Religion. What is it, exactly?

Where does it come from? What is it good for? Where is it taking us?

Despite our ostensibly secular age, these questions continue to provoke some of the most intense, acrimonious, and high-stakes debate both inside and outside of academia.

Much of the debate is circular and rhetorical. However, in recent years, the Cultural Evolution of Religion Consortium (CERC), hosted at UBC’s own Centre for Human Evolution, Cognition and Culture (HECC), has become a global hub for empirical research into core issues that drive the contention.

“The New Science of Religion” is a UBC Centennial multimedia series that explores this work through though-provoking—and sometimes shocking—audio-visual content that will be released in installments over the course of the 2015-2016 academic year.

Anyone interested in religion and its origins will want to follow our faculty as they leads us through the latest developments in this fascinating and burgeoning field.

Be sure to tune in via this blog, the HECC website, and its affiliated Youtube channel throughout the year for new installments. Everyone is welcome to watch, think and comment.

For further information, please contact HECC’s Administrative Coordinator or UBC postdoctoral researcher Dr Jordan Levine.

[Photo credit: Dr. Dimitris Xygalatas, CERC Associate]