Of religion and happiness

[turoldus]

http://epiphenom.fieldofscience.com/2011/12/moderate-believers-might-benefit-from.html

[davidt]

Perhaps if you want to be happy be less religious BUT attend church more often (and marry)

pewresearch.org/pubs/301/are-we-happy-yet

[fortigurn]

Topic title is 'If you want to be happy... Be less religious', commentary on study claims this is evidence 'those who are firm non-believers are actually quite happy, thank you very much', conclusion of actual study is 'While fervent believers benefit from their involvement, those with weaker beliefs are actually less happy than those who do not ascribe to any religion—atheists and agnostics', and ‘Indeed, weakly affiliated adherents may actually be less happy than their unaffiliated counterparts—atheists, agnostics, and those who report no religion at all—and therefore would appear to benefit from abandoning their faith.’.

So the original 'weakly affiliated' is transformed into 'those who are firm non-believers ', which in turn is transformed into 'be less religious'. A classic example of Chinese whispers, which increasingly misrepresents the original study. Here's another interesting point the study made.

Were we to place our own children in the distribution of religiosity, the option with the highest expected well-being would entail enrolling them and encouraging them to believe strongly; were we not certain that our children would attain sufficient levels of belief, however, we might prefer them to remain unaffiliated.

[unkleE]

Yes, the title of this thread is quite the opposite of the truth. Both studies have almost the same findings:

US (2006): "People who attend religious services weekly or more are happier (43% very happy) than those who attend monthly or less (31%); or seldom or never (26%). This correlation between happiness and frequency of church attendance has been a consistent finding in the General Social Surveys taken over the years."

US (2010): "So the only religious adherents who are really happy are those who are very religious. Those who are only moderately fervent could benefit by ramping up their faith - but they could also benefit by toning it down still further."

[fortigurn]

Interesting that the bit about the moderately fervent 'could benefit by ramping up their faith' wasn't mentioned in the article linked to, just 'Moderate believers might benefit from less, not more religion'.

Yes it does, I just found it.

[turoldus]

Dec 15, 2011 4:47:56 GMT unkleE said:

Yes, the title of this thread is quite the opposite of the truth.

My bad. Trying to synthetize an article in a limited space (I initially wanted to cut-and-paste the title of the original post, but it always came up shortened) is an exacting task sometimes. I correct the title ASAP.

[fortigurn]

Dec 15, 2011 10:32:53 GMT turoldus said:

My bad. Trying to synthetize an article in a limited space (I initially wanted to cut-and-paste the title of the original post, but it always came up shortened) is an exacting task sometimes. I correct the title ASAP.

Thanks turoldus, that's an excellent example of intellectual honesty. It's a shame that media outlets are typically a lot less concerned with truth.

[sandwiches]

This will lower your blood pressure :

www.christianpost.com/news/study-attending-church-linked-to-lower-blood-pressure-65742/

The Christian Post
Study: Attending Church Linked to Lower Blood Pressure

A recently published study headed by Norwegian researchers found that there is a correlation between religious practice and lower blood pressure.
In research published in the International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, researchers concluded that lower blood pressure can be linked to church attendance. Dr. Harold G. Koenig, one of the authors of the research, told The Christian Post that this study was one of many that has shown this trend.

"About two-thirds of the research, now over 60 quantitative studies, report that those who are more religiously active have significantly lower blood pressure," said Koenig.The study, titled “The Relationship Between Religious Attendance and Blood Pressure: The Hunt Study,” was overseen by researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).

While Koenig and researchers from NTNU believe their paper likely shows that church attendance affects blood pressure, others are skeptical.

Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association, told CP that he believes the findings were more on social gatherings rather than religious practice per se.

"Of course, when people regularly participate in a community, be it church, synagogue, or an atheist club, they are going to be healthier because they have more human interaction and a social support network," said Speckhardt.

So you could get the same benefits by attending an "atheist club"?

[sandwiches]

Report in Daily Mail (of all places) adds some surprising detail:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2078519/Going-church-good-Services-lower-blood-pressure-research-finds.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Researchers found that attending services lowers blood pressure – and the more often you go the lower it becomes.

Previous studies in the U.S. suggested the link, but as 40 per cent of Americans regularly go to church its health benefits were treated as a coincidence. So the Norwegian researchers, who had just four per cent of churchgoers among their 120,000 participants, were surprised to see they too had lower blood pressure.

"About 40 per cent of the U.S. population goes to church on a weekly basis, while the corresponding figure in Nord-Trondelag County, where the research was carried out, is 4 per cent.

"For that reason, we did not expect to find any correlation between going to church and blood pressure in Nord-Trondelag.

"Our findings, however, are almost identical to those previously reported from the United States, so we were really surprised.’