A sociologist of religion explains how atheist churches are helping people find meaning and community – serving many of the same purposes as religious churches.
Practitioners of Pagan religions no longer need to go into a forest to find an object for their altars. Commercialization means that sacred objects are available online.
England and Wales remain outliers in Britain when it comes to modernising weddings legislation. Couples are looking for laws that accommodate more personal ways of finding meaning.
Many Balinese believe COVID-19 cannot be fought with health measures alone, and requires ritual offerings and prayer. But collective ritual places people at more risk.
Formal ceremonies and rituals can trigger psychological signals that command people’s attention and strengthen the perceived importance of those moments.
Saudi Arabia is barring international visitors for the hajj. A scholar explains a long history of disease, politics and war that have previously prevented people from making the journey to Mecca.
Reading the poem Eurydice to her students unleashed surprising emotions for Stephanie Trigg. But literature works in mysterious, unpredictable ways, highlighting the impossibility of trigger warnings.
How did civilization emerge from small groups of hunter-gatherers? Some archaeologists focus on cooperation as the vital ingredient – and find evidence for it in the form of feast-related artifacts.
Senior Research Fellow, Muslim Philanthropy Initiative at IUPUI and Journalist-fellow, Religion and Civic Culture Center, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences