Abstract We study rainmaking as an instrumental religious belief. We present a model in which a religious leader tries to persuade people to believe. Praying for rain can persuade only where the hazard of rainfall during a dry spell is increasing over time, so that prayer is most likely to succeed when people most want rain. We present evidence from prayers for rain in Murcia, Spain, where the hazard rate is increasing, that the church’s prayers for rain predict rainfall over two centuries. To generalize this finding, we gather an original data set of whether ethnic groups around the world traditionally prayed for rain. We find that ethnic groups facing an increasing rainfall hazard are 47% more likely to pray for rain, consistent with our model’s prediction that societies are more likely to pray for rain where prayer is persuasive.
Supernatural explanations across 114 societies are more common for natural than social phenomena
Humans across the globe use supernatural beliefs to explain the world around them. This article explores whether cultural groups invoke the supernatural more to explain natural phenomena (for example, storms, disease outbreaks) or social phenomena (for example, murder, warfare). Quantitative analysis of ethnographic text across 114 geographically and culturally diverse societies found that supernatural explanations are more prevalent for natural than for social phenomena, consistent with theories that ground the origin of religious belief in a human tendency to perceive intent and agency in the natural world. Despite the dominance of supernatural explanations of natural phenomena, supernatural explanations of social phenomena were especially prevalent in urbanized societies with more socially complex and anonymous groups. Our results show how people use supernatural beliefs as explanatory tools in non-industrial societies, and how these applications vary across small-scale communities versus large and urbanized groups.
Why Religion, Not Income, Predicts the American Vote
Inside the data that shows socioeconomic status barely matters once you know someone’s religious tradition.
Religion matters for economic growth through various channels
Standard models of economic growth depict physical capital, human capital, population/labour, and total factor productivity as proximate determinants of economic growth. But their deeper determinants are poorly understood. This column argues that religion – as one of the most ubiquitous social phenomena – can spur or impair economic growth by affecting each of these four elements of the macroeconomic production function.
India - C-01: Population by religious community, India - 2011
Why Being Wrong Can Be Right: Magical Warfare Technologies and the Persistence of False Beliefs
Across human societies, one sees many examples of deeply rooted and widely held beliefs that are almost certainly untrue. Examples include beliefs about witchcraft, magic, ordeals, and superstitions. Why are such incorrect beliefs so prevalent and how do they persist? We consider this question through an examination of superstitions and magic associated with conflict in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Focusing on superstitions related to bullet-proofing, we provide theory and case-study evidence showing how these incorrect beliefs persist. Although harmful at the individual-level, we show that they generate Pareto efficient outcomes that have group-level benefits.
(Working Paper) Good Faith Design: Religion as a Resource for Technologists
Previous work has found a lack of research in HCI on religion, partly driven by misunderstandings of values and practices between religious and technical communities. To bridge this divide in an empirically rigorous way, we conducted an interview study with 48 religious people and/or experts from 11 faiths, and we document how religious people experience, understand, and imagine technologies. We show that religious stakeholders find non-neutral secular embeddings in technologies and the firms and people that design them, and how these manifest in unintended harms for religious and nonreligious users. Our findings reveal how users navigate technoreligious practices with religiously informed mental models and what they desire from technologies. Informed by this, we distill six design values -- wonder, humility, space, embodiedness, community, and eternity -- to guide technologists in considering and leveraging religion as an additional, valid sociocultural resource when designing for a holistic user. We further spell out directions for future research.
First They Built a Secular Apocalypse Belief System. Now They Want Religious Authority.
Over the weekend, a clip about “Anthropic thinks it’s building God” started making the rounds.
Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Indicators of Rain: Evidence from Rwenzori Region, Western Uganda
This study investigated the abiotic and biotic environmental indicators used among pastoralists and arable farmers to predict the onset and cessation of rain as well as to make short-term and seasonal forecasts in the Rwenzori region of Western Uganda. We used a mixed-methods approach that included surveys of 907 households, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews. The results indicate that resident birds such as white-browed coucals and turacos and migrant birds such as eagles and swallows were important indicators of the onset of rains. Butterflies were an important indicator for the cessation of rains, and red ants were an indicator for the onset of rains. Among the abiotic indicators, winds, clouds, earthquakes, and cloud formation on Mount Rwenzori were important indicators. Behavior of cattle at the onset of rains was important among the pastoralists, and flowering of coffee plants was important among the arable farmers. The behavior of the biotic indicators was driven by the availability of food, water, or other necessities. An attempt to explain the phenology underlying the behavior of biotic indicators and the meteorological science underlying some of the abiotic indicators is made. Although biotic environmental indicators are rudimentary and their accuracy is influenced by external factors such as climate change, they provide climate information within the locality of the farmers. Our results suggest that the indicators used in indigenous forecasting could be incorporated in national meteorological systems in a bid to improve the accuracy of rainfall forecasts and their use among farmers and pastoralists in rural Africa.
The changing nature of America’s irreligious explained
Americans are increasingly choosing not to identify with any religious tradition. But this group of irreligious people is a complex one – with different relationships to religion.
Togelius: Losing my religion
In spring 2025 I had a crisis of faith. I thought about what the technology I'm helping to create might do to our future, and got scared. M...
Togelius: Losing my religion
In spring 2025 I had a crisis of faith. I thought about what the technology I'm helping to create might do to our future, and got scared. M...
The EAC-PM's Paper on 'Muslim Population' Is a Travesty of Research Practices
Fertility rates of the poorest sections of the population of any state are impacted by the quality of educational and health services, and gender differences in regard to health and educational outcome indicators, not religion.
The Association of Religion Data Archives
Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) best reference source to find data, information, datasets on American & international religion, US Religion Census
CFP: Religion, Politics, and Cognitive Warfare | The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory | JCRT
This call for papers invites work on religion, politics, and cognitive warfare, exploring how belief, media, conspiracy, identity, and power shape struggles over reality, interpretation, and life in an age of disinformat
A silent majority of the world’s people wants stronger climate action. It’s time to wake up | Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope
About 89% of the public want their governments to do more to tackle the climate crisis – but don’t know they’re the majority
Can Religions Be Reborn? | Over The Mountains to Civilizational Renewal #9