Featuring 80 Americans--from the famous to the unknown--this series of insightful observations completes the thought that the book's title introduces. Each piece compels readers to rethink not only how they arrive at their own personal beliefs but also how they share them with others.

"In this lively journey through human psychology, bestselling author and creator of the You Are Not So Smart podcast David McRaney investigates how minds change-and how to change minds. What made a prominent conspiracy-theorist YouTuber finally see that 9/11 was not a hoax? How do voter opinions shift from neutral to resolute? Can widespread social change only take place when a generation dies out? From one of our greatest thinkers on reasoning, HOW...

Contemporary debate about religion seems to be going nowhere. Atheists persist with their arguments, many plausible and some unanswerable, but these make no impact on religious believers. Defenders of religion find atheists equally unwilling to cede ground. The Meaning of Belief offers a way out of this stalemate. An atheist himself, Tim Crane writes that there is a fundamental flaw with most atheists' basic approach: religion is not what they think...

The majority of the world's population is religious or believes in supernatural phenomena. In the United States, nine out of every ten adults believe in God, and about three out of four believe in some form of telepathy, déjà vu, ghosts, or past lives. Where does such supernatural thinking come from? Here, cognitive scientist Bruce M. Hood reveals the science behind our beliefs in the supernatural. Supernatural thinking includes not only superstitions,...

In North Devon, where two rivers converge and run into the sea, Detective Matthew Venn stands outside the church as his estranged father's funeral takes place. When Matthew left the strict evangelical community he grew up in, he lost his family too. Now, as he turns and walks away again, he receives a call from one of his team. A body has been found on the beach nearby: a man with a tattoo of an albatross on his neck, stabbed to death. The case calls...

Little Imani of the Maasai people longs to do something great, like touching the moon, but the other children just laugh at her.

When Eva Wingdale sees something large and white flying above her she is convinced that it is a ghost, although most of the other owls just laugh at her--until something large and heavy and white lands on the school roof.

This second collection of This I believe essays gathers seventy-five essayists, ranging from famous to previously unknown, completing the thought that begins the book's title. With contributors who run the gamut from cellist Yo-Yo Ma to ordinary people like a diner waitress, an Iraq War veteran, a farmer, a new husband, and many others, This I believe II, like the first New York Times bestselling collection, showcases moving and irresistible essays...

"With a little help from her family, community, and Santa himself, a little girl's faith in the magic of Christmas is restored"--