Access
This article is part of Nature's premium content.
Published online 1 August 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2008.990
Column: Muse
Is religion good for your health?
Religion arose to protect us from disease, US researchers claim. Philip Ball unpicks the idea.
Science and religion, anyone? Come now, stifle those yawns. A paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B1 this week claims to offer a fresh perspective, with the startling suggestion that religion is a way to protect us from disease.
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).
Comments
Reader comments are usually moderated after posting. If you find something offensive or inappropriate, you can speed this process by clicking 'Report this comment' (or, if that doesn't work for you, email redesign@nature.com). For more controversial topics, we reserve the right to moderate before comments are published.
Cool - after a religious phase in my youth and a 'rabid atheist' phase later on I've often wondered if there was an evolutionary advantage in something as destructive as religion. Atheism, while politically correct ( at least by my standards ), is about as inspiring as celibacy and probably as heritable.
Isn't there other advantages of religion such as peace in the mind and getting along with others by forgiving them and being able to move on with life more effectively after a tragedy? I wonder if there are psychology studies on this.
love your neighbors as you love yourself then exclude them
I read your article, but I have a doubt, ¿why have the religion and the science opposite ways?.
I think that the point under analysis is not the 'religious behaviour' but religion by itself. These two points could be devised as interior or conversely exterior (social) effects of religion. In particular, long lasting religions benefit from a very consolidated proof-and-trials on what can benefit or destroy the relations among a (restricted) group: this can span from education to food or basic hygiene to social relationships. After all, the basic health of a group members is crucial for all of them, thus a list of imposed rules selected from several generations can lead to the survival in hostile environments.
Religion as "social fact" and not a personal belief may not be true at all. Even religion and culture may not be of same meaning as the authors mostly try to convince us. It is unbelievable that perception of being, wondering at the creation of world and human being will not count a thing in a short span of life. Someday, sometime people will be astonished, try to submit to a destiny. At least here in India, religion and religious philosophy are one and same. They show unitary theory of whole being. People can think that they are inseparable from other, thus, they can feel for other, they can find reason to love human being and of course they become happy and healthy and disease free, they can do no harm and no vice. In the name of religion authors are analysing social issues. It was utterly disappointing to read about this article. They use word "religion" as gimmick to find more readers and perhaps more popularity.
Do isolation is a good strategy to preserve population health? Providing that no new pathogens will jump in, by any means, I would agree. But, given a non-zero probability of contacting a new bug, it seems to me that the more and the longer a population is isolated, the higher are the possibility for a catastrophe. Moreover, many religions were not promoting isolation; thing, as an example, to the religious wars promoted by the Churchm the Islam etc., which were actually mixing up many populations around the mediterranean (and possibly causing epidemics).
Interesting. I never have seen the conflict with true science and true religion. Both are open to the truth and knowledge and represent(in my experience)a fully human and alive person who is intellectually honest with himself/herself. arthur sollee
Judging by its historical blood trail, religion is not good for anyone's- but the priests'- health. The theory of religion which I favor (and does not seem to be overthrown by the reported article) goes as follows. All human cultures have some form of mystic belief. This sprung from our "theory of the mind" capability, our ability to adscribe to others the possession of a mind. As a byproduct, whenever you find regularities in the world, there is a temptation to search for the intelligence beyond them. However, not all human groups have what counts as organized religion. I think that for that to occur, another ingredient has to come into play, namely, the in-group/out-group distinction, in a context of oppression. Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or even 'cargo cult' religions build a close-knit group by promising the return of a mesiah, who has the powers to create and direct nature, and answer to prayers, and will wipe despots out. Of course, no one knows which is "the " good religion, and most of them have instructions for, or take pride from, genocide of out-group people. As to why these groups are so important, I do not know for sure, and the report falls short of explaining. But the increase in ethnic tension that globalization is bringing up has as a side-effect fueling the passion for religion. And as I said, religion is deeply unhealthy.
Uh...aren't these guys neglecting the missionizing and universalizing (and most outwardly successful) religions of Christianity and Islam? Actually, before Christianity soaked up the market (so to speak) for evangelism, the Jews were doing pretty well converting the Roman Empire (estimates range from 6-9 million proselytes out of 60 million total population in year 50) as a missionary faith. Most sociologists of religion of the period think that these folks mostly went Christian.
