{"id":586,"date":"2008-12-06T12:09:54","date_gmt":"2008-12-06T20:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=586"},"modified":"2008-12-06T16:03:23","modified_gmt":"2008-12-07T00:03:23","slug":"the-leprechaun-cure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/the-leprechaun-cure\/","title":{"rendered":"The Leprechaun Cure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2008\/12\/05\/AR2008120502813.html\">This<\/a> is mildly interesting.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-variant:small-caps\"><strong>Researchers Stepping Up Study of Health And Religiosity<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<strong>Small Field Devoted To Exploring Possible Link Is Expanding Despite Criticism,\u00a0 Lack of Funding<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>To 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.<\/p>\n<p>To participants, they are studying what they say is becoming increasingly obvious: the link between a person&#8217;s religion or spirituality and their health.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I can&#8217;t see any <em>a priori<\/em> reason why there shouldn&#8217;t be a link between general health and religiosity. What on earth <em>is <\/em>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?&nbsp;&hellip; etc., etc.<\/p>\n<p>Good luck to the researchers, anyway. Alas, nobody on this site has much to hope for. If believing in preposterous fictions makes you healthier\u00a0\u2014 and I say again, I see no <em>a priori<\/em> reason why it shouldn&#8217;t\u00a0\u2014 then we are doomed to ill health.  <\/p>\n<p>And if the link does get dispositively proved, the smugness of the believers will be hard to take.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is mildly interesting. Researchers Stepping Up Study of Health And Religiosity Small Field Devoted To Exploring Possible Link Is Expanding Despite Criticism,\u00a0 Lack of Funding To critics, the few dozen researchers who met this week for a Washington conference &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/the-leprechaun-cure\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[19],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":603,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586\/revisions\/603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}