Book Reviews

In this groundbreaking book, E. Thomas Lawson and Robert N. McCauley proclaim the birth of the field of cognitive science of religion by presenting a […]

Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies has a most unfortunate title, and one not of the author’s making (the subtitle is Hart’s […]

Complex and flexible behavior is a major mark of intelligence. But does complex behavior necessarily require a complex brain? The basic goal of the psychologist […]

Andrew Newberg, Eugene D’Aquili, and Vince Rause, the authors of Why God Won’t Go Away, present a neurological model for spiritual experience. Considering the book’s […]

For contemporary readers seeking out a lucid, interdisciplinary Darwinian theory of religion, no need to stop at New Atheists Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins. Charles […]

David Lewis-Williams and David Pearce’s Inside the Neolithic Mind (Thames & Hudson, 2005) claims to descend into the nebulous world of Neolithic people’s consciousness in […]

With Medicine, Religion, and Health (Templeton Foundation Press, 2008), Harold Koenig makes a valuable contribution to understanding the relationship between religion, spirituality, and health for […]

As one might expect given the title, Roy Rappaport in Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity (Cambridge University Press, 1999) spends a great […]

Most professors of religion seem content to stay in their ivory tower. They stand above popular-level religious debates and so have little to do with […]

It is a pleasure to review a book about the science of spirituality that is refreshingly free of ideological axes to grind. The author of […]

Given its penchant for to publishing findings in obscure journals, one can easily miss the profound discoveries in the field of the cognitive study of […]

Nearly a decade and a half ago, an elite group of scientists gathered in Berkeley, California, to participate in a groundbreaking project called Science and […]

Until recently, the standard position in the perennial religion vs. science wars was one of truce. Stephen J. Gould, the late evolutionary biologist, coined the […]

One of the most fundamental quandaries in theology and philosophy is the pernicious difficulty of using the mind to examine itself. The trickiness of inverting […]

It often seems that religion and philosophy have been fighting a losing battle. They’re no longer seen as credible in terms of addressing questions like […]

Renowned philosopher of science Bas C. van Fraassen (Princeton University) had long remained silent on issues of religion. So by his own admission he was […]

One of the major theories of religion advanced in the 19th century, most particularly by Nietzsche, is that it is fueled by envy, fear, and […]

For those of us who view some features or aspects of religion (such as ritual or religious experience) as adaptive, their sui generis character presents […]

Everyone has experiences of being “in the zone.” These usually occur while engaged in some challenging but enjoyable activity, like playing basketball or ballroom dancing. […]

Buddhist scholar, B. Alan Wallace’s Contemplative Science: Where Buddhism and Neuroscience Converge (Columbia University Press, 2007) is an attractive read for anyone interested in neuroscience, […]

Professor emeritus Raman deals with the title theme in 10 chapters: Introduction, On science and religion, Epistemological aspects, Explanatory dimensions, Belief systems and God, Spiritual […]

Can human thought be understood as an elaborate form of computation? A quick survey of some of the most influential cognitive scientists (including Steven Pinker […]

It seems that conversations about religion and cognitive science are heating up in the American Academy of Religion (AAR), the nation’s largest organization of religion […]

Neuroscientist Mario Beauregard’s new book is titled The Spiritual Brain. He advances a case for the existence of the soul. Is it possible to agree […]