Four stories on belief: from the allure of cults and conspiracy theories, to the effect of trauma on faith, to the way dogma has influenced science – and if technology can actually shift our beliefs.
Coining a phrase. Muslim philosopher al-Fabri depicted on Kazakh currency.
Vladimir Wrangel/Flickr
The tradition of republicanism offered us civil religion, a foundation of belief that could counter any politics or policy that demands sacrifice in this world to be compensated in some “beyond”.
A Christmas service in Manhattan.
Mike Segar /REUTERS
Members of a church expect to find mutual support from one another - emotionally and spiritually. This is not the case at the South African branch of The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God.
A protester outside the US Supreme Court of Appeal objects to gay marriage. An incident at a Cape Town university has raised issues of religious freedom.
REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
The furore around freedom of sexual orientation vs religious freedom at a South African university should lead to deeper thinking about Christianity's historical role in promoting liberalism.
Does God exist? Is piety worth it? Can violence be justified? Philosophy can offer a way to engage with these questions on which there are often widely differing beliefs.
Recognizing death’s inevitability, people find comfort in their beliefs.
Andreas Hunziker/flickr
Why are atheists deemed as untrustworthy as rapists?
The sacrament of marriage that takes place in the eyes of God is a separate process from the state’s legal recognition of the coupling.
Shutterstock/MNStudio
The sacrament of marriage does not depend on the law, which exists only to regulate the rights and responsibilities arising from the practice. For religious believers, same-sex marriage won't change their union.
Religion can be a force for peace, the goal of these Australian religious leaders, or conflict – the believer and not the religion itself bears the responsibility.
AAP/Tracey Nearmy
There are religious and non-religious extremists and we should not confuse violent believers with religion itself, which has a long history of peacemaking.
Does mankind’s religious instinct date back to prehistoric times?
iurri
Notions of gods arise in all human societies, from all powerful and all-knowing deities to simple forest spirits. A recent method of examining religious thought and behaviour links their ubiquity and the…
