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Stories about: religion


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Living Your Life by a Book

I don't think it's a secret that I have something against organized religion. I've never tried to keep that a secret, and I've struggled to explain why throughout my articles. In my quest to discover people with similar points of view to my own, I came across some fairly interesting speakers, as w...

21 November 2009
07:01 GMT

Skin Produced from Stem Cells

Scientists at the I-STEM Institute have recently announced the development of a new type of artificial skin cells, which was obtained directly from human embryonic stem cells. In a paper published in the November 21 issue of the scientific journal Lancet, the team reports that the entire epidermis was created using h...

20 November 2009
10:49 GMT

Dragon Age: Origins – Andraste and the Dragon

A lot of people are complaining about the fact that Dragon Age: Origins is formulaic when it comes to the characters, the setting, and the story. Someone has even compiled a list of tropes which show up in all BioWare role playing games, from Baldur's Gate to Mass Effect. But after about 12 to 15 hours into Drag...

13 November 2009
18:21 GMT

Study Shows the Church Is Still Popular

The Church has undoubtedly lost a lot of its importance in society over the last centuries. As science and its ideas progressed, more and more people with access to books started questioning the established dogmas. Once the state got separated from the Church, the institution's role has decreased even further. I...

8 October 2009
04:32 GMT

Religion and 'Normal' Beliefs Governed by Same Brain Area

Despite the fact that religion is present in all cultures, and it is widely promoted around the world, scientists have yet to determine if religious belief is in any way different from normal cognition. While it is clear that the human brain reacts differently to religious or non-religious statements, the basic mecha...

5 October 2009
17:11 GMT

Religious States Have Higher Teen-Birth Rates

A new investigation in some of the United States' most religious regions has revealed that states that are highly religious, and where people are most conservative, tend to have higher teen-pregnancy and birth rates than other areas of the country. The researchers in charge of the paper say that a large number o...

17 September 2009
02:42 GMT

Man Is Programmed to Believe in God

Bruce Hood, professor of developmental psychology at the Bristol University, may have come up with the perfect explanation why religion is such an integrant part of our lives – or, at least, for some of us. Going against what atheists say that religion is often only the result of a lack of education, Hood&rsquo...

7 September 2009
15:41 GMT

The Connection Between Collage Major and Religious Beliefs

Scientists at the University of Michigan have recently released a new research, detailing their belief on how college major options influence religious belief, and vice versa. Broadly, they have determined that those majoring in humanities and social sciences tend to become less religious than the average, whereas th...

3 August 2009
18:51 GMT

Shia LaBeouf Gets His Own Religion with Shiantology

Just in case anyone still doubted that the two “Transformers” films were a massive hit, a new religion has just been set up by fans of leading man Shia LaBeouf. Called Shiantology and boasting that it’s more than just a religion, actually a “way of life,” the new cult has been set up by ...

30 July 2009
06:34 GMT

Mel Gibson Rants About ‘Shutting Down’ Church

An old saying has it that “you made your bed and now you have to sleep in it.” It’s precisely the metaphorical sleeping part that bothers director and actor Mel Gibson the most, since he simply can’t stand having his fellow parishioners judging him for his affair and the yet unborn child it le...

2 June 2009
09:58 GMT

More Religious and Devout Young Women Have Abortions

A new study published in the June issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior shows that young women in their teens or early twenties who have attended religious schools are more likely than their peers to get an abortion, despite their beliefs. In fact, the research points out, these girls are more likely tha...

2 June 2009
08:01 GMT

Religion Dictates Acceptance of Torture

Psychologists have known for a long time that certain socio-economic factors such as the place of birth, the education, religion, or interactions with others can shape an individual's perceptions of the most important things in life. But the correlations between religion and torture have never been analyzed from...

14 May 2009
04:42 GMT

'Foot-Shaped' Structure Discovered in Jordan Valley

In the eve of the Passover holiday, archaeologists from the University of Haifa have just discovered a large, foot-shaped enclosure, of the kind that was described in the Bible as the place where the people of Israel would gather their armies, practice religious rituals, as well as conduct other ceremonies. Prof. Ada...

