Mummified cats

How Ancient Peoples Fed the Dead

4,000 years ago in what is now Jerusalem, someone was buried with a jar of headless toads. In fact, many ancient graves included food for the afterlife.
Salt Lake City Temple Glass Holy of Holies

How Mormons Have Made Religion Out of Doubt

Because of its commitment to continuing revelation, Mormonism is replete with examples of individual doubt that have resulted in more, not less, religion.
Edith Stein

Edith Stein, the Jewish Woman Who Became a Catholic Saint

In 1998, Pope John Paul II made one of his most contentious canonizations, elevating a Jewish woman named Edith Stein to the status of saint.
Displaced Rohingya people

How Buddhism Is Being Used to Justify Violence in Myanmar

What's behind the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar in which the minority Rohingya people are being violently driven out of the country?
Halie Selassie

Why a Coup in Ethiopia Created a Faith Crisis in Jamaica

Rastafarians emerged from anti-colonial, anti-racism movements of the 60s, they also looked back toward their African ancestry.
Great Mosque at Mecca

How European Empires Helped Shape the Hajj

Despite the Hajj's celebration of ascetic faith and brotherhood, there has always been plenty of profit made off the pilgrims traveling to Mecca.
Puritan Book Burning

What Links Religion and Authoritarianism?

The connections between religiousness and authoritarianism, studied for decades, depend upon the kind of religious belief.
John Calvin

John Calvin: The Religious Reformer Who Influenced Capitalism

Both the blame and the credit for capitalism has often been placed at the feet of a 16th-century Christian theologian named John Calvin.
Roswell NM mural

Roswell, Sacred Shrine of UFO Enthusiasts

Seventy years ago, something happened in Roswell, New Mexico, that put the place on the map and embedded it into the culture. What was it?
Marshall McLuhan

The Mystical Side of Marshall McLuhan

Communication theorists don't usually merit international celebrity, with one giant exception: Canadian professor and author Marshall McLuhan.