A new study by Angus Deaton uses an expansive dataset to analyze the determinants and benefits of religiosity around the world. Deaton confirms that women and the elderly are almost universally more religious. He also finds evidence that higher religiosity among the elderly may be due to aging effects as opposed to simply secularization of younger generations. Religious people view themselves as more fit, reporting better health, more energy, and less pain. (Perhaps prayer is a substitute for complaining?) They’re also less likely to smoke and more likely to be married, have supportive friends, and be treated with respect. Other economists have linked religiosity with voting and counteracting the effects of childhood poverty. [%comments]
The Benefits of Religion
TAGS: religion
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Well, if I were getting near to a certain death, Id be looking for answers just about everywhere also. I wonder if you can compare religiosity to placebo. Would there be a difference?
Interesting topic. Personally, I am not religous. My parents both went experienced Irish Catholic childhoods, and didn’t want to put their kids through that. I was baptized, but that was as far as my religous experience went.
My gf’s family is somewhat religous (Lutheran), especially her mom. My gf believes in the big picture, but is skeptical about much of it, and doesn’t attend church regularly. When she does, it is more to appease her mom than for herself.
Her mom recently said how I should take communion. I didn’t know how to respond, but my gf told her how I don’t believe in that stuff. Her mom said that “it would be good for him”, but was unable to explain how. I don’t see how either.
I wonder how these “more religious” people were defined. If the definition included going to church, then healthier people would be favored in the selection. If you’re very sick, you’re unlikely to get the chance (or have the energy/consciousness) to visit your local church.
It is not a mystery worthy of study why women are more inclined to attend church (women are more social), nor why older people drift towards religion (their family members move away and have their own families), nor why they receive other benefits..
Angus Deaton is not wrong, he is just unable to compare a socially-oriented polite dress-up gathering that fosters community and connections—and is called religious, with the identical social construct that is not religious. (Because there is not one, or at least not a common one).
Rev. Eric M. Jones, Doctor of Divinity, Universal Life Church http://www.themonastery.org/
(Great tax dodge and for fifty bucks you can be Pope!)
This just in: Ignorance really is bliss.
People here cannot seems to separate the two arguments of whether or not religion is good for society and whether or not God exists.
This study does not talk about whether or not God existing.
All it says is that religion helps people lead healthier and more fulfilling lives. Or it says that healthier and more fulfilled people chose religion.
Too many snarky comments and comments purporting to shed doubt on the study.
I do not really know who agnus deaton is though, he/she could be biased.
Dear Jones:
The real question cannot be of why women are more inclined: but of why women generally are more inclined…. and not in the specific motivational sense but in the statistical sense of the correlation between religiosity and gender. My preference is for asking the question of why religion and science can be traced back to a woman in the specific motivational sense. And that mystery has been somewhat resolved. I say somewhat, because I can see the possibility of scientists demonstrating how women’s brains and men’s brains operate somewhat differently consistent with our natural differences and capabilities.
See Robyn A. Goldstein, 2010.
ps. Thanks for letting me know who you are.
Perhaps religious people receive more respect because religion teaches its adherents to disrespect those who don’t believe its tenets. Atheists are, in the US at least, the most-despised minority. Thus, religion creates its own respect by excluding those who don’t agree with it.