Monthly Archives: January 2011

IBCSR.org Hits 10,000 Visits per Month

ibcsrlogoThe Institute for the Biocultural Study of Religion (www.ibcsr.org) is a site that brings cutting-edge research in the scientific study of religion to the general public, journalists, and researchers in the field. The web team at IBCSR has been working hard to increase capacity and speed at the site, while continuing to producing first-rate content.

IBCSR.org has also been redesigned as a membership site that offers members special benefits. These benefits include a discounted subscription to the Taylor & Francis journal Religion, Brain & Behavior, a unique online searchable database of journal articles and books in the scientific study of religion, and a variety of other benefits.

The site is easy to navigate and full of valuable discoveries presented in an entertaining and informative way. Just a few minutes browsing on the site generates ideas for articles by journalists and helps writers keep their ideas straight. Regular visits can transform understandings of the world through accumulating insights about the way religious beliefs, behaviors, and experiences function in human life.

Cambridge University Press releases Religious and Spiritual Experiences

cover-relexpThis book offers an interpretation of a diverse variety of religious and spiritual experiences, from the mundane to the shocking, from the terrifying to the sublime, and from the common to the exceptionally unusual. It carefully describes these experiences and offers a novel classification based on their neurological features and their internal qualities.

The book avoids the reductionistic oversimplifications so common in both religious and scientific literatures, and instead synthesizes perspectives from many disciplines into a compelling account of the meaning and value of religious and spiritual experiences in human life. The resulting interpretation does not assume a supernatural worldview, nor does it reject such experiences as totally delusory. Rather, the book frames religious and spiritual experiences as contributing to a spiritually positive affirmation of this-worldly existence.

Along the way, the book directly addresses key intellectual and practical questions in a philosophically sound and scientifically informed way. For example, can we trust the apparent meaning of such experiences? What is the value of religious and spiritual experiences within human life? Are we evolutionarily programmed to have such experiences? How will emerging technologies change such experiences in the future?

For more detailed information about this book, look for it on the publications menu.