The theory that religion is a force for peace, often heard among the religious right and its allies today, does not fit… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
In culture after culture, people believe that the soul lives on after death, that rituals can change the physical world and divine… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“Matthew White, a self-described atrocitologist who keeps a database with the estimated death tolls of history’s major wars, massacres, and genocides, counts… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“Some biblical scholars believe that the story of the fall from the Garden of Eden was a cultural memory of the transition… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“The scriptures present a God who delights in genocide, rape, slavery, and the execution of nonconformists, and for millennia those writings were… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“Why should the spread of ideas and people result in reforms that lower violence? There are several pathways. The most obvious is… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
The doctrine of the sacredness of the soul sounds vaguely uplifting, but in fact is highly malignant. It discounts life on earth… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
I think that if you were to probe a lot of people's religious opinions, they would not be as religious as the… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“But in Hebrew scripture David is not just the “sweet singer of Israel,” the chiseled poet who plays a harp and composes… — steven pinker Copy Share Image
In many Muslim countries, witchcraft is not only on the books as a crime, but is commonly prosecuted. In 2009, for example,… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
Violence and religion have often gone together, but it's not a perfect correlation, and it doesn't have to be a permanent connection,… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“Religious people today, compartmentalize their attitude to the Bible. They pay it lip service as a symbol of morality while getting their… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
All over the world, belief in the supernatural has authorised the sacrifice of people to propitiate bloodthirsty gods, and the murder of… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
Modern biblical scholars have established that the bible is a wiki. It was compiled over half a millennium from writers with different… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“Institutionalized torture in Christendom was not just an unthinking habit; it had a moral rationale. If you really believe that failing to… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
The human moral sense can excuse any atrocity in the minds of those who commit it, and it furnishes them with motives… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
I think students should know something about religion as a historical phenomenon, in the same way that they should know something about… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
It's natural to think that living things must be the handiwork of a designer. But it was also natural to think that… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
People consider the harms they inflict to be justified and forgettable, and the harms they suffer to be unprovoked and grievous. — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“In allowing the crucifixion to take place, God did the world an incalculable favor. Though infinitely powerful, compassionate, and wise, he could… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
After their return from Babylon, the practice of human sacrifice died out among the Jews, but survived as an ideal in one… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
An ideology can provide a satisfying narrative that explains chaotic events and collective misfortunes in a way that flatters the virtue and… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“The problem with the religious solution [for mysteries such as consciousness and moral judgments] was stated by Mencken when he wrote, "Theology… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
The European wars of religion were more deadly than the First World War, proportionally speaking, and in the range of the Second… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
Forcing modern speakers of English to not - whoops, not to split an infinitive because it isn't done in Latin makes about as much… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
Consistent style prevents presentation from getting in the way of content. — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
The supposedly immaterial soul, we now know, can be bisected with a knife, altered by chemicals, started or stopped by electricity, and extinguished by… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
I've never argued that humans are massively hot-wired. What I was trying to point out was that you can't understand how we learn unless… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
As many political writers have pointed out, commitment to political equality is not an empirical claim that people are clones. — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
Since violence is largely a male pastime, cultures that empower women tend to move away from the glorification of violence and are less likely… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
When it comes to explaining human thought and behavior, the possibility that heredity plays any role at all still has the power to shock.… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
Morality is not just any old topic in psychology but close to our conception of the meaning of life. Moral goodness is what gives… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“The biblical story of the binding of Isaac shows that human sacrifice was far from unthinkable in the 1st millennium BCE. The Israelites boasted… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
Part of the bargain of being alive is that one takes a chance at dying a premature or painful death, be it from violence,… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
In fact, without a specification of a creature's goals, the very idea of intelligence is meaningless. A toadstool could be given a genius award… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
“The obvious cure for the tragic shortcomings of human intuition in a high-tech world is education. And this offers priorities for educational policy: to… — Steven Pinker Copy Share Image
