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Belief In God Correlates With Better Mental Health Treatment Outcomes
Hatta writes "According to researchers from Harvard Medical School, belief in god is correlated with improved outcomes of treatment for depression. Quoting: 'In the study, published in the current issue of Journal of Affective Disorders, researchers comment that people with a moderate to high level of belief in a higher power do significantly better in short-term psychiatric treatment than those without. "Belief was associated with not only improved psychological well-being, but decreases in depression and intention to self-harm," says David H. Rosmarin, Ph.D., an instructor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.' This raises interesting questions. Does this support the concept of depressive realism? If the association is found to be causal, would it be ethical for a psychiatrist to prescribe religion?"
That's what people crave. They can't live with the possibility that life might have no meaning at all, that we're just here and should make the best of it.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The key thing missing in the headline: "In treatment of depression".
Other things missing: "in one isolated study", "in an article summarizing the study, without any direct link to the research", and of course, "a highly biased interpretation meant to generate views based on obvious controversy."
Keep in mind, this may also be highly cultural, as many nations have much larger percentage non-believing populations, but not worse depression or suicide rates that correlate.
Ryan Fenton
Reality as it's given to us by society and interpreted through rationality IS depressing. The secret is - you don't stop there, you keep going. deeper.
Another way to look at their results is that there needs to be an improvement in the psychological treatment of atheists because there may be some bias in the treatment that tends to push people to appeal to the spiritual. Maybe a bit like AA.
There is a distinct lack of research in the area of atheist vs theist rates of psychological problems. Of the available research, here is one such study that suggests that atheists are less likely to suffer from depression:
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/buggle_20_4.html
I haven't done the digging yet but the submitted article smells like the Templeton Foundation may have had an influence.
Probably the same reason atheists label all people of faith as "worshippers", "fanatics", or whatever. The overwhelming majority of atheists and spiritual individuals are laid back and don't advertise their disposition. However the ones that do make their beliefs (or lack thereof) known usually earn the label 'raging', 'cynic', 'fanatic', 'extremist', etc. and stigmatize the remaining likeminded population.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
The guiding moral principle of evolution is "survival of the fittest"
Nope, the mechanism for evolution involves differential reproductive success ("survival of the fittest"), but there is absolutely no "moral principle." The Theory of Evolution doesn't say whether it's good or bad or whocares to survive and reproduce.
People have built all sorts of flaky philosophies off of evolution (e.g. "Social Darwinism") that ascribe moral values to certain outcomes, but these are no part of the scientific theory of evolution.
This is not about religion, but about the placebo effect in a new area. Fits right here,
Do you also have low opinions of any parents who feel some tinge of sadness when their kid departs to head off to college? Have you never had a friend move away for better opportunity elsewhere, and both rejoiced with them for their gains and sorrowed at your common loss? Had to put a family pet down, knowing its suffering is over, as is its life? Either you have lived an amazingly lucky and perfect life, or you're just a heartless git --- in either case, you lack a fundamental level of human empathy for those who (religious or not) have enough braincells for both joy and sorrow.
The chief researcher's curriculum vitae: http://www.spiritualityandhealth.duke.edu/resources/pdfs/David%20Rosmarin.pdf (search the doc for "spiritual")
Not to say that he can't be right, but he has been pursuing this idea of "religious people are happier/mentally healthier" for several years. He has a lot invested and a lot of publications on the matter. It doesn't give the impression of a researcher free of bias.
I'd be interested in knowing what they controlled for when calculating the strength of the effect they found. Did they account for age, family history, income, race, sex and social involvement?
That's actually an awesome question.
If most religions believe only one religion is right and there is only one "real" god, then only only followers of one particular religion should see a benefit. If other religions see the same benefit, then doesn't that sort of disprove any relation to supposed divinity? And if you rationalize it by saying "well, it's not that god is making you better, it's just that simply believing helps", then doesn't that even further invalidate the entire concept?
If you believe in something that is greater than you - whether it be God or Buddha or Yaweh or Allah or Satan what-ever-name-it-is - you have some sort of "psychological protective vest"
When I was younger I did not believe in the so-called "power of prayer" (no matter which religion it is, or which God the prayer supposed to go to). I thought the thing is rubbish
Step 1: Establish credentials by stating that you used to hold an opposing view. Provides a sense of credibility, and a starting point. What matters more is how the speaker transitioned from disbeliever to believer, which is what follows.
Then as I age, I get to see a repeat --- cases of, how shall I put it, "miracles" --- where patients that the medical doctors have given up on, made drastic recoveries
Step 2: Wheel out vague anecdotes and faulty reasoning as post hoc support of a conversion. Rather than indicating existence of supernatural super mind power, what you say here suggests more a need for a decent grounding in statistics.
I can't explain how the thing works, I am only an independent observer on that process
Step 3. Argument from ignorance and claim impartiality. This is a common tactic of conspiracy theorists who try to get out of a need for rigorous evidence by saying that they're not asserting, just asking questions. Of course the questions asked strongly imply an assertion, like asking "so why do you think so few Jews died in 9/11?", to imply a Jewish inside job without coming out and saying it.
Perhaps, just perhaps, deep inside our psyche, there is a force that we have not yet touch upon, a force so great that it can fight whatever illness the body has been infected with --- and perhaps, it's the "belief system" that there is something "more powerful than us", through "prayer", that made up a "conduit" or sort, that tap on that force deep within our own psyche, to fight the disease that has inflicted much pain and suffering on the victim / patient
Step 4: The baloney shotgun is armed. Perhaps in my liver I have an army of undetectable ponies that maintain a balance of power that prevents either kidney from seizing control of my renal system.
The word "perhaps" is bolted on to the front of a whole bunch of crazy speculations that are no more to the point than to postulate the universe being at the centre of a giant donkey's arse.
Till now, our human scientific knowledge is still very limited, there are still a lot of things that we do not know
Maybe one day our human can get our technoogy advance to the point that we can get "in touch" with that force deep inside our own psyche
Step 5: Speculation is at an end - shit just got real. At this point, make it clear that this imaginary bullshit for which there's no evidence is only obscured by our lack of technology/open mindedness/faith. Where earlier it was "perhaps", now it's taken as a given that this force exists. The only perhaps left is the question of whether we will ever advance sufficiently in our technology/open mindedness/faith to be able to understand this magical force.
Scientific knowledge is incomplete. Your knowledge of science is on a par with my knowledge of the Iranian dating scene. Like science, you know it does something because you fly in airplanes, and similarly I know Iranians have some form of dating because they marry and they produce children. I've no idea though how man meets women, and you appear to be viewing science as this big mysterious box, that may as well be a fucking great monkey skull shaped cave on a island that brings the rains when you do your little dance.
-- Using the preview button since 2005