Does Religion Make People Happier? Scientists Search to Explain Why People Believe in a God

Researchers accidentally discovered that people with religious beliefs tend to be more content in life while studying an unrelated topic. While not the original objective, the recent European study found that religious people are better able to cope with shocks such as losing a loved one or getting laid off of a job.

Professor Andrew Clark, from the Paris School of Economics, and co-author Dr Orsolya Lelkes, from the European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research, analyzed the a variety of factors among Catholic and Protestant Christians and found that life satisfaction seems to be higher among the religious population. The authors concluded that religion in general, might act as a "buffer" that protects people from life's disappointments.

"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,” noted Professor Clark. "They had higher levels of life satisfaction".

Data from thousands of European households revealed higher levels of "life satisfaction" in believers. Professor Clark suspects that a variety of aspects are at play, and that perhaps a “religious upbringing” could be responsible for the effect, rather than any particular religious beliefs.

The researchers say they found that the religious crowd tended to experience more “current day rewards”, rather than storing them up for the future. Previous studies have also found strong correlations between religion and happiness. The idea that religion may offer substantial psychological benefits in life, is in sharp contrast with another common viewpoint that religion is repressive and has a negative influence on human development.

Professor Leslie Francis, from the University of Warwick believes that the benefit might involve the increased "purpose of life" experienced by many believers that may not be as strongly felt among nonbelievers.

"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,” said Francis. "The belief that religion damages people is still in the minds of many."

Terry Sanderson, a leading UK secularist, gay rights activist and president of the National Secular Society, said that any study describing a link between happiness and religion is "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 fulfillment,” he said. "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."

While no one would argue that genetics don’t influence one’s disposition, Justin Thacker, head of Theology for the Evangelical Alliance, says that there are definitely other factors worth considering. He says a belief in God increases one’s feeling that life is meaningful.

"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."

Previous studies have concluded that humans are biologically predisposed to believe in God. Historically, most cultures have developed some sort of religious belief that included at least some form of a “higher power”. From an evolutionary and psychological perspective, these questions have intrigued scientists for decades, but the physiological and cognitive study of religion is still relatively young.

Both believers and non-believers can agree on the scientific findings, and still interpret it quite differently notes Ian Ramsey Centre for science and religion in the University of Oxford researchers who are currently working on a project to better understand the cognitive science of religion.

“One element of the current project is to develop philosophical and theological treatments of what the findings from cognitive science of religion means for various theological positions,” states the Cognition, Religion and Theology Project outline. “

“One element of the project is scientifically explaining not just belief in gods but why some people become atheists. If scientists can explain why people tend to believe in gods and also why other people tend to believe there are no gods, then surely the presence of a scientific explanation cannot mean that you should not believe one way or the other just on the presence or possibility of such an explanation.

Non-believers might find satisfaction in a sound scientific explanation of why people tend to believe in God because they can now account for why people persist in believing in a fictitious being. The believer might find satisfaction in the scientific documentation of how human nature predisposes people to believe in God because it could reinforce the idea that people were divinely designed to know and believe in God. Both believers and non-believers can agree on the scientific findings.”

Posted by Rebecca Sato.

Related Galaxy posts:

Cosmic "X" or God? -Religion vs Science
Origin of Religion -Human Brain as a "Belief Engine"
Darwin's God -The Legacy of the HMS Beagle
Neurotheology -Is God Hardwired in the Human Brain
The Biology of Awe

Source Link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7302609.stm

Comments

[Guy Uomo]

We already know this:

Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.

Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right

[anti-supernaturalist]

• worldly benefits prove nothing about otherworldly claims

The earliest xians certainly received benefits in the-here-and-now for their faith: group solidarity and ideological support, especially nurturing class hatred. (1Cor1:1-30)

Doubtless, xianity still has something to offer as it has for 2,000 years — but psychological comfort, decent burial of the dead, communal warmth, common action, pathways for employment, and opportunities for “witness” even “martyrdom” are irrelevant to the truth of any hysterical claim made first by Paul or later writers of Jesus legends, whether accepted or not into xian orthodoxy.

