This is mildly interesting.
Researchers Stepping Up Study of Health And Religiosity
Small Field Devoted To Exploring Possible Link Is Expanding Despite Criticism, Lack of FundingTo critics, the few dozen researchers who met this week for a Washington conference are part of an ideological crusade, a modern-day sham meant to infect science with religious belief.
To participants, they are studying what they say is becoming increasingly obvious: the link between a person’s religion or spirituality and their health.
I can’t see any a priori reason why there shouldn’t be a link between general health and religiosity. What on earth is religiosity, though? Responses on a belief questionnaire? Church attendance? Occasional experiences of Merging With the Cosmic All? Seems to me tough to measure in a general way, though I suppose you could start at the high end with monks and priests. And which way does the arrow of causation point? … etc., etc.
Good luck to the researchers, anyway. Alas, nobody on this site has much to hope for. If believing in preposterous fictions makes you healthier — and I say again, I see no a priori reason why it shouldn’t — then we are doomed to ill health.
And if the link does get dispositively proved, the smugness of the believers will be hard to take.
If certain forms of religious belief or praxis make people more healthy on average, the next question is why. I doubt it’s because they are “believing in preposterous fictions”, but rather because religious attendance leads to connection with the wider community or social contacts, more positive use of human imaginative abilities, and so on. It might be that specific attendant beliefs are not true, but the underlying principle(s) will probably also be applicable to secular contexts.
If someone can demonstrate a correlation between religiosity and health, it would be interesting. At the same time, one must always remember that correlation is not causation. Further, causation is not moral judgment or a value in itself. Let us suppose, for example, that not only could it be shown that religiosity correlates with health (more religious = healthier or longer-lived), but also that it could be shown that the effects of religious faith were actually the cause of better health or longer life (by way of, perhaps, reduced stress levels related to secure faith in a beneficent higher power). This would still not prove that it is better to be religious than not. It certainly is not a proof of that being religious brings one closer to truth; nor is longer life is necessarily a virtue in itself. Given a choice between a life spent confronting the challenges and conundrums of existence honestly, or one spent hiding one’s head in the sand, only a coward chooses the latter.
If the goal of this research is to reinforce religion, then I really have to laugh — it’s Pascal’s Wager all over again, an attempt to support religion not because it is true, but because it has practical advantages. Such an approach is ultimately destructive of real religious faith.
Like Derb, I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to be true that there is a link between religious belief and general health. Religion may just be a permanent placebo drip-feed.
Maybe we should get a team together to use religion to prove that scientists have a better afterlife.
I suppose Jews and Hindus eat fewer bacon cheeseburgers than I do, but I spend their holy days out doing something useful, so I may get more out of my fewer years.
It may be the case that religiosity is correlated with reduced high risk behaviors. I’m thinking of alcohol and drug abuse and promiscuity. It may be the case that marriage is correlated with better health, and divorce correlated with poorer health. The highly religious may be more likely to marry young, and stay married.
I have no idea whether any of this is actually the case.
Good luck to the researchers, anyway. Alas, nobody on this site has much to hope for. If believing in preposterous fictions makes you healthier — and I say again, I see no a priori reason why it shouldn’t — then we are doomed to ill health.
Would this belief necessarily extend to the supernatural? Perhaps a belief in the future of a community might have the same effect. Of course, I don’t know how could really test that.
“Merging With the Cosmic All?” I used to do that. But then I gave up LSD. 😉
I think one can argue that there is a difference between spirituality and religion, in that religion comes with certain required (depending on the religion) actions such as set prayers at set times, sacrifice of virgins/bunny rabbits/virgin bunny rabbits, or other actions that seem ludicrous to those of us with a more scientific bent.
All that said, why couldn’t religion/spirituality have a placebo effect?
Sure, I’d believe that.
Ritual and chanting raise serontonin levels in the bloodstream.
It only APPEARS that religiousity increases healthiness.
Correlation is not causation.
The hidden variable is blood chemistry.
There is a biological basis for all behavior.
Also, nuturing.
Parents that make their children get dressed and go to church on sunday are more likely to have good nutrition and medicare for reps.
Medical care, lol, not medicare.
but rather because religious attendance leads to connection with the wider community or social contacts
There’s a fair amount of social science that confirms. Though it varies by culture.
Steel Phoenix
“Maybe we should get a team together to use religion to prove that scientists have a better afterlife.”
Funny, but given the homage being paid to science in so many of these first threads, I was just wondering if there’s any actual evidence that, in practice, atheists make better scientists than believers.
There has been quite a lot of sociological analysis devoted to decomposing religiosity into its various elements, establishing quantitative measures for those elements, determining the extent to which they correlate with each other (and, as here, with other measurable human characteristics), etc. The literature is there for those who have the curiosity to read it; the answers are a good bit too complicated to summarize here.
What is funny is believers asking for evidence.
Why would a believer even practice science?
I’m not going to discount a well documented fact just because it was researched by a believer. I’m not in the practice of asking scientists about their religion before accepting the quality of their work, but science does frown on preconceived notions interfering with research. I’m fine with a baptist studying the effects of salt on cholesterol levels. Any time you set out to prove something to be true, you are on shaky scientific ground, which is where I see so many religion based scientists failing before they begin. As previous commenters have stated, including myself, religious people may very well live longer even without the existence of God, but how would a Christian explain Satan worshipers living longer than atheists? What is the purpose of this research, really? Have they run out of hope of converting atheists with promises and threats of the afterlife? Are they going to try to convince us now to believe fairy tales so we will live longer?
Believing in an afterlife is a way of dealing with problems in this life by making them smaller. I would have committed suicide when I was 16 if I had not had people near me to help me believe in God at the first time in my life when I really needed to.
SC-I don’t see how you can support a statement like that. You are rationalizing faith. Believe because it will make things easier? How is it dealing with problems? I’d sooner let Jack Daniels solve my problems, at least he only makes me crazy for a little while.
“The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.” – George Bernard Shaw
Steel Phoenix said: “Believe because it will make things easier? How is it dealing with problems?”
Making things easier does equal dealing with problems. It may not be the best way to deal with problems (obviously, alcohol abuse isn’t) but it may be better than the other options at that time.
Belief in God can have lots of positive effects on a person’s psychology, such as giving a sense of purpose, alleviating worry, and so on. Practically speaking for most people, it’s not clear where the drawbacks of theistic belief are in this sort of context.
I understand that, my point is: Is it really faith if you rationalize adopting it out of expedience? I’d call it suspension of disbelief, like when you watch Star Wars. I don’t so much begrudge people the little lies the tell themselves to cope, so long as they don’t interfere with their rational decisions. I don’t think Santa Claus is nearly so destructive a concept as God, because Santa never attained such a state of secondhand self importance.
That’s a fair point, but I’m not sure how it maps onto Stopped Clock’s statement. It’s not clear that he said that he adopted the belief simply because he thought it would lead to such-and-such, but rather he adopted the belief *and* it led to such-and-such.
Regardless, usually the situation isn’t as simple as adopting it out of sheer will or expedience. There are various possibilities regarding truth open to you at a given time – maybe this is true or that is true – and then there are practical considerations. More practical considerations in favor of an idea might cause you to more readily adopt that belief, for example. It’s not clear to me that this is irrational or unwarranted in a general sense.
This blog moves really fast … it’s only been a day and there’s six new threads. Anyway, all I am saying is that religion helps people deal with problems … even if it’s a false religion … and that better mental health can lead to better physical health too.