Religion can be good for your mental health

I could have taken offence every time somebody told me that I couldn't be a moral person or bring up my children properly because I don't believe in any god. I am quite happy for people to believe anything they want and practise their religion in any way they want, as long as it is not impinging on anybody else's right to live how they choose, but I claim the right to voice my honestly held opinion that all belief in the supernatural is superstition. It is what I believe.

Bags next you will be telling us the earth is not flat and carried on the back of an elephant. What an extraordinary thought!

Applying rational thinking to beliefs is not damaging to people. I think it's important to remember that and not to confuse the two. Of course it is not allright to attack people verbally, but it is allright to attack beliefs. Otherwise human progress would stagnate. One only has to think of all the wacky beliefs people had in the past which are now widely regarded as, well, wacky, to put it mildly. There is no difference between arguing about whether the earth is the centre of the universe or not and arguing about any other issue of interest or importance to humans.

Inevitably, many people think their beliefs are bound up with who they are. This may well be the case, but they are not their beliefs. The beliefs exist separately from the person holding them. So attacking (that is arguing about the validity of) beliefs is not attacking the people holding them.

If people choose to be offended when something they believe is argued about and refuted, that is a personal problem they have. The problem is not caused by the fact that a belief is being attacked.

Attacking a belief IS NOT THE SAME as attacking a person.

There is another aspect which might help people who are involved in a religious community and that is that they would be part of a group also praying for other sick people. This might make some realise they are not so badly off after all. Seeing people worse off than oneself can have a salutory effect.

I know this sort of research has been done many times and usually comes to the same conclusion but I cannot see how any of it can be 'proved'.

I would prefer it if we could all live and let live and not bash each other's beliefs. IMO calling religion 'superstition' may offend those with religious beliefs.

reminds me of a friend's story about herbrother who was a priest sitting by their mothers deathbed, discussing funeral hymns. Didn't work so well in her case though.

In my experience, religion definitely has a beneficial effect on health and well-being. Just before my twenty-first birthday I was admitted to hospital with a perforated appendix, peritonitis and pleurisy; I was in such a state of shock my temperature was too low to register on a thermometer. My parents were told that I had a 20% chance of survival. As my mother had filled in the admission forms, she had listed my religion as Roman Catholic. In due course, shortly before going up to the theatre somewhere round about midnight, along came a priest and administered the Sacrament for the Sick – better known colloquially as the Last Rites. As I lost consciousness as the anaesthetic took hold, I thought, "Bloody old man didn't even ask me if he could anoint my feet. I'm damned if I'm going to die before my birthday." I am now 62. QED.

Won't it be a success for education when all the god myths are recognised for what they are?

Be fair, Bags, they had to sort out which god was going to take over which territory before they could do anything constructive. The Greek, Roman and Egyptian gods lost out. How long before the Abrahamic gods follow suit? That would still leave the gods of Hinduism, etc. but as education spreads in the 'Third World' they could be toppled too.

Funny how people started recovering from illnesses more easily with improvements in hygiene and medicine, isn't it? Funny how very prevalent diseases stopped being such an issue when sanitation improved, isn't it? Beats me why the gods were so bloody slow getting such things organised.

There is lots of research into effect of religion on health and impossible to tease out the effect of religion from belonging to a church etc. Maybe if people think god is watching they are more likely to take their pills. And the effect of social support, also known to be positive, is v difficult to separate. But you cannot do a true experiment - who would the control group be? Sick people who believe in god but are told they must nor pray, go to church or have any contact with the people they have met through church...???
Or the prayed about ones - how do you know that the people in the control group have not got someone praying for them who is not involved in your experiment.

Although I am happy to live alone, I have also felt much comfort from being part of the Gransnet 'community'.
I know that many people are living in fear of the dreaded ATOS. I feel the same way about this as I do about capital punishment. I would rather ten people continued to receive benefits they may not need than have one genuinely ill/disabled person driven to suicide by this terrible organisation.

Absolutely!
I know it's saved my sanity on occasions! to you all!

Like belonging to our virtual community in the way we support each other,feeling you belong and are accepted and not alone has helped many of usxx

It's not exactly "a boat" Mishap. That's not it at all.

I'm with greatnan on this - the power of knowing that people are out there caring about you is extremely therapeutic - and that is one of the things that usually) religions and their communities do offer. But I can't buy the supernatural bit. As someone said - there are many people for whom the sense of belonging outweighs the religious aspect of their adherence to a religion - I know many people in this boat.

I can believe jeni's anecdotes - I have seen similar myself. One of the problems of our benefits system is that it "rewards" disability - I have seen many people who found it hard to move on in their rehabilitation because they knew they would lose certain benefits that they had come to rely on and that they would be thrown onto the work seeking scenario - they may have been improving, but they still could not compete for jobs in the mainstream. It is a difficult balance to strike - to help the genuinely disabled whilst encouraging progress and rehabilitation.

annobel Ive seen people half carried into the court and then seen them walking perfectly normally out of the building!
Also being folLowed by a court member from the bus stop to the court, going into the waiting room and then denying they walked there!
I have seen a man leap out of a car and run into the building while I was getting out of my transport, to then enter the court limping heavily and stating he could hardly walk.
I think ATOS poor! But! I'm afraid there are some cheats in this world.

Lily, I am not at all sceptical about the benefits of being part of a loving community - I just don't believe in the supernatural part but if those taking part do believe, who am I to deny them that right?

I expect they undertook the research because there are so many sceptics around! If you believe in the efficacy of prayer, knowing that people are praying for you is different, I think, from a general feeling of being supported. You don't expect the prayers to result in a miraculous recovery, that happens very rarely.

Did they really need research to uncover this?!

I don't think Greatnan's remark was sarky.

Having a place in a community, sort of belonging, is bound to be good for you. And churches can be quite enfolding. They usually run different groups - craft evenings, supper and prayer nights at each other's houses in turn, planning for the different "fairs" and so on. It's all bound to be good for people's emotional health.

To be honest I think, probably, the religion comes second!

jeni, we all know Atos can make the lame walk. Didn't know you had the same effect!

jeni - I like your comment on miraculous recoveries!
By the way, I would not turn to religion if I were very ill - after nearly 60 years of atheism nothing would induce me to turn to superstition.

Sorry, bags, I was replying to jeni's remark.
I did read one report that said people who were told they were being prayed for by a number of strangers actually had a poorer outcome, because they felt guilty about not getting better! And perhaps members of a group felt obliged to say they felt happier to make their fellow members happy.

www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/40765.php ( I googled 'people who are prayed for do not get better and found this article).

If we believed all the 'research' results reported, we would be just one thing - thoroughly confused. There are so many surveys. How exact was this one's measure of 'mental health' - hardly the easiest thing to measure and compare? And did this study reveal how many people of strong belief failed to recover at all. I am almost as sceptical of surveys as I am of religion.