Are There Documented Benefits To Having Religious Belief?

[Surreal]

Although I personally am not religious and doubt that I ever could be, I am curious to know if, statistically speaking, I could be at some disadvantage because of this.

Are there any documented benefits to having (non-specific) religious beliefs?

Are religious people happier than nonreligious people?
Are they healthier?
Do they live longer?
Are they less likely to commit crimes?
Are they more sociable/have more friends?
Are they less likely to cheat on their spouse?
Are they more charitable?
Are they more charitable once you exclude giving to their own church?
Are religious people less likely to become addicted to drugs or alcohol?
Do religious people recover more quickly from negative life events?

Are there any other known benefits to being religious?
Thanks.

[Sage_Rat]

Going off the top of my head from sources I have seen:

Are religious people happier than nonreligious people? If they have the same income, possibly. In terms of the general population, no. Living in a poor situation and religiosity are strongly linked. Probably any gain there might be comes from a sense of community. In Sweden, at least, club activities are underwritten by the government so there are (supposedly) a lot of secular clubs who are physically active and sociable. In the US, there isn’t such a thing as this so atheists and agnostics are at a disadvantage.

Are they healthier? Belief in the healing power of a deity appears likely to have some amount of placebo effect. So assuming the same level of medical care to two patients, the religious person is likely to be more healthy. But again, most religious people will probably not receive the same level of medical care as agnostics/atheists due to income differences.

Do they live longer? Probably not. I don’t imagine that the placebo effect could carry this far. --addendum, though apparently religious beliefs against suicide does help to prevent suicides. Whether that’s a good or bad thing depends on your outlook on suicide.

Are they less likely to commit crimes? Lower income and crime are highly linked. To factor in only for religion and income, my guess would be that they are roughly the same but I haven’t seen any data one way or the other.

Are they more sociable/have more friends? Answered above, somewhat.

Are they less likely to cheat on their spouse? Christians are more likely to get divorced and be unsatisfied in marriage the more religious they are (there was a recent thread about this) so probably they are more likely to cheat. This difference lessens but doesn’t disappear if you factor for income.

Are they more charitable? Inconclusive. Poorer people donate a larger percent of their income to charity. But there is no income bracket for which a higher income doesn’t donate a higher dollar amount than the lower bracket. Also, the higher an income bracket you are, the more you are paying for social services like welfare and social security. Probably many feel like if they’re going to be made to donate to charity in this fashion then they don’t have a particular need to directly contribute to charity. How religion factors into this all, who knows.

Are they more charitable once you exclude giving to their own church? No idea. See previous.

Are religious people less likely to become addicted to drugs or alcohol? These are linked to income. Otherwise, I dunno.

Do religious people recover more quickly from negative life events? Probably linked to having a social group, so probably yes but probably fixable if one followed the Swedish model.

Ultimate answer: Have a positive outlook and join a club and you’ll have any advantages religion might give you without having to subscribe to all the religious beliefs you disagree with.

[Hunter_Hawk]

An NYT article claims that religious people have more self-control.

[Turble]

Prayers don’t help heart surgery patients

[Sapo]

Please notice than in any case, I don’t think it is something you can choose to do to reap the benefit.

[dangermom]

The NYT piece also says:

Researchers around the world have repeatedly found that devoutly religious people tend to do better in school, live longer, have more satisfying marriages and be generally happier.

[dangermom]

@Sapo

Please notice than in any case, I don’t think it is something you can choose to do to reap the benefit.

Nope, that’s true, I think. And just to annoy everyone with more NYT quotes, here’s more opinion on that point:

Does this mean that nonbelievers like me should start going to church? Even if you don’t believe in a supernatural god, you could try improving your self-control by at least going along with the rituals of organized religion.

But that probably wouldn’t work either, Dr. McCullough told me, because personality studies have identified a difference between true believers and others who attend services for extrinsic reasons, like wanting to impress people or make social connections. The intrinsically religious people have higher self-control, but the extrinsically religious do not.

So what’s a heathen to do in 2009? Dr. McCullough’s advice is to try replicating some of the religious mechanisms that seem to improve self-control, like private meditation or public involvement with an organization that has strong ideals.

Religious people, he said, are self-controlled not simply because they fear God’s wrath, but because they’ve absorbed the ideals of their religion into their own system of values, and have thereby given their personal goals an aura of sacredness. He suggested that nonbelievers try a secular version of that strategy.

[Charlie_Tan]

@Sage_Rat

In Sweden, at least, club activities are underwritten by the government so there are (supposedly) a lot of secular clubs who are physically active and sociable.

Erm… Well yes and no. A lot of different organisations are eligible for certain contributions/grants paid by government or the local city/town. Most of these have something to do with sports and helps sponsor activities for kids. There’s a reason we’ve produced so many great tennis players over the years.

But it’s not as if one can start any kind of club and get the goverment to underwrite the costs. Clubs like Rotary and Freemasons don’t get an öre (Swedish cent, actually worth about 1/7 of a c) and have to pay their own bills.

[Shodan]

@Sage_Rat

Christians are more likely to get divorced and be unsatisfied in marriage the more religious they are

At least in America, it seems exactly the opposite is true, at least for those who actually practice their faith. Cite.

