God: No magic required

[Simon Moon]

The longevity advantage associated with religious belief is an extra two years of life, which is equivalent to the population impact of curing all forms of cancer. For some people, there is no impact. For others, there is a large impact. Average it all up, and it's the same impact as curing cancer. As an oncologist, I was impressed. So I did what I did, and I'm happy I did, and I see no compelling reason to go back to how I was. It's all upside and no downside whatsoever.

I believe you are still misinterpreting the findings.

The findings say nothing about religious beliefs, they concern church attendance.

"Among the most recent findings in this area: People who attend religious services at least once a week are less likely to die in a given period of time than people who attend services less often. These results -- published in the August 1999 issue of the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences -- came out of a study examining almost 4,000 North Carolina residents aged 64 to 101."


This can be attributed to having a strong support structure, not belief in a god.

From the New England Journal of Medicine -

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJ...8303110902

Strong social connections more important to longevity in heart patients than heart medicine.

Here's another study -

http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info...ed.1000316

" The analysis, by researchers at Brigham Young University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, compiled data from 148 studies. More than 300,000 people were in the data pool, followed for an average of 7.5 years. The link between social support and mortality risk was found for men and women of all ages, regardless of initial health condition, years of a study or cause of death.

In concrete terms, that 50% number means that socially connected people would live an average of 3.7 years longer than less-connected people, says study co-author Timothy B. Smith, a psychology professor at Brigham Young."

Again, nothing about religious beliefs, or religious service attendance. It's all about having a strong social structure.