Belief in God correlated with better mental health outcomes

[Tiriol]

snip
I think its quite clear what she is advocating.

OK, just goes to show how much thought I put into reading this thread. You're right.

[PKRudeBoy]

How about the idea that people who are depressed and at a low point might, you know, stop believing in god because their life is shitty, thereby skewing the data? Essentially a personalized version of the argument from evil i.e "If god was real I wouldn't be suffering from this shit, therefore there is no god." And if said person was religious beforehand, having a crisis of faith at the same time as another problem might make it worse.

[Broomstick]

Furthermore, any claim on your part that religion is necessary in any way is pure and absolute bullshit.

I have a feeling you and I are defining “necessary” in a different manner.

I never claimed religion was necessary to human existence (although I have to wonder, given how universal religion seems to be, if at some point there wasn't some sort of useful advantage it gave hunter-gather or other societies), I claimed that in some individual cases it might be of more benefit than harm.

Again, if someone adheres to a viewpoint that god “tests” people and a believer is supposed to work to pass those “tests” that might lead a person to keep trying to improve their circumstances rather than give up and wait to be rescued. Religions that mandate donating to charity and the less fortunate may, to the degree they promote it, serve a societal good (albeit one that could be replaced by secular mechanisms, but not all societies have such secular institutions). I'm sorry if it chaps your ass that it's conceivable that religions isn't all evil, but there you go.

You don't get to pretend that the religious and non religious are different species and one can live just fine without and the other cannot.

I never made such a claim, please stop lying about what I say. Or maybe atheists are just as capable of being delusional as believers?

Also, I'm disappointed that in the whole argument with Broomstick, nobody was really able to point out that she is arguing for something that this study in no way at all shows. The study shows that a stronger belief in a higher power is correlated with better outcomes. It does not show that increasing ones strength of belief as part of the treatment improves outcomes.

Er... no, that's not what I was arguing. I was arguing that if a patient already has religious beliefs that participation in religion shouldn't be discouraged, and options such as “pastoral counseling” should be on the table if appropriate to the individual. Also, if a patient was considering returning to church after a long absence that might be encouraged as much due to social connections as anything else. I wasn't saying “increase religious beliefs”. Unless you think saying “You tell me you're a lapsed Lutheran? You know, there is actually some evidence that church attendance can be beneficial to people. We aren't entirely sure why that is from a psychiatric standpoint, but you might consider finding a church again. If that is not appealing there are other alternatives to try as well.” is somehow strong-arming someone or suggesting they become hyper-religious.

As opposed to certain people in this thread who propose to rip out all religion and faith by the roots in the name of rationality and reason. Sure, continue research into what exactly religion provides that helps some people so you can come up with secular alternatives – why not? More options are good. Meanwhile, it would be cruel to forbid mention of it to someone who could benefit from it, even more so because for so many mental ills we have no good treatment at present. Medicine has a long history of using empirical cures whose mechanism isn't well understood, at least until something better comes along.

Certainly I would not advocate conversion from one belief system to another, nor would I advocate proposing it to an avowed atheist. Indeed, that would likely be counter-productive.

Or, to get back to a quote of my words used to “support” D.Turtle's viewpoint:

“IF someone was, for example, raised Lutheran and still has some leaning in that direction mentioning that some people find becoming involved in church is not going to bring the world to a screeching halt.”

Again, that is NOT a mandate or a prescription to attend church, it's pointing out that some people find it helpful. Some people find exercising helpful for depression, is it somehow outrageous to suggest a depression person engage in an activity such as jogging if it's already a form of exercise they've used in the past? Some people find exposure to full-spectrum light to help their depression, is it unreasonable to suggest a person get out in the daylight for a half an hour a day if possible? Perhaps while jogging?

Too much of this thread is kneejerk RELIGION IS BAD EVIL INSANE WE HAVE TO DESTROY IT UTTERLY!!!! Which, frankly, I don't find reassuring in regards to mental equilibrium.

A comparison was made of religion to cigarettes. While unquestionably smoking has done terrible things to huge numbers of people they aren't unmitigated evil, either. Apparently they can reduce the risk and symptoms of ulcerative collitis and the chance of pre-eclampsia (until the mid-20the Century eclampsia killed a significant number of pregnant women every year, and can still be fatal if untreated). There is a high correlation of schizophrenia with smoking which may or may not be due to nictotine reducing some symptoms, and nicotine can also help with ADHD. Going on with the mental theme here, it might be helpful for reliving OCD symptoms and depressive symptoms in some cases.

Now, I AM NOT PROMOTING SMOKING HERE, merely pointing out that nicotine, like many demonized drugs, might actually relieve some problems. ABSOLUTELY it would be better to find solutions without nasty side effects like cancer and heart disease, and in some cases we have (pre-eclampsia, for example) but if you have nothing else that works the use might be justified. If a patient has severe schizophrenia which is only minimally responsive to other medications and smoking helps that patient I would argue that depriving that person of their cigarettes is cruel. I don't advocate starting smoking, but if the person is already smoking and removing that might make matters worse I say leave well enough alone.

