areas of cortex in important regions and more metabolic activity there. In the 2013 paper, individuals who reported they were highly spiritual or religious were far more likely to have a thicker brain cortex in certain areas than those who reported themselves to be nonspiritual. Thickness of cortex was unrelated to whether or not the subjects attended church. As in previous studies, a thicker cortex seemed to be protective against depression risk, and the thinner cortex was more of a risk factor in those who had a family history of depression.

What to make of all these studies? There are two possible explanations. One is that a thicker cortex is more associated with being interested in spiritual questions, the connectedness of people, etc and is simultaneously protective against depression. The other is that a lifelong habit of meditating and/or contemplation of spirituality stimulates the metabolism and neurogeneration in areas of the brain that confer resilience to trauma and therefore reduce the risk of developing depression. With regards to the specific question of conferring resistance to depression, actually attending religious services seems unimportant.

Obviously, the studies are limited by small sample size, observational design, and, as the editorial notes, a lack of precise terminology when it comes to measuring spirituality. But clearly there is neurobiological basis of spirituality and depression risk. It is unlikely to be harmful, and may very well help to steer the religious depressed patient to more spiritual contemplation, and the non-religious one to more meditation and reflection.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/63/S_F-E-CAMERON_EGYPT_2005_RAMASEUM_01358.JPG/398px-S_F-E-CAMERON_EGYPT_2

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Brains, Spirituality, and Depression | Psychology Today

For the millions of Americans who want spirituality without religion, Sam Harriss new book is a guide to meditation as a rational spiritual practice informed by neuroscience and psychology.

From multiple New York Times bestselling author, neuroscientist, and new atheist Sam Harris, Waking Up is for the 30 percent of Americans who follow no religion, but who suspect that Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Rumi, and the other saints and sages of history could not have all been epileptics, schizophrenics, or frauds. Throughout the book, Harris argues that there are important truths to be found in the experiences of such contemplativesand, therefore, that there is more to understanding reality than science and secular culture generally allow.

Waking Up is part seekers memoir and part exploration of the scientific underpinnings of spirituality. No other book marries contemplative wisdom and modern science in this way, and no author other than Sam Harrisa scientist, philosopher, and famous skepticcould write it.

Sam Harris is the author of the bestselling books, The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, The Moral Landscape, Free Will, and Lying. The End of Faith won the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction. His latest book, Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion, will be published 9/9/14.

Mr. Harriss writing has been published in more than 15 languages. His work has been discussed in The New York Times, Time, Scientific American, Nature, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, and many other journals. His essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Economist, Newsweek, The Times (London), The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, The Annals of Neurology, and elsewhere.

Mr. Harris is a cofounder and the CEO of Project Reason, a nonprofit foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society. He received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA.

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Sam Harris Waking Up: Science, Skepticism, Spirituality

Sam Harris Waking Up A Guide To Spirituality Without Religion Published on Sep 12, 2014

Sam Harris is the man and he is back. Hes making the rounds for his latest book Waking Up, and hes delivering interviews like this along the way. His ability to concisely and with great lucidity express himself never ceases to amaze. It makes me wonder if I should spend 3 months on retreat in total silence thinking about what I want to say next.

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Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion by Sam ...

New Haven, Conn.

"What is the creativity that brought forth a trillion galaxies?"

It is a daunting question asked by evolutionary cosmologist Brian Swimme in the film "Journey of the Universe." His line echoed throughout the halls at Yale Divinity School, where hundreds gathered for the Nov. 7-9 conference "Living Cosmology: Christian Responses to 'Journey of the Universe.' "

The conference was a historic gathering of many of the finest theologians, ethicists and activists in North America, all of whom joined together to contemplate the ways in which the Christian tradition can open up more fully to a sense of the sacredness of the universe and the flourishing of the Earth community.

"We have invited these scholars and advocates with the fundamental hope that they will help us see how deeply we are connected to the epic story of evolution," said Mary Evelyn Tucker, a senior lecturer and research scholar at Yale University and one of the conference's organizers. Tucker and her husband, John Grim, co-direct the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale.

"We want to continue to connect the language of Christianity to cosmology," she said.

Judging from the response to the program, it is a connection many in the Christian community are eager to make. More than 400 people signed up for the conference, and it had a lengthy waiting list. Sessions were held in the school's chapel. Three overflow rooms were also set up with a live-stream of the proceedings.

There was much for the crowd to absorb: 11 different panels, each featuring three to four scholars and engaged in conversations on the theological understanding God's relationship to creation, the influence of scientist and Jesuit Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, ecofeminism, agriculture, water, racial justice, environmental ethics, eco-justice, and spirituality. Evening sessions were highlighted with musical programs and liturgies. All meals were vegetarian, and all cups, plates and utensils were compostable.

Each of these many activities orbited around one central figure: Passionist Fr. Thomas Berry, whose work on the universe story and the environmental crisis has deeply influenced generations of students, including Tucker and Grim. Berry, who died in 2009 at age 94, would have celebrated his 100th birthday on Nov. 9.

Throughout the conference, many panelists spoke of "the great work," a phrase Berry used to describe our need to work with nature's creativity. (It is also the title of his 1999 book.) He believed that if we could see the cosmos as a symphony and Earth as a living planet, we would discover our own role in these unfolding processes. It was Berry's deepest hope that we were shifting out of the Cenozoic era and into what he called the "Ecozoic" period; that is, a time when human beings would reclaim their creative orientation to our planet.

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Yale conference continues 'Journey of the Universe'