7 April 2009
06:43 GMT

Mobile App Lets Muslims Know When It's Time to Pray

Salah, the official prayer of the Islam, must be practiced by each adept of the religion five times per day, in prostration to Allah. Regularly, the prayers are done at dawn, noon, afternoon, sunset and nightfall, and missing them is considered to be a sin. They are also compulsory to all those who have reached puber...

6 April 2009
10:25 GMT

Experts Ask Texas to 'Evolve' Scientifically

The Texas State Board of Education has just recently come under increased pressure from science groups, which urge the authority to drop plans of introducing a new amendment in the state's learning programs, to question the proven principle that life descended from the same common ancestor. Because key officials...

25 March 2009
05:07 GMT

Consciousness Keeps Us the Same

The thing that makes us human is our self-awareness and the fact that we are able to identify our present selves with our “old” ones. This means that every action we have carried out since we were born is part of who we are and also shapes our future development, even if some of us are ashamed to admit it...

21 March 2009
07:57 GMT

Positive Religious Coping in Cancer Patients Impacts Medical Care

While religion is a matter of individual choice, a new study comes to show that one’s end may be highly influenced by whether they believe in a higher power or not. Conducted on terminally-ill cancer patients, the research clearly demonstrates that those with firm religious beliefs are more likely to require or...

18 March 2009
16:51 GMT

Anxiety Levels Much Lower for Religious People

According to a number of recent scientific investigations, people who believe devoutly are less likely than non-believers to second-guess themselves when answering questions in a test, even though their answers have been wrong. They also display lower brain activities in areas of the cortex associated with anxiety. O...

18 March 2009
06:03 GMT

Philosopher Bernard d'Espagnat Wins 2009 Templeton Prize

Well-renowned for his work in the field of quantum mechanics and theoretical physics, French physicist and philosopher of science Bernard d'Espagnat has won the Templeton Prize this year, amounting to one million British pounds ($1.4 million), for his concept of a “hypercosmic God.” The scientist wil...

16 March 2009
10:59 GMT

Mayan Stucco Panels Dug Up in Guatemala

Recent archaeological digs in Guatemala have unearthed a monumental set of stucco panels, which seem to depict one of the oldest enduring creation myths in human history. The new find also suggests that the Mayan people believed in this story named Popol Vuh for more than a millennium, and that it was the main focus ...

13 March 2009
08:39 GMT

Men Are Less Religious Than Women

Over the past few decades, researchers have been deeply interested in the way men and women perceive the notion of a god, or a higher, universal spirit. During the first such research, it came as no surprise to anyone that women believed in such entities more than men, but, in truth, no one could say for sure why tha...

2 March 2009
03:57 GMT

Men Sin of Lust, Women of Pride, the Vatican Says

Coming to settle the century-old question of why people sin, an article in the Vatican’s official newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, called “The Unsuspecting Resources of Weakness” offers a simple and straightforward answer. In the piece, Monsignor Wojciech Giertych, the Pope’s personal theo...

19 February 2009
14:41 GMT

How Our Brains Create God

The idea of a god or goddess, no matter how old, has always been responsible for a single thing, namely bringing people together, especially in times of need. Religion may have very well played a part in the aggregation of the first human societies, when people were much more exposed to the whims of nature than they ...

5 February 2009
15:01 GMT

God vs Science – The Never-Ending Conflict

The fact that the Church and scientists have been in opposition for at least the last 400 years has seeded into our minds the fact that the two have to be fundamentally opposed to each other. Thus, both cannot be true at the same time, a line of thought that is visible in the most common question ever – How was...

16 January 2009
05:42 GMT

God's Role in the Presidential Inauguration Is Disputed

Swearing-in ceremonies in the United States, be they presidential or in a court of law, are highly religious, and usually accompanied by phrases including some reference to God. This also applies to everyday life, as noted on the dollar bills adorned with the inscription “In God We Trust,” which was made ...

14 January 2009
03:57 GMT

Brain Reveals Spirituality Center

In an attempt to answer millenia-old questions, researchers at the Missouri University, led by Brick Johnstone, conducted a new set of scientific experiments in an attempt to decipher exactly what makes some people more religious than others. Instead of opting for numerous MRI scans, they turned to a classic method o...

