Richard Dawkins is former Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University and one of the best-known of the New Atheists. His many books include The God Delusion and 2009’s The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution.

The Elder Cohousing Network in Davis, Calif., an eight-household community, opened in January 2006 as the first elder cohousing development in the country. Members range in age from 76 to 92; the community grew out of a Unitarian Universalist congregation in Davis.

Read a Nov. 14, 2009, New York Times article about research into whether religious behavior is an evolved instinct.

Read a Dec. 4, 2009, essay by evolutionary psychologist and biologist Marc D. Hauser, “It seems biology (not religion) equals morality.”

Read an Aug. 30, 2010, NPR story about the connection between human evolution and belief in the super-natural.

Ernest Allen Jr. is a professor of Afro-American studies at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. He has written about the evolution of the Nation of Islam from its roots as the Moorish Science Temple to the stepping down of Farrakhan.

Sept. 14, 2011, First Things column by Joe Carter where he dismisses the idea of an oppressive American theocracy ever materializing

August 28, 2011, The New York Times op-ed by Ross Douthat where he provides journalists pointers on how to approach writing about religion and politics.

Written by Michelle Goldberg (W.W. Norton, 2006). Goldberg investigates the increasing religious radicalism that led to the re-election of George W. Bush in 2004.