Culture & Religion

A new study compares the psychedelic DMT with near-death experiences.

Crazy Rich Asians is the first film to feature an all-Asian cast in 25 years. It is also a bonafide success, both financially and culturally. Inspired by its fanfare, Big Think looks at seven other films that shook American society.

What causes the urban-rural cultural divide? According to this author, its how we view our communities.

A team of archaeologists has discovered 3,200-year-old cheese after analyzing artifacts found in an ancient Egyptian tomb. It could be the oldest known cheese sample in the world.

Throughout Europe, 92 percent of children speak multiple languages. In America, that number is 20 percent.

Jonathan Zittell Smith, the most influential scholar of religion of the past half-century, thought that religion “is created for the scholar’s analytic purposes.”

The Satanic Temple unveiled a statue of the occult idol Baphomet outside the Arkansas State Capitol building on Thursday to protest the Ten Commandments monument already on capitol grounds.

Accomplishments? Yes, Aretha Franklin had them.

Citing increasing student debt and the desire to see more family and pediatric physicians, the school might have started a trend.

Over the past 70 years, the Roman Catholic Church in Pennsylvania has been covering up child sexual abuse by hundreds of priests, according to a new report issued by a grand jury on Tuesday.

A new study used massive amounts of data from an online dating service to explore what makes someone desirable, and how people go about attracting partners online.

Starting this fall, public schools in Florida will be required to display the words “In God We Trust” in a noticeable place within each building used by a district.

Reddit can reveal a lot, depending on how you interpret the data.

Sometimes lacking proper language is just a failure of imagination.

The Academy is trying to win back viewers with a reboot, one that brings a new ‘popular film’ category, a shorter broadcast time and an earlier date to the annual ceremony.

People are bringing heavily edited selfies to plastic surgeons and asking for procedures that will make them look like their idealized versions of themselves.

Colorado and Oregon are leading the charge.

It’s not demons. It’s not the undead. The explanation is actually way more boring that you’ll ever guess.

When you’re a Hasidic woman in Borough Park, Brooklyn, starting an ambulance corps is a radical act. Documentary filmmaker Paula Eiselt on the push-pull of identity and cultural change in her film 93Queen.

Charter schools and the privatization of education have an adversary in Akron. And in the NBA.

A new study suggests that viewing materialistic media—even for a minute—can influence people to harbor stronger anti-welfare attitudes.

Don’t get your Wacker in a Wabash, Chicagoans. This is just one poll.

Over 1,500 species of flora and fauna would be at risk if a US-Mexican border wall were ever constructed.

A new study says climate change could cause an additional 40,000 suicides in America and Canada by 2050.

Why do secular groups often act like churches? The answer is simpler than you think.

Reports show that millennials are making and saving less than previous generations, likely setting them up to retire later in life—or not at all.

It can be hard to understand why a person would be an atheist. Bertrand Russell is here to help.

Maria Konnikova, best-selling author and former Big Think columnist, will be speaking with poker legend Erik Seidel and Big Think president Peter Hopkins at a New York City event on August 1.

A controversial article from Forbes argues that libraries, once an important public resource, are outdated, costly and should be replaced by Amazon book stores.

Only the pyramids stand today. What did the other 6 look like?