Jonathan Haidt: Religion, evolution, and the ecstasy of self-transcendence

Einstein & Faith He was slow in learning how to talk. "My parents were so worried," he later recalled, "that they consulted a doctor." Even after he had begun using words, sometime after the age of 2, he developed a quirk that prompted the family maid to dub him "der Depperte," the dopey one. Whenever he had something to say, he would try it out on himself, whispering it softly until it sounded good enough to pronounce aloud. "Every sentence he uttered," his worshipful younger sister recalled, "no matter how routine, he repeated to himself softly, moving his lips." Climb the staircase to self-transcendence: Jonathan Haidt at TED2012 Photo: James Duncan Davidason Author and UVA psychology professor Jonathan Haidt kicks off his TED2012 talk with a provocative question: “how many of you think of yourselves as religious?” Some people raise their hands, but not so many.

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In Texas, young Hindus want to Americanize ancient faith By Dan Gilgoff, CNN.com Religion Editor Houston, Texas (CNN) – In many ways, 29-year-old Rishi Bhutada is a traditional Hindu, not so different from his Indian-born parents. An officer at his dad’s pipefitting company, Texas-born Bhutada had an arranged marriage in India three years ago and then brought his wife back to his hometown, where they recently welcomed a son. 13 Brands Using LinkedIn Company Page Features the Right Way Back in November, I set out to write a post to highlight businesses that were using LinkedIn's company page features effectively. Needless to say, I couldn't find enough examples to create a compelling post, so in my dismay, what I actually ended up writing was, "11 Reasons Your LinkedIn Company Page Sucks." What can I say? I was a little bitter and, frankly, slightly disappointed in the social media marketers of the world. We recently reported that, in a study of the over 5,000 inbound marketers where we pitted LinkedIn against Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn proved to be the most effective social media channel for lead generation -- 277% more effective, in fact.

21 Brilliant Productivity Tools Every College Student Must Use If you ask a college student about productivity, he won't have much to say. And you really can't blame him. He leads a dynamic life where academics and fun go hand in hand, with the latter becoming a more important activity most of the times. From Minister To Atheist: A Story Of Losing Faith hide captionTeresa MacBain walks her dog, Gracie, at a park near her Tallahassee, Fla., home. After a lifetime in the church, MacBain came out as an atheist at an American Atheists' convention in Bethesda, Md. Colin Hackley for NPR Teresa MacBain walks her dog, Gracie, at a park near her Tallahassee, Fla., home. After a lifetime in the church, MacBain came out as an atheist at an American Atheists' convention in Bethesda, Md. This is the first in a series of stories on losing faith.

11 Reasons Your LinkedIn Company Page Sucks Up until recently, the value of a LinkedIn Company Page was minimal. But ever since LinkedIn enabled company updates for pages , they've become monumentally more valuable for marketers. Upon investigation of various LinkedIn Company Pages, though, it turns out that very few companies are actually leveraging this awesome new feature. To be honest, it's very difficult to find many examples of companies using LinkedIn Company Pages to their fullest potential . This a huge missed opportunity for businesses, especially given that because many businesses aren't leveraging features likes company updates, the clutter on LinkedIn is significantly less dense than on other social networks like Facebook or Twitter. This means that a business that takes advantage of company updates and other page features can leverage a great opportunity to stand out from its competitors.

Norway’s Greatest Vulnerability Is Also Its Greatest Strength The unspeakable horror of this weekend’s massacre in Norway is exaggerated exponentially by terrorist Anders Breivik’s abuse of one of civil society’s most distinctive features: the trust that the public places in law enforcement. And Norway may be particularly vulnerable to such a breach, as a country with a particularly deep faith in its the integrity of its institutions. Norway’s best civil qualities, in this case, also made it most vulnerable to the worst impulses of this killer. Like its fellow Scandinavian countries, Norway is near the top of the world’s charts in many enviable ways: high standard of living and productivity, high levels of happiness, impressive longevity, low levels of economic inequality and corruption and in general, extremely low levels of violent and other crimes. Countries with this profile tend to have the highest levels of trust in their fellow citizens and institutions. PHOTOS: Anders Behring Breivik, the Extremist Behind Norway’s Tragedy

How Not to Be Offended Editor’s note: This post was written by Shemsi Prinzivalli. There is an ancient and well-kept secret to happiness which the Great Ones have known for centuries. They rarely talk about it, but they use it all the time, and it is fundamental to good mental health. This secret is called The Fine Art of Not Being Offended. In order to truly be a master of this art, one must be able to see that every statement, action and reaction of another human being is the sum result of their total life experience to date. In other words, the majority of people in our world say and do what they do from their own set of fears, conclusions, defenses and attempts to survive.

‘Free Will,’ by Sam Harris But the last half-century has seen this ancient subject pulled down from its academic perch and into courtrooms, laboratories, real-world questions about moral responsibility, and even popular culture. (It forms the plot of such contemporary movies as “Minority Report” and “The Adjustment Bureau.”) Over the last few decades, procedures for measuring, imaging and analyzing mental processes have grown in number and subtlety. During this same period, books for the general reader about the brain and its functions, consciousness and will, thought and reasoning have proliferated. We have Daniel Dennett, Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins, Cordelia Fine, Oliver Sacks, Michael Gazzaniga, Daniel Kahneman and scores of others explaining, and extrapolating from, new findings in neuroscience and almost always addressing the matter of free will. (Daniel Wegner’s “Illusion of Conscious Will,” published by the MIT Press in 2002, is a central full-length scientific text about this subject.)