A groundbreaking investigation into the origins of morality, which turns out to be the basis for religion and politics. The book explains the American culture wars and refutes the "New Atheists."

"Drawing on a wealth of new evidence, pioneering research psychologist David DeSteno shows why religious practices and rituals are so beneficial to those who follow them - and to anyone, regardless of their faith (or lack thereof)"--

An analysis of the clash of faith and reason in today's world that offers a historical tour of mankind's willingness to suspend reason in favor of religious beliefs, even when those beliefs are used to justify atrocities. While warning against the encroachment of organized religion into politics, the author draws on insights from neuroscience, philosophy, and Eastern mysticism to call for a truly modern approach to ethics and spirituality that is...

Director of the Bristol Cognitive Development Centre at the University of Bristol, Bruce M. Hood has been a research fellow at Cambridge, a visiting scientist at MIT and a professor at Harvard. SuperSense is a fascinating exploration of the forces that shape people's beliefs in the irrational-and also a compelling look at how these beliefs bind humans together in society.

"A psychiatrist presents a compelling argument for how human purpose and caring emerged in a spontaneous and unguided universe. Drawing on years of wide-ranging, intensive clinical experience, and his own family experience with cancer, the author helps the reader to understand how people cope with random adversity without recourse to supernatural belief. In fact, as he explains, coming to terms with randomness, while initially frightening, can be...

Contemporary debate about religion seems to be going nowhere. Atheists persist with their arguments, many plausible and some unanswerable, but these make no impact on religious believers. Defenders of religion find atheists equally unwilling to cede ground. The Meaning of Belief offers a way out of this stalemate. An atheist himself, Tim Crane writes that there is a fundamental flaw with most atheists' basic approach: religion is not what they think...

The world's leading neurologist on out-of-body and near-death experiences shows that spirituality is as much a part of our basic biological makeup as our sex drive or survival instinct. In his cutting-edge research, Nelson has discovered that spiritual experiences take place in one of the most primitive areas of the brain. In this eloquent, reverent book, he relates the moving stories of patients and research subjects, brain scan analysis, evolutionary...