Seems to me that religion exists at the confluence of a number of survial strategies: (1) altruism and other group based survival strategies, which are gaining growing recognition as equally strong factors in evolution as individual adaptation (see E.O Wilson); (2) along with clan, tribe, class, (trade tariffs) and race, in-group exclusionary behavior protects from numerous alien influences that are percieved to be (and can in fact be) dangerous, weakening or noxious, as theorized in this article; and (3) the benefits to individuals of quickly learning the social rules of behavior (ie morality) that work, stand the test of time and enhance individual survival(eg, not killing, not lying, not being promiscuous, and doing unto others, etc., are beneficial behaviors for the individual in a society where information about others is easily come by (agricultural society, internet age, etc.)). Proseletizing religious would be those that recognize the strength in numbers and the elimination of diversity (see all of the religious wars since the Crusades, jihads, inquisitions, etc., etc.) for the same survival reasons. What about sexual reproduction, which seeks the benefits of centrifugal forces rather than the centripital forces mentioned above? And the out-marriage of one or the other sex in various tribes? Of course, which came first, the mind's proclivity to create religious/spritual thoughts or the survival benefits of those kinds of thoughts and social-organizing prinicples? Many, many questions . . .
The religion built the societies (with moral values) first, when there was no existence any scientific views. By religious teachings, people learnt to live in a harmonious way and defined norms in every society. Religion defined the culture of society in the past. Science came into picture at a later stage and within a century or two became dominating as it seeks truth by experiments. It challanged many religious beliefs. I think that religion was to maintain the social harmony when there was no globalization. But in today's world, when we come across each other with different religions background, we found the science was universal but not the religious beliefs. Science does not vary from society to society but religion does. However, in today's era of globalization, we have learnt many new things from different societies and now we must learn to co-exist and establish our global harmony. Since any religion cannot be accepted globally, some of the religions need to be re-formed to include a thread of harmoney and respect for other religions. While science can certainly go ahead to seek the answer for -why for such a long time all the societies had religion and still many need it? Yes, it seems to be a social behavior and not individual and hence important to know more about.
Religions are based on metaphysics like science has a philosophic base or derive from a principle.Metaphysics has not merely a heuristic or empiric basis but also is intuitive in nature ,and thus has a link to truth ,since absolute truth is not available for cognition based only on sensory inputs or with even logic alone.Meta reason is as much a part of religion as it is of science.Social constructivism in science is undenialy proved by some recent studies which reveal the role of emotions and peer pressures as well as predilections,passions and intuitive hunches in the scientific process or theorising in science.So in a way almost similar faculties and processes are fundamentally at work in scientism and religion.But when religion becomes blinded by faith and bigotry then insularity rather than inclusivity results leading to not only confrontation and conformism of a rigid kind,but also mental illness.Similarly religious quest or quest after GOD and TRUTH OF BEING OR REALITY is as intrinsic to human nature like experimentation,rationality and empirical positivism. So religious metaphysics seeks to arrive at TRUTH or its experience by trying to go beyond the intrinsic limitations of sensory knowledge and logical faculty.Religious methodologies are trying to refine mind and reason so that realisation of TRUTH AND REALITY in oneself is possible through intuitve understanding and cognition rather than by empirical or positivist or even rational approaches.Yogic philosophy is a typical example of how holistic health is aimed at as part of religious metaphysics.This is further corroborated by teachings in ancient Indian texts like Bhagavad Gita and Upanisads or the epics.In the meditative muses of Sufis or the practices of some christian sects one can find or discern parallels.So religion in a mundane and gross sense may appear as irrationally ritualistic; but if one sees through the symbolism and metaphor ,the metaphysics in a subtle sense is a healthy attempt at realisation of one`s full potential and cognition of reality one on one. SURESHKUMAR,SCIENTIST AND ADVISOR,POLICY,NIIST,TRIVANDRUM
Why describe it as religion? Why not just say "biotry is good for your health"? That's realy what we are talking about here - avoiding people who are different. Whether it is personal bigotry or organised bigotry, at its root it is the bigotry that is important rather than the religion. That religion is a source of bigotry is old news.
If this is true, then why do people like to spread their religion in different regions and try to include new people in their religios group?
As we learned in first grade in memorizing the Baltimore Catechism, "God made me to know him, love him, serve him inthis world and BE HAPPY WITH HIM IN THE NEXT." Pretty good, huh? Live forever. One doesn't need to wonder then explain what causes thunder, why the sun rises, etc., etc. Enough to explain religion for me.
The belief in anthropogenic global warming classifies as a true and penitant religion in that it is based on belief that excludes all scientific evicence to the contrary. Indeed, the sale of carbon credits is a direct analogy of the sale of papal indulgences; ie a copmplete scam