Do you see any benefits to religious faith?

[Mudhammam]

Yep, just as I thought.

The studies that are quoted in the first link in Chad's post (Larson, Gartner, Koenig) point to religious attendance, not the religion itself.

As a Forbes article says in reference to these and other studies, "Interestingly, there is a large body of research on the health, economic, educational, and other benefits (or lack thereof) of religion. Most researchers have found that the myriad non-spiritual benefits of religion are related to regular religious attendance. It is less the strength of your faith than the dependability of your arrival at religious services and other events that matters. This suggests that the mechanism for these benefits may be as much or more the social network that a religious community provides than the actual practice of the religion in a theological sense. Or it may be that those with the most faith also attend services regularly.

Also, all the results presented here are benefits found to derive from religious attendance or involvement in any religion, so there is nothing here to suggest that one’s particular beliefs are the key to the results."


So, as much as you'd like to believe the benefits are due to the religion itself, it is actually due to the community the 'ingroup' receives as part of the religion.

In other words, the same benefits could be received from regular attendance to ANY group where the sense of community is included.

Of course you say that without an ounce of proof to counteract the findings that are specific to religious attendance. More research is needed to say otherwise.

I do not doubt that a belief in an afterlife consisting of endless bliss is beneficial to the health of those who actually believe it, especially when they're unable to find contentment in their situation on this side of death. But I don't see that it would make much of a difference whether one's hope was located in reveries of the Greek Elysium Fields, Mahomet's sensual Paradise, John of Patmos' bedazzled fortress, or any other notion of unalloyed peace and comfort that knows no limit. The same can probably be said of the social advantages that accompany group membership; one is able to feel part of a cause that includes a sense of higher purpose, camaraderie with like-minded individuals, and the assistance that can be depended upon when confronted with hardship. Whether the object of one's devotion and social affiliation is a deity that is supposed to reside atop a mountain, in another dimension, in dead ancestors, or is altogether non-religious but political or philanthropic, I cannot see that this makes any essential difference, so long as the similar needs, that we all for the most part share, are met.