Lectures on Nikita Obraztsov

Intergroup Connectivity and Religious Resilience: An Agent-Based Model of an Orthodox Religious Community

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

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Stability, Silence, Community, and Psychotherapy: What Young People Are Looking for in Religion

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

English translation of a Forbes Young article by Elena Strelkova. On Gen Z religiosity in Russia and globally, featuring expert commentary.

What Does the Modern Person Believe? From Horoscopes to Neural Networks

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Lecture transcript, Moscow, May 2026. On the contemporary religious situation, secularization theory, and the transformation of religion.

Parody Religions: From Discordia to the Flying Spaghetti Monster

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Lecture transcript, Moscow, March 2026. On the sociology of parody religiosity — from Pastafarianism to Discordianism and the Church of the SubGenius.

Does a Secular Course in Religious Studies Affect Religiosity? A Proposed Randomised Experiment

Mon, 17 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Does a Secular Course in Religious Studies Affect Religiosity? A Proposed Randomised Experiment

Essay for the course “Introduction to Causality” Nikita Obraztsov, European University at St. Petersburg, 2025

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The Concept of Belonging Without Believing in the Context of Orthodox Identity Formation in Russia

Sat, 01 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Conference paper presented at the VII All-Russian Sociological Congress, Moscow, November 2025. On the gap between declared Orthodox affiliation and actual religious practice in contemporary Russia.

What Does It Mean to Be a Rational Person?

Sun, 24 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Based on an appearance on the Pascal's Wager podcast. On the nature of rationality, its limits, astrology, and why rationality is a tool rather than a sacred cow.

Does Religion Exist? Three Approaches to Studying It

Mon, 05 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Realism, phenomenology, and constructivism — three frameworks scholars use when approaching the phenomenon of religion. A breakdown with examples and criticism of each.

Feynman on Science, Religion, and Doubt

Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A reading of The Meaning of It All. Why scientists tend not to believe, what NOMA gets right, and where Feynman goes wrong on religion.

Machiavelli on Religion: Analyses of his views

Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

What Machiavelli thought about religion, why he almost never used the word God, how his views differed from Luther's, and whether he belongs among the freethinkers.

Religious Meanings in the Harry Potter Novels

Sat, 26 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Public lecture at Tele2 Art Space, Yelagin Island, St. Petersburg. From fairy tale structure to Christian theology: five layers of meaning in Rowling's novels.

Benedict Spinoza: Heretic, Lens Grinder, and God as Substance

Wed, 08 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

On the life and philosophy of Spinoza: excommunication from the synagogue, pantheism, the Ethics, and why Einstein invoked his name when asked about God.

Intelligent Design Is Not Science: The Kitzmiller v. Dover Case

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

A close reading of one of the most significant court cases in American educational history — Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (2005). Science, creationism, and the First Amendment.

Football as Quasi-Religion: A Scientific Analysis

Tue, 20 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Why Messi is called God, what football and religion have in common, and whether football is actually a religion. An analysis from the perspective of religious studies.

The Main Myth About Religion: Debunking Primordial Monotheism

Fri, 01 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

What primordial monotheism is, where the idea came from, why it appeals to people, and why ethnographic data refutes it.

Godless: A Brief History of Atheism from Antiquity to the Present

Tue, 21 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

A survey lecture on the history of atheism and freethought: from ancient impiety to the New Atheists of the twenty-first century.

The Religiosity of Young People Today: Data and Interpretations

Sun, 22 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

A paper presented at the XXX International Educational Readings. What sociological data tell us about the religiosity of young people in Russia and the United States — and how it differs from older generations.

On Religion, Atheism, and Science: Interview for the Trickster Channel

Fri, 08 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Interview for Alexander Bydantsev's channel. On religious studies as a science, the Brights movement, agnosticism, scientism, and the limits of the scientific method.

Agnosticism: Between Belief and Unbelief

Sat, 03 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

What agnosticism actually is, how it differs from atheism and scepticism, and why Bertrand Russell called himself an agnostic among colleagues but an atheist for public audiences.

Erasmus of Rotterdam: The Man Who Defined His Age

Sun, 27 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The life and ideas of Erasmus of Rotterdam: from illegitimate son of a priest to the intellectual arbiter of Europe. A close reading of The Praise of Folly, the dispute with Luther on free will, and Soviet reception.

Friedrich Nietzsche and His Critique of Christianity

Mon, 12 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Second lecture in the series on atheism and freethought. Nietzsche as a literary figure rather than a scientist: will to power, ressentiment, The Antichrist, and why his critique of religion is not scholarship.

John Toland: The Forgotten Genius of the Enlightenment

Fri, 19 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The first lecture in a series on the history of atheism and freethought. John Toland (1669/1670–1722): biography, Christianity not Mysterious, Letters to Serena, and his place in the history of European thought.

How Many Atheists Are There — and How Do You Count Them

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A breakdown of a scientific paper on the methodology of counting atheists in the United States. Why direct surveys give 3% and indirect methods yield up to 32%.