28 December 2008
09:01 GMT

Some Religious Groups Don't See Nanotechnology as Morally Acceptable

The potential that nanotechnology has on our daily lives is largely unnoticed by people in the United States and in some European countries, such as Austria, Italy and Ireland, where religion plays a larger role in society. The benefits of such a revolutionary way of looking at things are shadowed by millennia of rel...

8 December 2008
06:20 GMT

Pope Benedict Meets Stephen Hawking

An ongoing five-day scientific gathering on themes of evolution housed by the Vatican provided a clash of titans during the close encounter of the 3rd kind which is always the result of religion and science  sharing the same space. During the meeting organized by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Pope Benedict...

3 November 2008
07:33 GMT

Religion and Belief Add to Personal Control

Belief in a higher and influential power has existed on Earth as far back as the first people. Be it that they worshiped fire, water, the air or the Sun, people have always felt the necessity of having someone above them to turn to when things get rough. This need was the subject of a new, first-of-its-kind scientifi...

1 November 2008
05:55 GMT

Softpedia Recommended Mac Apps of the Week – 31.10.2008

Welcome to a new edition of our weekly software roundup. This week, we have two freeware apps and one that costs just a few bucks but is well worth every penny. If you're the religious type, there's also something here today that might interest you.Ghost - easily hide or reveal your filesApple doesn't ...

1 November 2008
05:41 GMT

Recycled Bottles Help Religion

Whoever said that a bottle gets you closer to Nirvana was definitely wrong. Over a million of them might do the trick, though. At least, that's what monks from a temple in Thailand think. The temple's real name is Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew, but it is better known to locals and visitors from abroad by a m...

29 October 2008
06:41 GMT

Atheist Campaign Started on UK Buses

Less than a week ago, a somewhat peculiar idea, proposed by a writer from The Guardian publication, Ariane Sherine, in a June blog post, has been brought to life. As she suggested, the freedom of religious affiliation should be publicly displayed on local buses in the form of a message stating “There's pro...

27 October 2008
05:14 GMT

We Like to Believe in the Impossible

Lewis Wolpert from the University College, London wrote a book on the false belief systems, called "Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast," where he explains how our evolution and the development of our tools may have influenced our belief in supernatural events.  Many – if not most – people in our ...

18 September 2008
03:45 GMT

Religion and Evolution Theories Finally Make Peace

The same way Vatican did for Galileo Galilei in 1992, Church of England decided it was time to separate itself conceptually from its fundamentalist sisters into religion and apologize to Charles Darwin, the very one who issued the much-disputed theory of evolution.  Both Galilei and Darwin shaped the modern scie...

16 September 2008
04:16 GMT

AcroBible Released for iPhone, iPod Touch

AcroDesign Technologies has announced the release of its downloadable, native, NIV iPhone Bible. AcroBible is a downloadable, offline, annual-fee based Bible which boasts the ability to search for words or phrases, create bookmarks, attach notes to any verse, and highlight verses in up to six colors. Users just pay o...

8 September 2008
14:51 GMT

Public Institution Restricts Access to Atheist Websites

Employees of the Birmingham Council reported that their access to websites that promote atheism or some exotic religions is prohibited by their employers. Apparently, the council is not very fond of websites "that promote information on religions such as Witchcraft or Satanism. Occult practices, atheistic views, vood...

2 August 2008
07:13 GMT

Einstein's Letter on God Sold for $404,000

The letter sent by Albert Einstein to philosopher Eric Gutkind in January 1954 - " one year before the physicist's death" - detailing his beliefs about God and the Jewish people was auctioned on Thursday at Bloomsbury Auctions in London, and sold for the sum of 404,000 US dollars, including the buyer's prem...

17 May 2008
04:07 GMT

"Science without Religion Is Lame, Religion without Science Is Blind"

This is what Albert Einstein wrote in his letter to philosopher Eric Gutkind, in response to his receiving the book "Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt". The letter was written on January 3, 1954, in German, and explains Einstein's personal beliefs regarding religion and the Jewish people; it was put on sa...

