DAVID DESTENO: HOW GOD WORKS… EVEN FOR SKEPTICS

Sitting shiva reduces the pain of grief.

The Apache Sunrise Ceremony empowers teenage girls to cope with the challenges of womanhood.

Saying grace before meals increases empathy.

Really?

If you consider these beliefs to be questionable, you need to hear from pioneering psychologist David DeSteno, who will present cutting-edge scientific evidence that religious practices and faith provide a toolbox for coping — even for the skeptical. And if you accept the truth of his assertion based on your own experience, you won’t want to miss discovering how right you were all along.

Author of the newly released How God Works: The Science Behind the Benefits of Religion, David DeSteno is a professor of psychology at Northeastern University and researches how virtues like compassion, gratitude and empathy emerge and can be amplified to combat distrust, aggression, inequality and loneliness. He is the author of three prior books.

In conversation with Krista Tippett, journalist, author, and entrepreneur. Tippett created and hosts the public radio program and podcast On Being, has reported for The Times, Newsweek, the BBC, the International Herald Tribune, and was a 2014 recipient of the National Humanities Medal.