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20Y study finds little evidence religiosity leads to greater life satisfaction

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Re: 20Y study finds little evidence religiosity leads to greater life satisfaction

#61

Post by orwin »

mistrial9 wrote: post #11

next up - two thousand year study shows religion is not going away. signed - religious person

Ten-thousand year study, you mean. At least.

I'm not an antiquity specialist, but from what i've heard the first monotheism was probably zoroastrism (might have been a duotheist religion as first, with their Satan equivalent being as powerfull as their version of god), and might have appeared more than ten thousand years ago.

Followed by some version of Hinduism, then either the Aton cult or judaism (i've heard theories about Judaism started becoming a monotheism after an exile from egypt of Aton priests).

Re: 20Y study finds little evidence religiosity leads to greater life satisfaction

#62

Post by rahimnathwani »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #51
mensetmanusman wrote: post #3

“ Meta-analyses have pointed to a positive relationship between religiosity and a person’s evaluation of their life, suggesting that people who are more religious tend to feel better about their lives. But researcher Mohsen Joshanloo remarks that these studies have not offered strong evidence of a causal relationship between the two variables. “ E.g. maybe happy people are more likely to be religious, but like with m…

> My favorite stat is that weekly church goers report the highest satisfaction in their sex lives. While I can't find the source now, my favorite stat is that paid-per-view porn spikes during Christian men's conferences. EDIT: ^at hotels

The attendees watching at hotels?

Or their families watching back at home?

Re: 20Y study finds little evidence religiosity leads to greater life satisfaction

#63

Post by mistrial9 »

orwin wrote: post #61
mistrial9 wrote: post #11

next up - two thousand year study shows religion is not going away. signed - religious person

Ten-thousand year study, you mean. At least. I'm not an antiquity specialist, but from what i've heard the first monotheism was probably zoroastrism (might have been a duotheist religion as first, with their Satan equivalent being as powerfull as their version of god), and might have appeared more than ten thousand years ago. Followed by some version of Hinduism, then either the Aton cult or judaism (i've heard theor…

Gnosis magazine -- recommended

Re: 20Y study finds little evidence religiosity leads to greater life satisfaction

#65

Post by jdavis703 »

netizen-936824 wrote: post #10
dustingetz wrote: post #6

The point of religion is to solve civilization-scale game theory coordination dilemmas. "Thou Shalt Not Kill" is a mutually beneficial metastable equilibrium but is only stable to the extent that it is a universally adopted principle. A lot of modern tragedies like climate change can be tackled in this way if we can establish universal shared values that apply to all people independent of nationality, status and in p…

>"The point of religion is..." Citation please

OP’s statement is too broad and thus incorrect, but it is essentially correct about Abrahamic religions where the religious texts are clearly concerned with upholding state power. This obviously does not apply to many, if not most, other religions.

Re: 20Y study finds little evidence religiosity leads to greater life satisfaction

#66

Post by paulryanrogers »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #62
paulryanrogers wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My favorite stat is that weekly church goers report the highest satisfaction in their sex lives. While I can't find the source now, my favorite stat is that paid-per-view porn spikes during Christian men's conferences. EDIT: ^at hotels

The attendees watching at hotels? Or their families watching back at home?

Attendees at hotels

Re: 20Y study finds little evidence religiosity leads to greater life satisfaction

#67

Post by phkahler »

Grimm1 wrote: post #42

Honestly, and completely anecdotally, having been raised Catholic I would expect it to result in quite the opposite when so much of the doctrine is based on guilt. That said before anyone jumps on me, also anecdotally, I haven't found any greater life satisfaction by not being religious either. You do you. The article says the study suggests there's not a really strong causal relationship in either way which surprise…

Aside from that Catholic guilt and community aspects, people like to feel hope and purpose. Religious beliefs can offer both of those. I do like to point out that this effect will take place regardless of the truth of the belief system, so paint yourself a picture that brings "meaning" to your life however you want - as long as it's something you can actually believe ;-)

Re: 20Y study finds little evidence religiosity leads to greater life satisfaction

#68

Post by AnimalMuppet »

Grimm1 wrote: post #42

Honestly, and completely anecdotally, having been raised Catholic I would expect it to result in quite the opposite when so much of the doctrine is based on guilt. That said before anyone jumps on me, also anecdotally, I haven't found any greater life satisfaction by not being religious either. You do you. The article says the study suggests there's not a really strong causal relationship in either way which surprise…

Not all religious experience are based so much on guilt. There are strains of Protestantism where the emphasis is much more on grace.

Re: 20Y study finds little evidence religiosity leads to greater life satisfaction

#69

Post by sammalloy »

coding123 wrote: post #54

As more people lose faith, you have higher numbers of people that have faith in only themselves. What replaces morality? I haven't seen a large movement to replace it.

Morality is entirely a subjective endeavor that feels objective only because large groups agree upon certain standards of behavior. The idea that you need religion to have morality is an old one based on tradition, but has never been true at any time in history.

In fact, when we look at religious morality through history with the eyes of modernity, we see what we can only describe as a vast chasm of immorality. Sure, a stopped clock is right twice a day, and once in a while, religious morals get it right.

It’s often said by atheists like myself, if you want to become an atheist, simply read the religious books of any major religion. The problem is that most religious adherents have no idea what their books actually say, and take most of their beliefs on faith from authority. But when you really read the books, you realize that this is not a paragon of morality by any stretch of the imagination.

Re: 20Y study finds little evidence religiosity leads to greater life satisfaction

#70

Post by squarefoot »

jawns wrote: post #48

I am a member of a religious group whose doctrine, practices, culture, etc. are very different from the doctrine, practices, and culture of other religious groups. Some people who identify as religious are monotheists, others polytheists, others pantheists, and still others agnostics or even atheists. (Yup, there is such a thing as Christian atheism.) So I always find it strange when 'religiosity' is used as a catch-…

I'm pretty sure there are different groups also among the same exact religion. If we asked to a large group of Christians whether we, say, should help immigrants, we would probably end up with 3 types of answers: "yes, let's help them!" - "yes, but only for very basic needs, then let's kick them out" - "nope, let's build a wall and let them rot on the other side". Of course the 2nd and especially the 3rd group have absolutely nothing to do with anything christian, and they profess them as such only to not feel guilty, or possibly because the society they live in requires that (how many votes would a politician get is he/she admitted being atheist?) - religion for them is just a series of acts (go to church, make offers, say prayers aloud, etc.) intended to cheat the system and appear as good people while in realty they aren't. I am also sure that the 1st group live a better life, which doesn't mean they'll earn more, actually it's quite likely the opposite, but they grow better "antibodies" to overcome difficulties without anger.

BTW, I'm writing this as a complete atheist. Spending most of my youth in catholic schools helped me to know many people of all those groups, and believe me, for us atheists recognizing someone that is just pretending to be religious is truly easy.

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