Moralizing religions, unlike religions with morally indifferent gods or spirits, appeared only
recently in some (but not all) large-scale human societies. A crucial feature of these new …

Why do humans develop beliefs in supernatural entities that punish uncooperative
behaviors? Leading hypotheses maintain that these beliefs are widespread because they …

In recent decades, a new scientific approach to understand, explain, and predict many
features of religion has emerged. The cognitive science of religion (CSR) has amassed …

Shamans, including medicine men, mediums, and the prophets of religious movements,
recur across human societies. Shamanism also existed among nearly all documented …

Moralizing religions encourage people to anticipate supernatural punishments for violating
moral norms, even in anonymous interactions. This is thought to be one way large-scale …

Bloodletting—the practice of letting blood out to cure a patient—was for centuries one of the
main therapies in the west. We lay out three potential explanations for bloodletting's cultural …

Karmic beliefs, centered on the expectation of ethical causation within and across lifetimes,
appear in major world religions as well as spiritual movements around the world, yet they …

Religious beliefs apparently challenge our view of human cognition as an evolved system
that provides reliable information about environments. We propose that properties of …

Karma is believed to be a source of supernatural justice through which actions lead to
morally congruent outcomes, within and across lifetimes. It is a central tenet of many world …

Immanent justice reasoning involves causally attributing a deserved outcome to someone's
prior moral deeds or character, even when such a causal connection is physically …