News Stories relating to "religion"

In the grim struggles of prehistory, early religion may have provided humans a way to relate to each other and the world around them, offering significant survival and reproductive advantages.

UPDATE from Marla Frees! - Many people think that Jesus was the author of "the golden rule," but he was actually demonstrating his scholarship by quoting Rabbi Hillel. But is this a good rule to live by? Only if by "doing unto others," you're talking about POSITIVE things.

Psychologists have discovered that, in everyday...

Billy Graham, the minister who evangelized George W. Bush, was not a supporter of Martin Luther King. Now that the voters have struck a strong note against religious fundamentalism in government, this is something worth thinking about.

Using previously unpublished documents, religious studies professor Michael Long says that the popular...

The Times of London reports that societies are much worse off when they have "God on their side." This is because they don't really have God on their side (which assumes that God takes sides), it's because of the kind of POLITICIANS that claim to have God on their side, like the recently embarrassed Tom DeLay. Every cruel dictator who has ever...

Newswise - Some fans of Star Wars, including fans of the newestentry, "Episode III: Revenge of the Sith," consider watchingthese films to be a religious experience. Two religionprofessors at different universities have studied the roleof religion in science fiction and say that movies like theStar Wars series can be more...

Tom Anderson writes in the Independent that 666 is NOT the"number of the beast"?that's actually 616. A newlydiscovered fragment of the book of Revelation, from theoldest copy of the New Testament that's ever been found, hasbeen deciphered, and theologian David Parker says the numberwas mistakenly translated as 666.

666 is an example of...

Whitley writes in his newJournal: "It's Palm Sunday and time to begin, once again, aremarkable journey. Over the next week we will relive aseries of events that have been revered and disputed for twothousand years, the passion and resurrection of Christ. Ihave often heard Christians say, 'if I did not believe inthe resurrection, I could not be...

When we think of killing in the name of religion, we think of 911, but there is more than one way to do it. Two children in two different states in the U.S. have been killed by exorcists recently. In Atlanta, a six-year-old girl was found strangled and stabbed, with a broken back. In Milwaukee, an eight-year-old boy was smothered by being...

In Nepal, there is the ancient custom of choosing a young virgin goddess, who reigns until she reaches puberty. Rashmilla Shakya was taken from her family at when she was 4 and enthroned as the Kumari in an ancient palace, where she was worshipped by both Hindus and Buddhists. But once she started menstruating, she was sent back home and is now...

Sociologists have long known that there are more religious women than men. Professor Rodney Stark thinks we should not ask why women are more religious, but why men are less interested in religion. "When you turn the question around it starts to get us somewhere and the evidence pretty strongly points to physiology, not socialization," he says...