Are they more charitable? Inconclusive. Poorer people donate a larger percent of their income to charity. But there is no income bracket for which a higher income doesn’t donate a higher dollar amount than the lower bracket. Also, the higher an income bracket you are, the more you are paying for social services like welfare and social security. Probably many feel like if they’re going to be made to donate to charity in this fashion then they don’t have a particular need to directly contribute to charity. How religion factors into this all, who knows.

Actually, this too has been extensively studied. In Canada, for instance -

Though representing only 14 per cent of the Canadian population over the age of 15, religiously active volunteers make up 43 per cent of volunteers in Canada and account for a startling 50 per cent of all hours volunteered.

The 32 per cent of Canadians who are religiously active contribute 65 per cent of direct charitable donations. As one might expect, this group is responsible for 86 per cent of donations to religious bodies; yet even in the secular sector, the religiously active provide 42 per cent of the $2.1 billion raised by direct giving.

Cite

Are they more charitable once you exclude giving to their own church?

Same answer - In the US, for example religiously active people donate blood more than the secular do (I can dig up a cite if you like).

Are religious people less likely to become addicted to drugs or alcohol? These are linked to income. Otherwise, I dunno.

Same answer -

Youth (10th graders) who attend religious services weekly are much less likely to have used marijuana in the last year (Figure 10) than those who never attend religious services. Similarly, 10th graders who say that religion is a very important part of their life are much less likely to have used marijuana in the last year (Figure 11) than are students for whom religion is not important. Religious young people (8th, 10th and 12th graders) were also found to be less likely than less religious youth to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, or use illegal drugs, other than marijuana

Cite.

Ultimate answer: Have a positive outlook and join a club and you’ll have any advantages religion might give you without having to subscribe to all the religious beliefs you disagree with.

Given the number of times you said you didn’t know, or gave answers that do not seem to agree with the published literature, I think you might want to reconsider your assertion.
Regards,
Shodan

[Sage_Rat]

@Shodan

Given the number of times you said you didn’t know, or gave answers that do not seem to agree with the published literature, I think you might want to reconsider your assertion.

This is true and false. As I said, it varies depending on what you do or don’t account for. The ultimate conclusion is essentially the same regardless of the data. Whatever factors religion might have are heavily outweighed by income. You had cites which did account for income disparities. I didn’t. Both are accurate values.

[Hari_Seldon]

@Sapo

Please notice than in any case, I don’t think it is something you can choose to do to reap the benefit.

That’s an important point. The NYTimes article cited by someone made that point clearly. It was religious belief, not religious observance, that was correlated with more self-control. As usual with correlations it was unclear which direction, if any, that the causality flowed. Maybe regligious beliefs led to more self-control, maybe more self-control led to religious beliefs and maybe some unknown factor leads to both.

I found the article very surprising, since everyone in my family seems highly self-controlled (for example, neither my wife nor I ever had to nag any of our three children to do homework and they finished nos. 2,1, and 1 in their HS classes) and not one of us has ever demonstrated a shred of religious beliefs. But, as has been said, I don’t know how many times on this board, data is not the plural of anecdote.

[Shodan]

@Sage_Rat

The ultimate conclusion is essentially the same regardless of the data.

Well, if you aren’t going to let things like data affect your conclusion, yup, it will remain the same all right.

:shrugs:

[Sage_Rat]

@Shodan

Well, if you aren’t going to let things like data affect your conclusion, yup, it will remain the same all right.

:shrugs:

I’m saying that it’s like being a high school dropout applying to be the CEO of Microsoft, and wondering what the better color of shoe to wear would be.

This really isn’t the thing you should be worrying about foremost. Probably there is an ideal color if you factor out all the other things you could do to better your chances, but it’s rather inconsequential.

[rowrrbazzle]

The Times & The Sunday Times

Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.

Another anecdote, to be sure. But interesting.

[Surreal]

@Hunter_Hawk

An NYT article claims that religious people have more self-control.

I’m surprised to learn that religious people have been shown to have more self-control since everything I’ve read suggests that religious people are significantly more likely to be overweight than non-religious people.

[dangermom]

Religious people in general, or religious people in the South, where people are pretty overweight anyway? In general, or in America, where we have an obesity epidemic anyway? I mean, would devout Canadians or French people still average heavier? I’m not sure.

At any rate, I would suggest (as a Mormon) that sugar/fat sometimes becomes the last acceptable vice for many religious populations. If drugs and often alcohol–and in LDS cases, smoking–are all frowned upon, potlucks, cinnamon rolls, and ice-cream socials are just fine. The amount of sugar and chocolate Mormons will consume shocks even me, and I love sugar and chocolate. (That said, the people in my congregation are mostly pretty svelte. You won’t find many obese folks there on a Sunday.)

And anyway, the article was talking about all kinds of self-control, stuff like going to the dentist, goal-setting, work productivity, binge drinking, and all sorts of things, not diet specifically.

[Half_Man_Half_Wit]

I think it’s somewhat important here to reiterate the old correlation-does-not-imply-causation chestnut – even if the religious/atheistic do statistically better at X, that doesn’t mean they do so because of their religion/atheism; it might merely be the case that certain personality traits that make you more likely to succeed at X also make you gravitate towards religion/atheism, or are correlated with personality traits that do, so that sentences like ‘people who are religious/atheistic do better at X, thus it’s better to be religious/atheistic’ don’t follow.