‘Study: Service Attendance, Not Spirituality, May Decrease Suicide Risk’

Aaron J. Leichman, Christian Post

Princeton study: Faces communicate trustworthiness (and untrustworthiness)

Boston Globe (HT: ChurchCrunch)

Are there really six degrees separating us all?

Maybe not, according to a recent study mentioned by Razib Khan

NASA warns solar storms in 2012 could cause earthly catastrophe

Robert Britt, FOX News (HT: Rod Dreher)

Study finds ‘religious belief and piety promote self-control’

NY Times story by John Tierney (HT: Rod Dreher)

‘Religion & IQ’

Razib Khan quotes a recent study that looked at the connection between religious persuasion and IQ, at Culture11:

“So you’re wondering who is smart and who isn’t, right? (even if you don’t believe in IQ) Here’s the chart …”

He also provides links to some other posts he has written on the same topic.

“A Universe Built for Us”

Tom Gilson discusses a recent article in Discover magazine about the ‘fine-tuning’ that physicists have observed in the universe. An excerpt from the article:

“Call it a fluke, a mystery, a miracle. Or call it the biggest problem in physics. Short of invoking a benevolent creator, many physicists see only one possible explanation: Our universe may be but one of perhaps infinitely many universes in an inconceivably vast multiverse.”

“Discover is refreshingly honest about the current status of the work,” Gilson notes in his post.

Brain scientist: virtue must be practiced, learned

A fascinating essay at First Things: On the Square by R. R. Reno on recent neurological research that supports what Christians have been saying all along:

“Our solutions to ethical problems, Cohen’s work shows, are influenced by the intercommunication between different parts of the brain. Subjects with a high degree of neural activity linking the brain stem to the frontal lobe tend to allow emotional responses to override rational assessments of moral dilemmas. Subjects make more rational decisions, he reports, when the neurological activity from the primitive part of the brain is blocked from interfering with the frontal lobe. Cohen then concludes that these patterns of open and blocked communication are not fixed by nature. They solidify over time. Our brain patterns are vulcanized, as he puts it, and this occurs by the constant repetition of these patterns. The river cuts its channel.”

Read “Brain Science and the Soul“.

Excerpt: Nature’s Witness: How Evolution Can Inspire Faith, by Daniel Harrell

At the emergent village blog. An excerpt from the excerpt:

Historically, religious faith, particularly Christianity, served as the loom onto which the discoveries of science were woven. It was within a Christian theological framework that scientific disclosure found its transcendent meaning. Descartes, Bacon, Galileo, Kepler and Newton, believers all, saw their work not as replacements for faith, but as extensions of it. The idea was that the best of science and the best of theology concerted to give human beings deeper insight into the workings of the universe and, subsequently, into the divine character. Scientific discovery was received with gratitude to the Almighty for the wonder of his creation. Scientists, alongside the psalmist, would proclaim, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Ps 19:1 NIV).

Read the book’s full introduction.