Any member of any sect within islam, xianity, judaism, or zoroastrianism (the big-4 monotheisms) can cite his myths, cultic practices, and endlessly *circular* commentary to equal effect. Citing scripture in *defense* of itself is totally illogical.

What uplifts me, what comforts me, what I’m willing to die for . . . is no evidence whatsoever that any otherworldly belief is true or false. Such reasoning exemplifies ignoratio elenchi — lack of any logical connection between statements about anyone’s psychological state and any religious claim.

The monotheists’ magical texts are neither self-guaranteeing nor divinely inspired. They are propaganda.

[Andrew D Mackay]

Religion is a comfort blanket for the naive and ignorant. When we are young we take comfort from our parents who seem to be in control of everything. As we get older and more independent - this dependence weakens and we realise that our parents can no longer provide all the answers. In our early adulthood we search for means by which we can reduce the stresses of life. It is at this time that many of us adopt a new 'father' to consult with on every petty matter which presents itself in life. It is this 'personal line' with God which gives us the comforting effect - and if we are more comfortable in ourselves - there is more likelihood of us feeling happy.

It is easy to see that someone who is ignorant of evolutionary processes or other scientific matters can easily be lured into thinking there is a caring God. Our superstitious nature seems to re-inforce this process. On the other hand, a sound understanding of science in general makes it plainly obvious that spirits and gods are all figments of our imagination.
Really we need to get to understand which factors in life are causing us to be stressed - and act on them accordingly.
If we can determine these factors, then mental and physical health will improve automatically (through less cortisol - the stress hormone - being secreted) and we will feel so much happier anyway.

A excessive parasitic burden (yeasts,bacteria, viruses) in our digestive systems, for example, can compromise our usual vigour and make us less able to face the stresses of life.

[EvilCosmicMonkey from Knoxville]

A fiddling small quibble here -

Isn't this article a re - tread of a similar one last year ? Deja vu.

BTW - Studies have shown that people who attend church or synagogue or masjid & have some kind of belief / support system are healthier & generally more well - balanced than people who don't attend services of any kind or have any kind of established belief ( s ). Make of this what you will, I'm just tossing it out there.

[non-believer]

wow. great. umm..so what were the findings? what was the data? this article is worthless.

[James Jensen]

Wow dude most impresive!

RT
www.anonymity.eu.tc

[Rob Bonzetti]

I believe in God because I don't believe something came from nothing. I don't believe death and chaos produces complexity. I don't believe the mind is epiphenomenal upon the brain. I don't believe that morality serves an evolutionary purpose. I don't believe that religion serves an evolutionary purpose. I don't believe evolution is a scientific theory because it is not subject to corrigibility--it can't be disproved. It is a metatheory. All data just gets reinterpreted to fit the paradigm. In that sense, it's no different than religion. Disciplines like "evolutionary psychology" are a crock. Nothing more than dogmatic formulations of evolutionary religion. If you read Eiseley's book, "Darwin's Century," you'll learn that even Darwin doubted the explanatory adequacy of natural selection. Nevertheless, his devotees knew that it was an ideology they could use to fight religion--especially Christianity. Contra Darwin, I believe that "In the beginning, God created. . ." Call me stupid all you want, I don't care.

[Hank Fox]

Yeah, well, beer does the exact same thing. And you don't have to worship it.

[John Koehler]

"I believe in God because I don't believe something came from nothing."

Then where did God come from?

Religion doesn't give answers, it's just a Jedi mind trick.

[Eevee]

@Rob: I don't think you're stupid; I just think you're misunderstanding some of this issue and attributing it to Them attacking Us.

Chaos IS complexity. Rocks, for example, are many orders of magnitude simpler and more ordered than even the simplest of bacteria. It's counter-intuitive and not how people generally think about information, but order is bland and stagnant. Life needs gently-structured chaos.

Perhaps morality and religion don't serve an evolutionary purpose; so what? They aren't simple matters of genetics, for one thing, so trying to apply a theory based in genetics to them isn't guaranteed to make any sense; evolution is about traits passed from parent to child, not stories passed between unrelated organisms. But either way, natural selection is a guiding force, not absolute law. If some trait doesn't affect an organism's likelihood to breed, natural selection will not affect it at all. I'm fairly sure varied eye color doesn't serve much evolutionary purpose, either.

