RELIGION IS EASY,BUT SCIENCE IS HARD … UNDERSTANDING McCAULEY'S THESIS

Robert N. McCauley's new book Why Religion Is Natural and Science Is Not (2011) presents a new paradigm for investigating the relationship between science and religion by exploring the cognitive foundations of religious belief and scientific knowledge. McCauley's contention is that many of the differences and disagreements regarding religion and science are the product of distinct features of human cognition that process these two domains of knowledge very differently. McCauley's thesis provides valuable insights into this relationship while not necessarily leading to a dismissive view of theology or religious belief. His paradigm allows the research lens to focus on cognitive differences in processing scientific versus religious information and the important role of automatic, unconscious, and intuitive cognitive processes in understanding both the natural and supernatural worlds.     

Family structure, family disruption, and profiles of adolescent religiosity

Youth in the United States are experiencing increasing numbers of family transitions as parents move in and out of marriages and cohabiting relationships. Using three waves of survey data from the National Study of Youth and Religion, I examine the relationship between family structure, parental breakup, and adolescent religiosity. A person-centered measure of the religiosity of adolescents is used to identify youth as Abiders, Adapters, Assenters, Avoiders, or Atheists and to assess movement of youth between the religious profiles between 2003 and 2008. Wave 1 family structure is not significantly related to religious change among adolescents at Wave 3. In contrast, the experience of a parental breakup is related to a change in religious profiles over time. Parental breakup is associated with religious decline among Abiders and Adapters, youth characterized by high levels of religious salience. However, among Assenters who are marginally tied to religion, a parental breakup or divorce is associated with increased religious engagement.     

Religion and the Quality of Life

Subjective and objective indicators of the quality of life (QOL) are used to test relationships with religious involvement, participation, and belief. Findings from other studies show religious involvement to be associated with longer life. The percent of religious adherents in a state is correlated with the harmony domain of the QOL and negatively with an indicator of stress. After reviewing relevant previous studies, I examine data from the 1972–1996 General Social Survey Cumulative File. It shows happiness to be associated with the frequency of attendance at religious services, with denominational preference, and with doctrinal preference. Happiness also is associated with certain religious-related beliefs: belief that the world is evil or good but not belief in immortality. In a discussion of these and other findings, hypotheses are suggested to explain and to further explore the effects of religion upon the QOL. Among the conclusions: our conception of the "good life" rests heavily upon Judeo-Christian ideals; religious organizations contribute to the integration of the community, hence enhancing the QOL; since frequency of attendance is imperfectly associated with the QOL, other influences are at work; the doctrine of the religion may attract persons of happy disposition; religion may explain a purpose in life that fosters well-being; and others. I suggest implications of the findings for programs of religious organizations.     

Parental Divorce,Parental Religious Characteristics,and Religious Outcomes in Adulthood

Parental divorce has been linked to religious outcomes in adulthood. Previous research, however, has not adequately accounted for parental religious characteristics, which may render the association spurious and/or moderate the relationship. Many studies also do not consider subsequent family context, namely, whether one's custodial parent remarries. Using pooled data from three waves of the General Social Survey, we examine the nature of the relationships among parental divorce, subsequent family structure, and religiosity in adulthood. Growing up in a single‐parent family—but not a stepparent family—is positively associated with religious disaffiliation and religious switching and negatively associated with regular religious service attendance. Accounting for parental religious characteristics, however, explains sizable proportions of these relationships. In fact, after accounting for parental religious affiliation and service attendance, growing up with a single parent does not have a significant effect on religious service attendance. Parental religiosity also moderates the relationship between growing up with a single parent and religious service attendance: being raised in a single‐parent home does have a negative effect on religious service attendance among adults who had two religiously involved parents. There is modest evidence of this moderating relationship for other religious outcomes. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Beyond Iraq and Afghanistan: Religion and Politics in United States War‐Culture

Abstract : This article digs beneath the surface of American assumptions regarding war to explore the ethical interconnections between national identity, war, and religion. Striking differences emerge between the dynamics of religion and politics with regard to war and peace in presidential speeches regarding the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and the analysis of war from an earlier generation, encapsulated by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s “Beyond Vietnam: A Call to Conscience,” from 1967. Study of this political discourse helps us better understand our own reality in the United States, and the moral consequences of our beliefs about war, sacrifice, the human character, and the identity of the nation.     

The Middle Passage,Trauma and the Tragic Re-Imagination of African American Theology

African American Christian consciousness developed in response to the traumatic field in which African American subjectivity took shape. The expression of the faith in the African American tradition is fundamentally tragic as a consequence. The Middle Passage is the existential and symbolic nodal point of this experience. There is a sense in which African Americans remain very much on the water; marginalized and suspended between worlds. There is a deeper sense in which the African American situation and response reflects the condition of modernity and post-modernity in the sense that it is hardly more than modernity becoming conscious of itself. A thorough examination and exploration of its significance is essential to developing a theology that adequately expresses African American Christian consciousness. This paper is an attempt to lay out, what I think, are some of the basic components of the experience and the bare outlines or orientation of such a theology grounded in it.     

SCIENCE,SPIRITUALITY, AND AYAHUASCA: THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND SPIRITUAL ONTOLOGIES IN THE ACADEMY

Ayahuasca is a psychoactive brew from Amazonas, popularized in the last decades in part through transnational religious networks, but also due to interest in exploring spirituality through altered states of consciousness among academic schools and scientific researchers. In this article, the author analyzes the relation between science and religion proposing that the “demarcation problem” between the two arises from the relations among consciousness, intentionality, and spirituality. The analysis starts at the beginning of modern science, continues through the nineteenth century, and then examines the appearance of new schools in psychology and anthropology in the countercultural milieu of the 1960s. The author analyzes the case of ayahuasca against this historical background, first, in the general context of ayahuasca studies in the academic field. Second, he briefly describes three cases from Spain. Finally, he discusses the permeability of science to “spiritual ontologies” from an interdisciplinary perspective, using insights from social and cognitive sciences.     

EMPIRICAL MINDFULNESS: TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINE AND MENTAL HEALTH IN THE SCIENCE AND RELIGION DIALOGUE

As science and religion researchers begin to engage questions of mental health, mindfulness may prove to be a fruitful area of investigation. However, quantifying the physical effects of mindfulness on the brain is difficult because mindfulness deals with the problem of mental and physical interaction or, the mind/body problem. One system of understanding which may aid science and religion scholars in the pursuit of mindfulness is traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Within TCM, heart Qi manages the body's present connection to time and space. If the “being in the moment” is disrupted, then the heart Qi is blocked and mental illness or various neurological disorders occur. Succinctly, within TCM, mindfulness is understood as a nonphysical phenomenon (Qi) which directly affects physical systems, resulting in empirical data. This is tracked and treated through the TCM understanding of Qi. The TCM view of Qi in mental health may therefore provide a helpful new paradigm to investigations concerning mindfulness and the human brain.     

International Migration and Religious Selection

Migrants are selected by several characteristics (age, education, skill, health, and family migration experience). Often less examined is religious selection. Using Guatemalan data, this research note tests whether religious affiliation is significantly associated with migration to the United States, net of other competing factors. Results are robust, demonstrating that Protestants are more likely than other religious groups to migrate. Additionally, mediating factors (social networks, cultural norms, and ideological links) are tested to identify social mechanisms behind the Protestant effect. The research note concludes with implications of religious selection and how religious selection can be further examined in migration and religion studies.