Oh, and yes, let's find better ways of delivering the “drug” such that harms to others are minimized. Nicotine patches, for example, rather than cigars.

Likewise, if someone already has religious beliefs and is suffering from a mental disorder then attempting to remove the beliefs may not be in the best interests of the patients however distasteful the therapist might find such a manifestation of irrationality.

I may have had a wrong impression (Broomstick may correct me if I'm wrong), but I thought she meant that if a belief in God/gods/higher power in general may be beneficial to some inviduals, that should not be discounted and ignored but rather try to understand how it might be used to keep them mentally healthy and/or improve their mental health condition if it has suffered for some reason. I didn't get the impression that she was arguing for increasing religious belief would be a way to go.

^ This.

[Algebraist]

Also standing against this athiests in power havent really got a great (if short) track record in the 20th century ie
[...]
Jim Jones and the temple cult

Skrrrrt bzzzzt BOOM! Massive logic fail.

Also Algebraist, before you begin really quaking, let me tell you a few things. You are permitted to be a jackass in this board. You are permitted to flame and swear, and do all the nicer things that would be banworthy flames in other places, if you think the other interlocutor has said something stupid. You are also permitted to flame back.

You are not permitted to wholesale ignore your opponent's points. You are not permitted to dismiss them because they are crass. Finally, you are not permitted to skip reading the rules in the Announcements section. And boy, you are going to get shredded if you cry intolerance at mere swearwords.

Jim Jones is an example of an atheist in position of power - almost by definition. He held ultimate power over a large group of people. Why is that simple statement an epic fail (unless that was a reading between the lines example - see below for further discussion!).

Just to note that i did respond to most of the points in the reply - just that you can find it in the middle of the post - I managed to slightly cock up the "quotes" so it unfortunately wasnt obvious without reading through. Actually the main point I made is that his response seemed to mis-understand my post rather. In addition my post does have a significant devils advocate (if you think of it like that and read again................). In particular because on this site I thought it needed some balancing up of the argument (there are rather a lot of anti religion ones - there are some pro religion post but they often gets a vitriolic response so I was not exactly surprised!!!!).

Also I thought i was pretty tolerant of Metahive's reply (perhaps beyond the call of duty). If you re-read the last sentence I make the point that he can post angry rhetoric. What my post was about is when extreme intolerent people get in power!! Whereas Metahive seemed to have taken it personally even though it was no reference to him (I am assuming he's not off persecuting religious people somewhere - and yes simply swearing doesnt count. Although actually severly insulting someone is diferent to just swearing so you were misrepresenting what he said, but as they say stick n stones....)

In the response to my post there was a lot of reading between the lines to actually assume stuff I never actually said. Actually the main gist of the post was as follows. A common arguing approach is:

x,y,z religious proponents(normally extremists) did a,b,c. Thus religion is bad

You can also show

x,y,z atheist proponents (actually extremists) did a,b,c showing atheists havent had a great record in positions of power

I then however go on to point out that this was demonising atheists - not least because all but one on the list was communist!! Similarly however the first arguing approach is often used to unfairly demonise religion. In addition those in power (ie political leaders) often mis-use religion as a tool for their purposes.

Actually you can if you like include atheism in religion - its a possible definition as being a "belief" particularly in a cult. That doesnt change, rather it enhances, my ultimate argument point (ie the last paragraph of my post) that when people get into power who have extreme intolerance of others- that is when you get the worst atrocities (ie its wrong to specifically put the problem at the door or a specific persuasion). In addition that if you try to remove religion, you get something else in its place because a large proportion of the population seem to have a need for a belief system and structure around that (reference back to the first paragraph of my original post).

[Algebraist]

Note specific quote from Jim Jones out of interest

"those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment — socialism

[D.Turtle]

Er... no, that's not what I was arguing. I was arguing that if a patient already has religious beliefs that participation in religion shouldn't be discouraged, and options such as “pastoral counseling” should be on the table if appropriate to the individual. Also, if a patient was considering returning to church after a long absence that might be encouraged as much due to social connections as anything else. I wasn't saying “increase religious beliefs”. Unless you think saying “You tell me you're a lapsed Lutheran? You know, there is actually some evidence that church attendance can be beneficial to people. We aren't entirely sure why that is from a psychiatric standpoint, but you might consider finding a church again. If that is not appealing there are other alternatives to try as well.” is somehow strong-arming someone or suggesting they become hyper-religious.

This study does not show that increasing belief after the fact improves results.
This study does not show that increasing belief after the fact improves results.
This study does not show that increasing belief after the fact improves results.
This study does not show that increasing belief after the fact improves results.
This study does not show that increasing belief after the fact improves results.