Not to say that they are definitely *not* influenced by evolution; people who do not follow some basic set of moral rules, for example, are much more likely to be removed by the gene pool by other people who get tired of their shenanigans. There could be some gene that makes us more inclined to be somewhat empathic.

I disagree that evolution cannot be disproved and that data is forced to fit it. Any number of combinations of species, previously thought to be related vertically, could strike a damning blow to evolution if they were found fossilized together. Such a thing has just not happened. True, it is difficult to design and perform experiments with largely obvious results such as a new organ, but there have been many successful experiments with small traits spreading through a population across generations in the right environment. The most popular religions, on the other hand, are specifically crafted so as to allow their respective gods to avoid detection.

Remember that evolution does not use Darwin's writing as a holy text; this is a myth invented by proponents of intelligent design, who wish to make their hypothesis look equivalently valid in the eyes of the public. Darwin only got the ball rolling, as is the case with a number of famous scientists; we still make references to Newton for pioneering some very basic parts of physics, but we don't treat his writing as infallible, and now we know that much of his model is wildly inaccurate at high speeds. In fact, Newton's name is most often used nowadays to distinguish his model of motion from how motion *actually* works.

Darwin's personal opinion on evolution is oft quoted as being this or that, but it is completely irrelevant; natural selection has turned out to be a fitting explanation many times, whether or not he thought it would. I severely doubt we would scrap the theory of relativity if tomorrow we discovered that Einstein had had doubts about it.

Don't take evolutionary theory as being an attack on monotheistic religion, any more than meteorology is an attack on Norse mythology and its ascribing of lightning to Thor's hammer. The scientific world is merely trying to explore the universe in a way that answers questions and allows for predictions. Presupposing a being that can do whatever it wants with no regard for any physical rules does nothing to accomplish this and is inconsistent with much of what we as a species have observed about the universe.

[Ex-atheist]

Yes, we already know this:

"My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life."

Jesus Christ, John 10:10 (NLT)

[Mindrust]

I don't get what's so hard about saying "I don't know." Can't we all just stand back and admire the simultaneous complexity and simplicity of nature, life and existence as it is?

[TNK]

My say on the existence of god
http://tnkthoughts.synthasite.com/existence-of-god.php
please leave your comments on the page.My view on religion and god

[TNK]

My view on the existence of god
http://tnkthoughts.synthasite.com/existence-of-god.php
please leave your comments on the page.

[Susan Turner]

My family was very religious and I grew up in a pentecostal church. After graduating high school, I moved away. I also left my beliefs behind for many years. Beleve me, the grass is not greener on the other side.

I missed a lot during those years. I was lost and looking for something to fill me that was not there.
I turned my back completly on God.

Now I am so glad that God did not turn His back on me. He is a friend that sticks closer than a brother or sister. He is there with you when things are going bad. He is there during an operation, death, birth, wreck, wedding, etc. No matter what you have to go through he is there with you.

As the saying goes' Don't knock it until you have tryed it. You have no idea how it fells when the warmth of God comes over you as you give your life to Him. There is such peace within yourself. You have the strength, boldness, courage, and confidence to live your life for Him.

There is no doubt in my mind that there is a God. A God that created man in his image and who blew breath into us when he created Adam and also when he created Eve from Adam's rib. He created the heavens and the earth. All you have to do is look at the beauty here on earth when it snows, or when the leaves turn color, or when driving through the country. We have seen the beauty of space through telescopes, space travil, and just looking up at the sky. This is all his handy work.

If you don't believe me, read the bible (KJV). Start with the New Testment for it revels how God gave his ony Son so that we can have eternal life. Would you give your only son so others might have eternal life? That is how much he loves us. I do not mean eternal life here on earth now.

The rapture has to take place where we meet Jesus in the air. Then we will change this corruptible body for one that is uncorrutible. Here corruptible means when our body dies it goes through the changes that are normal when there is no more life. The uncorrutible body will never die. But there is so much more when you serve God. I could go on and on about Him. However, there is only so much I can put here.

After reading the New Testment read the bible (KJV) all the way through. The Old Testment is the foundation for the New. It is a book can be read over and over without being bored. Each time you read it you will find something new.

