Lives on Earth

3.8 Billion Years

  • Spirituality and Genes

    How do we acquire our religious practices and beliefs? From our family? Our community? From our private moods and insights? Researchers have been sorting out answers. The emotional aspect of religion, our spirituality, is strongly influenced by the genes we inherit.… Continue reading

  • Creativity: A Survival Tool or a Higher Gift?

    What are the roots of human creativity? Is it linked to our evolutionary struggles for survival? Or does it depend on the leisure that comes with security and civilization? Or do its sources lie elsewhere? The scholarship suggests that it… Continue reading

  • Feces as Medicine

    Yes, that’s right. They’re called fecal microbiota transplants–F.M.T.’s. A healthy person’s stool is mixed in an enema and transplanted to a patient’s rectum. The beneficial bacteria in such transplants are proving very effective in relieving two stubborn illnesses: ulcerative colitis… Continue reading

  • Religion for Atheists

    In his 2012 book Religion for Atheists, Alain de Botton has this message for atheists: don’t let your outrage at religion blind you to its wisdom about suffering and its contributions to culture. Religions (in the book, mostly Christianity, some Judaism… Continue reading

  • Dinosaurs in the Backyard

    Not dinosaurs exactly, but their descendants for sure. Look outside for the creatures that lay eggs and walk semi-upright on two legs, with a stiffened tail. Imagine that that robin is many times larger, without feathers but with scales, with… Continue reading

  • Forgetting

    A version of this post appeared here at this time last year, shortly after Sandy. Hurricane Sandy seems long gone, and the memory of ten days without light and heat is slowly fading. But I haven’t yet forgotten the train-roar… Continue reading

  • Defining “Miracle”

    People are generally of two minds about the word miracle. Many use it to refer, with varying degrees of religiosity, to something brought about by a deity or other supernatural force. “The universe is a miracle that we will never completely… Continue reading