The Practical Value of Religion |
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As with everything, if it helps you survive and breed, natural selection takes it on board |
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| Religion 'linked to happy life'
A belief in God could lead to a more contented life, research suggests. Religious people are better able to cope with shocks such as losing a job or divorce, claims the study presented to a Royal Economic Society conference. |
"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one" - George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) |
BBC Online Aug 2008 Data from thousands of Europeans revealed higher levels of "life satisfaction" in believers. However, researcher Professor Andrew Clark said other aspects of a religious upbringing unrelated to belief may influence future happiness. This is not the first study to draw links between religion and happiness, with a belief among many psychologists that some factor in either belief, or its observance, offering benefits. Professor Clark, from the Paris School of Economics, and co-author Dr Orsolya Lelkes from the European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research, used information from household surveys to analyse the attitudes of Christians - both Catholic and Protestant - not only to their own happiness, but also to issues such as unemployment. Their findings, they said, suggested that religion could offer a "buffer" which protected from life's disappointments. Professor Clark said: "We originally started the research to work out why some European countries had more generous unemployment benefits than others, but our analysis suggested that religious people suffered less psychological harm from unemployment than the non-religious. "They had higher levels of life satisfaction". Purpose of life Even though churchgoers were unsurprisingly more likely to oppose divorce, they were both less psychologically affected by marital separation when it did happen, he said. "What we found was that religious people were experiencing current day rewards, rather than storing them up for the future." However, he said that the nature of the surveys used meant that undetected factors, perhaps in the lifestyle or upbringing of religious people, such as stable family life and relationships, could be the cause of this increased satisfaction. The precise contribution of religion to mental health remains controversial, although there is other evidence that it does directly improve happiness, said Professor Leslie Francis, from the University of Warwick. He said that the benefit might stem from the increased "purpose of life" felt by believers. He said: "These findings are consistent with other studies which suggest that religion does have a positive effect, although there are other views which say that religion can lead to self-doubt, and failure, and thereby have a negative effect. "The belief that religion damages people is still in the minds of many." 'Meaningless' Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, which represents the interests of atheists and agnostics, said that studies purporting to show a link between happiness and religion were "all meaningless". "Non-believers can't just turn on a faith in order to be happy. If you find religious claims incredible, then you won't believe them, whatever the supposed rewards in terms of personal fulfilment. "Happiness is an elusive concept, anyway - I find listening to classical music blissful and watching football repulsive. "Other people feel exactly the opposite. In the end, it comes down to the individual and, to an extent, their genetic predispositions." But Justin Thacker, head of Theology for the Evangelical Alliance, said that there should now be no doubt about the connection between religious belief and happiness. "There is more than one reason for this - part of it will be the sense of community and the relationships fostered, but that doesn't account for all of it. "A large part of it is due to the meaning, purpose and value which believing in God gives you, whereas not believing in God can leave you without those things." |
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| Why Bush Thanks God
for Blessing America The following opinion editorial is based on Michael Shermer's theory of the evolution of morality in The Science of Good and Evil. To order or read more go to www.skeptic.com The Divinity of Politics Throughout history, leaders have claimed a supernatural link By Michael Shermer Los Angeles Times Opinion Editorial, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2004, p. B15 George W. Bush says he prays before making his most important decisions. He sprinkles his speeches with religious references and often thanks God for blessing our country. Perhaps, then, this is a good time to reflect on what science tells us about why political leaders throughout history have linked themselves to the divine. It has to do with the evolution of morality. For the first 90,000 years of our existence as a species, humans lived in small bands of tens to hundreds of individuals. In the last 10,000 years, these bands evolved into tribes of thousands; tribes developed into chiefdoms of tens of thousands; chiefdoms coalesced into states of hundreds of thousands; and states conjoined into empires of millions. How and why did this happen? By 10,000 years ago, our species had spread to nearly every region of the globe and people everywhere lived where they could hunt and gather. This system tended to contain populations, but agriculture allowed them to explode. With those increased populations came new social technologies for governance and conflict resolution: politics and religion. The moral emotions--guilt, pride, shame, altruism--evolved genetically in those tiny bands of 100 to 200 people as a form of social control and group cohesion. One means of accomplishing this was through reciprocal altruism-- "I'll scratch your back if you'll scratch mine." But as Lincoln noted, men are not angels. People defect from informal agreements and social contracts. In the long run, reciprocal altruism works only when you know who will cooperate and who will defect. This information is gathered in various ways, including through stories about other people--more commonly known as gossip. Most gossip is about relatives, close friends, those in our immediate sphere of influence and members of the community or society who have high social status. It is here we find our favorite subjects of gossip: sex, generosity, cheating, aggression, social status and standings, births and deaths, political and religious commitments, and the various nuances of human relations, particularly friendships and alliances. Gossip is the stuff of which not only soap operas, but also grand operas are made. When bands and tribes gave way to chiefdoms and states, religion developed as a principal social institution to accentuate amity and attenuate enmity. It did so by encouraging altruism and selflessness, discouraging excessive greed and selfishness and revealing the level of commitment to the group through social events and religious rituals. If I see you every week participating in our religion's activities and following the prescribed rituals, that indicates you can be trusted. As organizations with codified moral rules and the power to enforce the rules and punish their transgressors, religion and government responded to a need. Church and state have always been tightly interlocked. The "divine right of kings" was not the invention of European monarchs. Every chiefdom and state society known to archaeologists justified political power through divine sanction, in which the chief, pharaoh, king, queen, monarch, emperor, sovereign, prime minister or president claimed a relationship to God or the gods, who allegedly anointed him or her to act on behalf of the divinity. Bush is part of a long tradition. Consider the biblical command to "Love thy neighbor." In the Paleolithic social environment in which our moral sentiments evolved, one's neighbors were family, extended family and community members who were well known to all. To help others was to help oneself. In chiefdoms, states and empires, the decree meant only one's immediate in-group. Other groups were not included. This explain the seemingly paradoxical nature of Old Testament morality, where on one page high moral principles of peace, justice and respect for people and property are promulgated, and on the next page raping, killing and pillaging people who are not one's "neighbors" are endorsed. Deuteronomy 5:17 admonishes, "Thou shalt not kill," yet in Deuteronomy 20:10-18, the Israelites are commanded to lay siege to an enemy city, steal the cattle, enslave those men who surrender and kill those who do not. The cultural expression of this in-group morality is not restricted to any one religion, nation, or people. It is a universal human trait common throughout history, from the earliest bands and tribes to modern nations and empires. The long-term solution is to view all people as members of our in-group: the species Homo sapiens. We have a long way to go to get there. Reform begins with recognition of the cause, which science gives us. Resolution comes through social action, which democracy gives us. We can change. As Katharine Hepburn explained to Humphrey Bogart in the 1951 film "The African Queen": "Nature, Mr. Alnutt, is what we were put in this world to rise above." Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, is a columnist for Scientific American and the author of the just-released book, "The Science of Good and Evil" (Henry Holt/Times Books). Los Angeles Times |
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Also: see
here for
scientific evidence of this |
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(In response to a previous contributor who clearly stated why he was not a Christian) "To Don: |
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