Soul Boom Proving God's Existence With Science (w/ Dave Desteno)
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Feb 17, 2026 Dave DeSteno, social psychologist studying virtue, emotion, and spiritual practice. He shifts the focus from proving God to studying how prayer, meditation, gratitude, forgiveness, and religious community shape wellbeing. Short talks explore meditation’s effect on compassion, rituals that aid grief, and how spiritual practices might expand moral concern and strengthen social bonds.
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Meditate In Community With Guidance
- Meditate with community and guidance rather than only using an app to increase benefits and reduce risks.
- Seek teachers and group practice to raise chances of safe, transcendent experiences.
Lab Test: Meditation Tripled Helping Behavior
- DeSteno ran an eight-week lab study teaching novices meditation with a Buddhist lama and compared behavior to a waiting-list control.
- Meditators offered their chair to an injured actor 50% of the time versus 15% for non-meditators.
Meditation Lowers Vindictiveness, Keeps Moral Clarity
- Loving-kindness and mindfulness reduce vindictiveness: meditators refused to punish an insulter in a hot-sauce paradigm.
- Meditation preserves moral judgment while preventing harm.
