Human Behavior, features and articles | Educational Science

Jul 28, 2022

Photos: Ancient Stupa Holding Bone of Buddha Discovered

Model of Stupa - 1 (Image credit: Photo courtesy of Chinese Cultural Relics)Archaeologists excavating a crypt beneath Grand Bao'en Temple in Nanjing, China, have discovered a model of a stupa — a place used for meditation. Made of sandalwood, silver and gold the model dates back 1,000 years and stands...

Jul 28, 2022

Ancient Statue Reveals Prince Who Would Become Buddha

In the ruins of a Buddhist monastery in Afghanistan, archaeologists have uncovered a stone statue that seems to depict the prince Siddhartha before he founded Buddhism. The stone statue, or stele, was discovered at the Mes Aynak site in a ruined monastery in 2010, but it wasn't until now that...

Jul 29, 2022

Why does Christianity have so many denominations?

Followers of Jesus span the globe. But the global body of more than 2 billion Christians is separated into thousands of denominations. Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Baptist, Apostolic, Methodist — the list goes on. Estimations show there are more than 200 Christian denominations in the U.S. and a staggering 45,000 globally,...

Aug 1, 2022

The Buddha: History, meditation, religion and images

Siddhartha Gautama, also known as the Buddha, was a philosopher and spiritual teacher who lived sometime during the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. in India. He is credited with founding Buddhism — now the world's fourth largest religion with an estimated 500 million adherents — and teaching such concepts as...

Aug 4, 2022

New Surprising Results on Abortion and Religiosity

Editor's note: As of August 4, 2022, the constitutional right to abortion has been eliminated in the U.S., following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. The following article was published on June 1, 2009, and therefore any legal information is no longer accurate....

Aug 5, 2022

The Maya: History, civilization & gods

The term Maya refers to both a modern-day group of people who live across the globe and their ancestors who built an ancient civilization that stretched across much of Central America. The Maya civilization reached its peak during the first millennium A.D., and Maya ruins can still be seen across...

Aug 9, 2022

What is genocide?

Acts of genocide — trying to partially or completely destroy an entire people or group — have been committed countless times in prehistory, and numerous times since. For example, Egyptian hieroglyphs on a memorial stone from the late 13th century B.C. give what may be the earliest-known mention of the...

Oct 14, 2022

Americans Muddled on Obama's Religion

Only about a third of Americans know what religion Barack Obama practices, a new survey finds. In a new poll by Gallup, 34 percent of Americans correctly pegged the president's faith as Christian. Eleven percent said he is Muslim, and 44 percent said they didn't know. (Another 8 percent said...

Nov 2, 2022

What does the devil look like? Historical depictions of Satan

From a fallen angel to a bearded, red-hued man with horns, the Prince of Darkness' has been depicted in many different forms over the years. The satanic figure as understood today is the result of centuries of art, literature and theater. To find out what the devil really looks like,...

Dec 11, 2022

Why is Christmas celebrated on Dec. 25?

Today, many (but not all) Christians celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25. But given that the birth date of Jesus Christ is not known with certainty, why was this day selected? There are two major theories as to why Christmas is celebrated on Dec. 25. One, sometimes called the history of...

Dec 18, 2022

Why is Hanukkah 8 days?

The Jewish festival of Hanukkah — also spelled Chanukah — is a celebration that happens around the middle of winter each year. But why is it eight days long? The most commonly heard explanation is that the eight days commemorate a miracle in which a small amount of oil burned...

Apr 6, 2023

Why does the date of Easter change every year?

Why does Easter change every year, when dates like Christmas are fixed? The early church grappled with how Easter is determined, and the processes for scheduling the holiday weren't fully set in stone until the 16th century. On top of that, the dates of Easter used by most Western Christian...

May 14, 2023

Did Noah's flood really happen?

Noah's flood is one of the most recognized Bible stories. According to the Old Testament, In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of...

Jul 21, 2023

Science 'supersedes' creationism, Einstein tells religious students in newly revealed letter

An old Einstein letter, in which the famous physicist tells a religious studies teacher and her students that science supersedes religious creation and that God can be thought of as analogous to humans, has been put up for sale for $125,000. The typed letter, from April 11,1950, was sent by...

Sep 22, 2016

In Shift, Most Americans Now Say President Should Release All Medical Records

A majority of Americans now say that a U.S. president should release all of his or her medical information. In earlier years, those who held this opinion were in the minority, according to a new poll. The poll, which was conducted by Gallup last week, found that a slim majority...