14 May 2008
03:52 GMT

The Early Christians

The early Christians included men and women, slaves and free people, rich and poor, Jews and Greeks. The first Christians were Jews only. They inhabited the cities of Galilee (a region of Israel). They were poor people, like Jesus, most of them woodworkers. Some were friends of John the Baptist, a great fearless prop...

1 April 2008
16:41 GMT

There Are Already More Muslisms Than Catholics

Islam is conquering the world, and not by sword but by number. There are already more Muslims than Roman Catholics, turning the Islamic religion into the world's largest religious denomination, as signaled by L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper. The world's Catholics may make 1.13 billion peopl...

1 April 2008
05:26 GMT

Crusaders Had Sex With the Natives

Those thousands of knights went to the Middle East during the 11th-13th centuries to free the Holy Land from the hands of the Muslims, but despite their religiosity, they found some moments to have some hanky-panky. In the end, their wives from England, France, Germany and Italy were far away and many ended mixing wi...

28 March 2008
17:41 GMT

A World's Wonder: Rock Carved Cities

This is the Turkish World's Wonder. In the residual relief made of tuffs and basalt lava, persecuted Christians carved churches, monasteries and dwellings. Goreme National Park, with a surface of 9,576 hectares, is located in central Anatolia, between the volcanic mountains Hasan and Erciyes, in the Nevsehir Pro...

20 March 2008
09:55 GMT

7 Things About Tibetans

1. Tibet is a large territory (about one third that of the US) comprising a large part of the Himalaya mountain chain. It is the highest country in the world, most of the territory being located at altitudes of 3,000-4,000 m (10,000-13,330 ft), while the mountain peaks overpass 8,000 m (26,660 ft). It would be a col...

20 February 2008
14:31 GMT

How Did the Islam Conquer the World?

Arabia is mostly made of desert, inhabited mainly by nomad tribes during the 7th century. On the shores of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, fertile areas with many flourishing settlements were found, but the products were mainly local. The trade roads led to Syria and Mesopotamia (Iraq). Prosperous oases were found on t...

2 February 2008
03:59 GMT

What Are the Totems?

The word "totem" comes from the Ojibwa, an Algonquin language from the north of the Great Lakes of North America. "Ototeman" would mean "he is of my clan". The totem would express the belonging to a clan. Totem was an animal or plant, rarely an object, believed by a tribe to be its ancestor or protector, and therefo...

31 January 2008
07:27 GMT

Yearly Price Tag on Religious Faith

Faith is the sole purpose of some people's life. They are called hermits, sometimes saints and they are pure human beings that do not take into consideration the small traps life has laid before them. They have faith that their deity will protect them.Those people were once the object of adoration for many, but ...

18 January 2008
11:06 GMT

Experts Ask Whether It's a Swear or Not? OMG!

The subtitle actually underlines the difference between the generation that probably asked the question in the title and the generation that was raised using the Internet as a second language. Big difference, let me tell you that up front.Come to think of it, the OMG! IM-speak acronym shows, like nothing else can, th...

4 January 2008
08:44 GMT

Will Smith Has Given Scientology the Boot

I have been wondering for some time now whether Will Smith and his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith were going to join the Scientology camp, at the warm recommendation of their close friend Tom Cruise. But it would seem that it's no joy for the ardent followers of what has grown to be regarded as a "bizarre sci-fi cult"...

4 December 2007
09:03 GMT

Quakers: Why Pennsylvania and Philadelphia?

Quakers or the Religious Society of Friends appeared during the 17th century in England, a society created by George Fox (1624-1691), the son of a weaver from Leicestershire. Fox pretended to have heard a miraculous voice and thought he could communicate directly with God, receiving wisdom directly, without a human i...

29 November 2007
10:15 GMT

Three Bizarre Hindu Beliefs

Each day, about 1,000 worshipers and about 70 tourists visit the temple of Karni Mata, Deshnoke, India. Why? Because in this temple, about 300 rats wander freely while the believers bring their offerings to these idols. The rats are adored and any necessity that they might have is satisfied by the ecstatic prayers. T...

21 November 2007
14:06 GMT


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