Atheism and Your Health.

[Khandro]

Is Atheism detrimental to your health and general wellbeing?

[slaney]

..and its conclusions are a little more modest.
"Older adults who participate in private religious activity before the onset of ADL impairment appear to have a survival advantage over those who do not"
ADL=Activity of Daily Living

[LazyGun]

@ Slaney Thanks for the links. As you rightly point out, the Handbook you reference has had positive reviews, although with some critical caveats.

Bottom line- most of the studies in this area have been, by objective standards, poor.Too often, data has been taken from studies designed to look for something else, and presented as a form of proof.Other studies have been too small, or poorly controlled, or show clear evidence of bias.

The take home message from some of the better studies is that social factors can influence your health. If you are socially isolated, or permanently stressed for whatever reason, it could have an impact on both your quality of life and your longevity.

If you are an active member of a social group, have a sensible diet,enjoy moderate exercise, refrain from smoking and drink alcohol in moderation then I suspect you would see little if any difference in qualitative or quantitative measures of happiness and longevity between atheists and theists.

[Davethedog]

Slaney I apologise, wasn't critical enough in my thinking.

Small point, in general, strange isn't it how theiest use quasi science to try and justify a point, when they decry science in most of its applications.

I am willing to bet that using proper controls there would be no appriciable difference, except, and this is my view with no support, the religious would probably be more abstemious in their habits. You could also argue those not in a group may be less lighly to "look after themselves"

[Khandro]

LG. Yes, my attention was drawn to the North Carolina study by Sheldrake, and I have paraphrased parts from his book in that post, but there's nothing wrong with that is there? Slaney, (whom God preserve) has provided the link you requested.

[LazyGun]

@Khandro - There is nothing wrong with doing that per se, but as I said, what has been posted is a precis of the abstract of the paper - the precis done by Sheldrake for his book, The Science Delusion, so he has an agenda, and it is useful to be able to compare the original to his summary to get a sense of whether any bias has been introduced.

As you say, thanks to Slaney for posting the original. You can, if you read the methodology of the study, begin to see why it would be very difficult to draw any firm conclusions from the study. For a start, the cohort of participants who expressed a religious preference far outnumbered the cohort of participants who either declared themselves as atheist or non-religious. It means that the study size is insufficient.

Also within the text of the study, you can see for yourself that many of the differences noted by the researchers were noted as being not statistically significant.

I do think some quality studies in this area would be useful though -

[jomifl]

The average life expectancy in extreme muslim Afghanistan is 43.8 years . The average life expectancy in France (the most atheist country in Europe) is 80.7 years. That's cherry picking for you :-)

[Khandro]

jomifl; Would it be unfair of me to suggest that your survey is just a tad unscientific in its lack of 'Confounding variables' ?

[RATTER15]

jomifl, I think you will find Sweden is the most Atheist country "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of
_atheism"
with an average life expectancy of 8.9

It pays to be atheist!! :-)

[RATTER15]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of
_atheism

[RATTER15]

http://en.wikipedia.o...mographics_of_atheism

[RATTER15]

or even 80.9 note to self "Must pay more attention before posting"

[jomifl]

Yes Khandro, of course it is unscientific, hence my reference to 'cherry picking'. A point that you seem to have ignored is that even if believing in a god, praying, whatever, extends your life, you are more likely to be killed by a fellow believer than an atheist would be likely to be killed by a believer (unless you are dutch). Look at the big picture, belief in god encourages poverty, starvation and disease, not exactly life enhancing however joyous the afterlife may be.

[naomi24]

Cor, you had me worried there for a moment Ratter! ;o)

[ludwig]

Even if it were true I still say it's swings and roundabouts. I'd personally rather spend 80 years getting on with life, rather than 85 years made up of 80 getting on with life and 5 indulging in religious nonsense.

[Khandro]

Sorry Ratter, but choosing a whole country with a long (or short) life expectancy is not a scientific study, for that you would have to carry out the survey within that country, and even then, make further allowance for the 'confounding variables. In Sweden, France, or anywhere, some people die young, and some die old.

[jomifl]

Khandro, to answer your question directly and to ignore the general silliness of this thread my answer is 'probably not'. You are a buddhist are you not? about 50% of buddists are atheists, why don't you ask them? At least the will all have one thing in common.
You do seem to have a problem with atheism yet you have never told us why.

[Khandro]

Jomifl, you say; //You do seem to have a problem with atheism yet you have never told us why.//
I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with atheism, what I have a problem with, is certain atheists who wish to hi-jack this site which is called 'Religion and Spirituality', who are neither religious, and in most cases are lacking in any form of spirituality. Isn't it really you who should be defending your place in this room? The more sensible, and the more timorous than me, have been scared away by the constant belligerence shown to them here. At the moment I am reading the sermons of the 14th century Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart, and ( I hope the Editor is reading this) it would be impossible to engage with anyone, of any faith, to hold an intelligent exchange on this site. Furthermore; why do you haunt this place? whenever I go to any topic on this site you are there. Are you perhaps a theist manqué?

[jomifl]

I haunt this place because of my spirituality, obvious innit :-)

[jomifl]

Telling someone how many beans make 5 is not belligerence, it is a helping hand to those who cannot count.

[beso]

Yes it is a major problem with the site. In the "Law" section all the posts are about people breaking the law too. And "How It Works" seems to be mostly about things that don't work.