I leave you with this: John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

[Jay]

The category of "People with Religious Beliefs" is too broad to draw any meaningful conclusions. People "make" themselves happier based on their choices, regardless of any labels or categories. We cannot be "made" happy. It is a personal choice of perspective in a moment of time.

[Gabe Eisenstein]

Two points:

1. It is a mistake, shared by atheists and religious fundamentalists, to think that the essence of religion is the holding of a certain kind of belief. One can be superstitious without being religious, and one can appreciate many of the elements of religious culture without taking any statements about the supernatural literally. (I certainly do not.)

2. In order to study the phenomena of happiness, purposefulness, etc., one should have some expertise in these areas. This requires a study of philosophy. Many scientists are ill-equipped to do this, and their confusion about what it is they're studying here is apparent in the article.

[Claudio]

It may be that religion helps feeling the life simpler and better.....and this is self-induced...kind of an 'emotional status'.

Anybody may accept or refuse it...BUT NONE NEVER i heard about the 'theory of the inscribed Cromosomes'.

And please DO NOT tell me that the human genoma has been already 'mapped' time agò ...becouse this is what the so called genetic scientists like to say to us...in a sort of religious truthness-credence.

NOT true ...totally NOT true....what 'mapping' does it means ?? That our genoma has 3% differnt sequnces from Cimpanze and other Primates ???
IS ONLY THIS the superfamous Human genoma mapping ???

Do they understand the effects on our behaviour of this and that sub-sequence ??

Difference in the character that any induvidual has when compared to other members of the same family and even in twins ???

All of us for millennia ,consciously or unconsciously have researched abstration in our 'mind set' about possible superior Entities...and then related speculations-reasoning and thinking and emotions sparked....in our minds.

What about IF the 'sense of religion' that anybody feels at least one time in his life (then accepting or refusing)...comes from the an 'inherited genoma or particular sequence of the Human genoma' ????

NONE has reported any study about this to my best knowledge....

The likelyhood of this to be true is rather high.

Then choices dictaed-induced by the society in which we live induce the 'credence' or 'refusal' in this or that specific religion practice....or religion culture.

This kind of 'credence' is NOT inherited...but society induced.

The Basic question never answred and never posed by anybody yet is : Who mofified our 'Genoma' in that particular and specific sequence ?????

I leave the answer to you and to the so called 'scientists of the genetic engineering'...
I have my answer (theory) BUT I am not going to share with anybody on this planet.

Sorry and anyway regards to both religious people and Atheists.

[Robert]

Extensive studies show that children who believe in Santa Claus have more fun at Xmas.
So, there IS a Fools' Paradise.
RAB

[Jack Butler]

I would say there is essentially only one faith, the faith that however impossible it is to understand, existence has meaning and purpose.

I'm not saying one SHOULD have this faith (I do, but spent many years without it). For some it is impossible. I do not believe that the proposition that existence is meaningful is provable from within existence, or demonstrably false, either. I do not believe it will EVER be--the balance is more impossible to determine than the cosmological constant.

There is one behavior that is superior to all theologies, however, and to which all theologies must defer: That is considerate and empathetic treatment of others (ahimsa, for the Buddhists). The principle of this behavior must be accepted as superior to all supposed descriptions of what Kirsten Mustain, at kirstenmustain.com, describes as ?God?

The reason lies not in the (unknowable) "actual" nature of ?God?, if hesheit is supposed to exist, but in human nature. No human should ever propose any idea of God as superior to love and kindness. If the supposed "God" supposedly can violate ahimsa, then the theology is highly suspect.

In other words, the point is not clobbering people with dogma, and punishing them for disagreeing. That does not prove you are right. The check is not on divinity, which can do as it wishes, but on the human tendency to justify horrible behavior on "moral" grounds. Unless all humans accept that decent treatment of each other and the other creatures must be supreme, no human's version of ?God? can possibly be correct.

We surrender force as a means. Since it never works, this is no great loss. We do not insist our version of ?God? is superior, because we are enlightened enough to understand that it is only a VERSION.

This view is not, as I say, provable, but nothing in it contravenes the discoveries of science, or contradicts scientific reasoning.

