Comment by dvt

5 days ago

It's ironic that the "acktually.." atheist/anti-theist crowd don't do a modicum of research when it comes to this kind of stuff. It's pretty well-established in the literature that folks plugged into a religious community live better, happier, and healthier lives[1].

Millenial cynicism is so boring.

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5127763/

21 comments

dvt

Reply
datsci_est_2015  5 days ago

> folks plugged into a religious community live better, happier, and healthier lives

Could be:

> folks plugged into a community live better, happier, and healthier lives

Or even

> folks with a weekly routine in a third space live better, …

There’s nothing causational about the denomination.

  • darth_avocado  5 days ago

    > folks plugged into a community live better, happier, and healthier lives

    It is this mainly. Community is the reason most people find happiness. Some people find it at church, some on a Sunday at a football game, some at their dnd game that’s being going on for years and some find it in their family. I am not particularly religious but I am 100% onboard the idea that community brings happiness. I find happiness in just having good neighbors.

  • someothherguyy  5 days ago

    ... or people who attend religious services are less likely to self-report depression because of perceived weakness, shame, etc

  • dvt  5 days ago

    > There’s nothing causational about the denomination.

    You're right, I'm sure the people that are publishing these studies have never heard of "correlation is not causation."

    • datsci_est_2015  5 days ago

      Can’t wait for them to test why specific denominations have a positive causal impact on wellbeing over others. Mormons, Jehovas Witnesses, Southern Baptists, etc.

      While we’re being snarky, should we talk about the people who are arbitrarily and capriciously removed from these communities during times when they need them most? Like women seeking divorce in abusive relationships while in a denomination that preaches absolute subservience to the male head of household?

malfist  5 days ago

Tell that to the gay kid who lived through god hates fags. Or the trans person today.

  • robotnikman  5 days ago

    Speaking as a gay dude, it doesn't mean you have to follow a mainstream religion to find spirituality, especially one which tells you that you are an evil person because of who you are. Personally I've taken bits of various eastern religious beliefs which now form my 'spirituality'.

    It's weird, its like there is some part of our mind that requires something spiritual to fill it, and has been that way every since recorded history. People have always looked for something higher than themselves, whether is be a god or gods, or the idea of nature or the universe, or any matter of similar ideas. And filling that part of our minds with a belief in something, seems to put the mind at ease in some ways. A lot of medical literature I've read includes 3 parts of yourself that you need to take care of: mind, body and spirit. So I really do believe there is something behind it.

  • mns  4 days ago

    It's funny that exactly like those religious extremists and other extremists that associate any kind of queer person to the boogieman that tried to convert your kids and have depraved sex parades on the street, it's exactly the same attitude with people demonising any kind of religious person, as if all are the same. We all humans are the same, it's just who and what we hate and appreciate that differs.

stackghost  5 days ago

That study you linked does not establish a causal relationship. It may simply be that the sort of person who is able to extract well-being from church is the sort of person more likely to actually attend church with any regularity. It likewise does not address the possibility that depression itself might make one want to stop attending church.

>Millenial cynicism is so boring

Yeah, it's always Millennials who are in the wrong. Fuck us, right? It's all good, we're used to being the scapegoats for society's problems.

  • phainopepla2  5 days ago

    I'm a millennial and I feel like nearly all the discourse about who is (generationally) responsible for society's problems is aimed at the boomers. And the zoomers to a lesser extent, though that seems more of a prophecy about how they're going to ruin society. Jabs aimed at us millennials tend to be that we're cringe (or boring), which I can accept.