Get it?

[Algebraist]

To finally close off my point -
Religion is often misused - for example some key teachings of Christianity are meant to be foregiveness, love thigh neighbour - and all the ten commandments. These can have a positive impact and someone with mental health problems can benefit from positive teachings. However that hasn't stopped intolerance and religion can breed intolerance particularly through extremists. We of course see that problem today largely through Islamist extremists. One problem being that certainly not all scripture is positive by any means and you can pick out certain parts to expand an extremists veiwpoint. There can also be misuse of religion by political leaders who often are not really believers anyway.

Atheism can be a positive system if it means we see ourselves as all the same and helps to foster reason and scientific argument, social constructs can be set up without baggage of previous out of date ideas. However similary it can be misused. If in the absence of belief there is an uncertaintly of what is right and what is wrong. A specific danger is where you have a dictator with ultimate power or it is part of an intolerant polictical system (eg communism). Belief in a supernatural power greater than you with ability to judge you can temper the behaviour of someone. Particularly with positive teachings. However if the dictator instead intalls themselves in ultimate power then there is nothing above them. Nothing they do is wrong- any "means to an end" can then be justified.

So where do we go from here. Basically western society is heading in the "tolerance" direction and it is generally the right way. If people benefit from positive religious messages then who should criticise that? Lets combat extremism and intolerance and look to create a fairer society. Education, increasing knowledge of the world around us and the use of reason is positive and will reduce the reliance on religion.

Actually the biggest problems in the world today, that kills the most people are through civil wars though ethnic and political conflicts eg the Burma and Somali civil wars. While we see a lot more focus on the problem with militant Islamic extremists such as Al -Qaeda. The problem at the root is usually mans desire for power, greed and a belief and need to extert superiorty over others (whether that be a country, race or religion) and intolerance of those different to ourselves.

[Algebraist]

and of course the Syrian civil war (meant to include that)

[Metahive]

OK, I have a challenge here for you, give me objective guidelines as to how "correctly" use religion.

Actually the biggest problems in the world today, that kills the most people are through civil wars though ethnic and political conflicts eg the Burma and Somali civil wars. While we see a lot more focus on the problem with militant Islamic extremists such as Al -Qaeda. The problem at the root is usually mans desire for power, greed and a belief and need to extert superiorty over others (whether that be a country, race or religion) and intolerance of those different to ourselves.

Religion exacerbates these problems since it offers another way for people to develop tribalist bigotry over.

[Irbis]

To people saying belief in god(s) can help in some cases - so what? We can't measure what amount of belief, or how to foster 'correct' helping kind of belief in people, instead of say virulent, fundamentalist one, so this 'help' is worthless as any kind of scientific medication, and might have unforeseen, worse consequences this shallow study did not observe. In fact, it looks to me as yet another 'grasp at straws to excuse the monstrosity' empty study, as do all the desperate searches for one medical reason why male/female genital mutilations should be continued.

You know what other negative state grants (quantifiable) side benefits? Let's try, say, sickle-cell anaemia, which besides increasing probability of strokes and infections, makes you highly immune to a host of diseases, including malaria. Should we encourage spread of this disease? If not, why? It provides exactly the same effect as religion in above study, side protection while bringing in much worse problems. Oh, wait, malaria isn't 'behave right' recipe prescribed by scared stone age goat herders.

Religion is often misused - for example some key teachings of Christianity are meant to be foregiveness, love thigh neighbour - and all the ten commandments.

In my experience, that is nothing but an excuse. People likely to follow 'love thigh neighbour' are highly likely to do it even as atheists, as they are mostly predisposed to do so naturally, while ones screeching to follow the letter, not the spirit, poison whole societies for everyone, bringing in nothing in return. I can list dozens upon dozens of examples ruining lives of large groups from my country alone, from recent years, while I struggle to name one good thing made possible by religious influences, no matter how hard I try. Remind me, when was last time religious lawmakers voted to make people more, not less equal? Oh, right, to these types only white christian hetero males count as people

[Darth Klingon]

Well, having some faith in a higher power can give people lots of hope. Here's how I see this issue. Even if God is nonexistent, as long as believing in God gives some people hope, then religion is a very good thing. Many people's religious beliefs it made their lives much better.

[General Zod]

Well, having some faith in a higher power can give people lots of hope. Here's how I see this issue. Even if God is nonexistent, as long as believing in God gives some people hope, then religion is a very good thing. Many people's religious beliefs it made their lives much better.

So you think that lying to someone in order to get their hopes up is a good thing? That self deceit to give yourself hope is a good thing? Because that's what you're advocating. What do you think will happen to that hope when they found out they were deceived?

[K. A. Pital]

Please.

Are you seriously suggesting that calm, believing sheep are better than anxious, doubting, but critically thinking people?