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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?"
Makes sense, at least in my point of view. I'm a atheist, and I have got into depressions regarding the meaning of life, the un/fairness behind it, a lot of trascendental questions, also a fear of death, which people that believes in a god, with fervor, may not feel, since they may believe there is a life after death, there is a meaning behind everything, that there is a god that loves you, etc.
That ignorance is bliss.
It's God's will. God is testing me. It's beyond my control. There's also the "God gives me strength" angle.
I suppose it's easier to overcome mental health problems if one believes that they bear no responsibility for their troubles and that an infinitely powerful being will make everything okay if they just believe. A metaphysical placebo.
It's a bit rougher if you've only got yourself to blame for your shortcomings and believe the strength to overcome must come from within.
Does it also correlate with more than usual incidences of requiring help for such maladies?
Who did what now?
Having an invisible friend that you know not only believes in you but genuinely loves you is a powerful thing. I'd be very interested to know if people with human friends who love and believe in them enjoy the similar success.
Why is it that a Slashdot community filled with raging atheists is perfectly willing to entertain that idea that our entire universe is a simulation on someone's computer ( a defacto God), yet any of mention of God solicits instant condemnation? I find that interesting.
Because both ideas are absurd and no one actually believes that the entire universe is a simulation.
That is, no one sane.
Those that do believe in such a theory could argue that the Christian god/Allah/whoever is immoral and us being an experiment is just research into artificial intelligence, and thus moral.
Damn, I dunno. Go ask the people who claim to believe in a simulated universe. When you find them? Let me know.
People are so worried about how long they have to live and what will happen to them after death that they forget to enjoy the life they have. A close relative was diagnosed with low grade lymphoma a few months ago (manageable but unfortunately uncurable ) and she wander why I took such a devastating diagnosis to open her eye to the happiness of everyday life. "I don’t take life for granted anymore. I learned to live in the moment. I also realized that when I live in the present moment, life is wonderful" she said to me. It sounded like a frigging cliche but she seems happier than she has ever been. Perhaps we are just wired to constantly worry and its only when faced with the prospect of death that we realize how futile an effort it is.
That article says there is no scientific basis for women making noises during sex. Another article I read says that the female bonobo makes noises during sex which attracts the attention of nearby males so they can join in... just sayin'.
Supermarkets are the simplest and laziest method for obtaining food. I don't see you hunting, gathering or farming all your calories.
Nonsense. Religions generally are cultural practices, just like how you tend to dress like people in your subculture, you tend to participate in the same festivals as people in your country, and you tend to eat the same food as your ethnic group.
The vast majority of religions are based on cultural identity, not fear. Of course, there are some notable exceptions.
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Thank you for opening my eyes -- it never occurred to me to hold belief in faith and belief in hypothesis testing (proof), as equivalent. It also never occurred to me, given that faith and proof are given equal weight, fortune telling and magic, are as likely as testable physical reality. I like unicorns, who are magical creatures, so they may exist. In my old age, I can hold the same beliefs I did as a child. Santa Claus, and "The Giving Tree" are real once again. Perhaps I can regress back to my infancy, when I had my nice warm blanket, and all things are possible. Innocence and a sense of wonder is restored.
atheists are religious too
And people who don't collect stamps have a hobby.
When they spend time trolling stamp collectors online, join non-stamp-collector organizations, take out ads on buses and billboards about how people shouldn't collect stamps, and go on and on about how much smarter they are than stamp collectors, then yeah, they do.
> atheists are religious too; they prescribe to the dogma that there is no god
It's not dogma unless someone is willing to burn you at the stake for it.
Now trying to distort the world to fit your worldview... THAT is dogma. You can't handle the fact that you are out of touch with some or most of the modern world so you find the need to attack or subvert it.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I happen to believe that there is a God and I will probably be modded into oblivion just for saying so. The fact that the article shows belief in God in a favorable light, will also not sit well with many.
"I believe in God, and I think Slashdot is a group of bigots that will mod me down for my personal beliefs" is flame bait, and should be treated as such. If you left off the taunt on the end, you might have not deserved the negative mods you are expecting, but haven't gotten at the time I post this.
Learn to love Alaska
Too little, and you are a depressed atheist. Too much and you have sudden uncontrollable violent urges to blow up Olympic events and fly planes into buildings.
And what about the truly mentally ill people who fixate that god is telling them to drown their children? Who else would have the authority in their minds to demand that?
I am not saying the belief in God is pernicious. But it seems like there is a certain toxic baggage that has accumulated along with organized religion that keeps people dying a lot.
Typically, "God" is packaged along with afterlife, another chance, eternal existence, etc. Would belief in God then create an implied belief in those other things?
The biggest religions are the ones that offer these things only so long as you follow the rules of their God. If people are told to believe in God without a reason, would this study come to the same conclusion?
No sig for you!!
No, atheists are seen as being as bad as evangelical activists, because a great many of them feel the need to go out of their way to interject their own ideology into the discussion as often as they can... Just like evangelicals. At leasts that's been the bulk of my personal experience, with both types of people.
I've had plenty of perfectly civil conversations about religion and related practices with Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddists, and others. But when it comes to atheists, every one of them seems to define their atheism as their own superiority to all others. All such discussions I've ever had have very quickly devolved into one-sided antagonism, where it's insisted that everyone else must try and "prove" their God exists, and be judged. As I said, that's just my experience, but it's been invariable thus far.
I've certainly never seen this persecution of Atheists you claim exists. And I certainly don't see it being more lonely or challenging to be Atheist than, say, being a lone Hindu or Buddhist in the west.
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You want to assert that religion causes atrocities (against other religions). Perhaps...
However, I'd firmly assert that religion has also PREVENTED untold numbers of atrocities (that atheists might have perpetrated, whether for cultural, racial, financial, or other reasons), because the intended victim was the same religion as the potential perpetrator.
Certainly this is observable with Muslims right now. Terrorists claim they are performing Jihad, while most clerics denounce their behavior, and undermine their claim of justification by pointing out that Jihad is forbidden if it kills other Muslims in the process...
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