[Jack Butler]

I would say there is essentially only one faith, the faith that however impossible it is to understand, existence has meaning and purpose.

I'm not saying one SHOULD have this faith (I do, but spent many years without it). For some it is impossible. I do not believe that the proposition that existence is meaningful is provable from within existence, or demonstrably false, either. I do not believe it will EVER be--the balance is more impossible to determine than the cosmological constant.

There is one behavior that is superior to all theologies, however, and to which all theologies must defer: That is considerate and empathetic treatment of others (ahimsa, for the Buddhists). The principle of this behavior must be accepted as superior to all supposed descriptions of what Kirsten Mustain, at kirstenmustain.com, describes as ?God?

The reason lies not in the (unknowable) "actual" nature of ?God?, if hesheit is supposed to exist, but in human nature. No human should ever propose any idea of God as superior to love and kindness. If the supposed "God" supposedly can violate ahimsa, then the theology is highly suspect.

In other words, the point is not clobbering people with dogma, and punishing them for disagreeing. That does not prove you are right. The check is not on divinity, which can do as it wishes, but on the human tendency to justify horrible behavior on "moral" grounds. Unless all humans accept that decent treatment of each other and the other creatures must be supreme, no human's version of ?God? can possibly be correct.

We surrender force as a means. Since it never works, this is no great loss. We do not insist our version of ?God? is superior, because we are enlightened enough to understand that it is only a VERSION.

This view is not, as I say, provable, but nothing in it contravenes the discoveries of science, or contradicts scientific reasoning.

[Claudio]

Religion sparks discussions and disagreement.

The SUB is ' are religious persons more happy and accept better the issues of the day to day life ' ???

At the end of the day this is a scientific review...or supposedly is.
Then the subject is consistent with tyhe type of review itself.

However in the 3rd millennium and with at least 3 major monotheistic religions ongoing.....and kind of reasonably accepted by a vast percentage of humans....NONE of the 3 apperas to talk of the same GOD.
In Israel they have thier own Jeova , we here in Europe we have Cristian religion as the main one...likely God is the same BUT there are obvious main variances.
The Muslims have a very unique sense of GOD and the main point they see is the difference of their religion to the other two above....with some hate to the others.

This sounds a bit 'antiquity' at 3rd millennium .

Everybody can have his interpretation of religious sense and Can or Cannot inscribe himself to perform specific local religion practises.

One thing it is for sure...as also said around and often implied by this exact review......'the probability that we are the alone and by GOD selected our specie only in the entire universe...sounds silly...as a minimum...or even STUPID.

This does NOT mean that a universal GOD shall not exist...BUT it is clear ...that various paragraphs or Books of the Bible and I do not know how many of the Coran...should be red as 'nice old Stories' of this and that paragraph or book...
Basically senseless in an universe likely pervaded with intelligent beings...as intelligent as us...Semicognitive bipeds of the 3rd planet of a minor Jellow-G star in a secondary arm of an average galaxy...dispersed somewhere in the Virgo cluster....somewhere in the Supergropu of galaxies...not far from the ABEL gigantic cluster.

We are as usual Homo centric and Ego centric...and that possibly universal GOD is ours ...only ours... and the same God of our neighbour religion ...is a lie.

How ALL this would FITs with the basic question posed by the article (see above) ????

Regards

[Ellie]

"the religious crowd tended to experience more “current day rewards”, rather than storing them up for the future."

Excuse me, but was this totally a European thing or all around the world study? It seems to me that culture would have an influence on religious belief. I mean, European culture is different from US culture and therefore they may perceive things differently while still correlating with a "non-religious" secular society.

I take this study at face value because I'd need to know the methods of the study, results, and weaknesses of the study. Otherwise, this is, yet again, just krap science.

[René Sigma]

god ? je je je
check this http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

[Narendra Nath]

Sorry to note that my submissions posted earlier could not meet the approval of inclusion. Such are the prejudices of the religious followers of one or the other sect of religion. I just repeat my essential point again. One's religion is not one is born with or propheses to belong to. It is one's actions in life that defines the religion one belongs to.Only true love, care and compassion for others defines the universal religion, where the concept of God is indivisible for the entire Humanity within the same Spirituality.