Scientific Study on Effect of Religion on Health

[James S]

I'm sitting here in my living room watching the SciFi channel and up comes "In Search Of..." It's a show that has stuff on it like UFOs, Loch Ness, etc. This episode is about Faith Healers and Kabbalists. But what caught my attention was that they said that there had been a scientific study on the effect of religion on people's health. The results were the people that regularly attend religious services live longer and have fewer health problems than those that do not. They said that the difference is the same as the difference between smokers and non-smokers in the length of life and general health. That's quite incredible, has anyone ever heard of this before?

Now that I think about it, me and my family go to church every Sunday and, as I've said before, I've only been to the doctor like 3 times in my life, I get a cold maybe once a year. My cousins, aunt, and uncle, their family does not go to church ever. My younger cousin has an ear infection every ohter month and bronchitis atleast 5 times a year that I hear of, and has been like that for as long as I could remember. My cousin, same age as I am, has serious mental problems, depression, bi-polar, severe drug use, she has two STDs, too (her short shorts reveal the rash that she won't admit to). My aunt is bi-polar and has borderline personality disorder. My brother who does not live with us and does not go to church has problems, too.

But this just struck me as a very interesting study, and extremely interesting findings! The difference between religious service attenders and non-attenders is the same as the difference between smokers and non-smokers.

I'll definitely link to this study if I can find it, but it was mentioned in passing on a TV show, at 2 PM on "In Search Of..." on the SciFi channel, episode regarding Faith Healers, Real Life Frankensteins, and if Aliens shaped our early civilization.

[James S]

http://www.usatoday.com/community/chat/0629koenig.htm
This webpage talks about the story that used to be on USAToday.com, but the page of the actual article is now missing, although the webpage on USAToday still links to the article on USAToday's page.

http://www.infidels.org/secular_web/fea ... Today.html
This one links to the USAToday that is no longer there, also, but goes on to tell about it. After glancing the article it appears to be negative, but holds all the information.

http://www.plim.org/PrayerDeb.htm
This appears to be a positive article, about various debates on Prayer.

http://www.eatingbythebook.com/connect/0003.html
Here is a more recently dated rebuttle (1999) to the negative side of the argument of the original 1996 article on the issue.


I'd also like to note that the "In Search Of..." TV show did it's next session in the same episode on Aliens being the origin of humanity, especially the Egyptian and Mayan sector. And then, in the same breath, showed radiation tests on the Shrowd of Torrin that revealed a latent energy source eminating from the shrowd... Quite the interesting episode ... I've got WAY too much spare time on my hands during the day

[Paul]

dont anyone else reply to this, you'll only encourage him.

[eminefes]

[Paul]

yeah it rocks, if by rocks you means sucks ass. of course moose will live longer, he doesnt drink or do drugs or eat to excess or any of that shit. whoopy doo.

[James S]

[RICoder]

[TechMage]

[damian]

[James S]

[James S]

[Jaybot]

Soo... if I am religious and I am a smoker... do they cancel each other out?

This study is kinda lame, its the same thing as the happier people live longer; and people who have sex often live longer. Or my personal favorite, people who smoke constantly and don't get cancer or any other harmful disease (like your great grampa who was 108 years old, smoked 6 packs a day, was in perfect health and died by choking on some celery), live longer. Its all the same shit.

Which sortof reminds me of the Atkins guy (from the Atkins diet or whatever).. really healthy guy, just died by slipping on some patch of ice and now dead.... didn't matter how healthy he was

'It's always the yoga, sprout-eating motherfuckers... who get hit while crossing the street by a truck driver who smokes two packs a day!... when the cops asked the driver about it: 'Sorry officer, I didn't see him, I was too busy SMOKING! hahahah!' - Denis Leary

[James S]

Ya, you see, there's the problem. Cathoholics twist everything in the Bible into negatives. The Bible is about positives. Nowhere does the Bible say that women shouldn't be priests, or that ministers should be chaste, that's why they rape little boys, because they're all sick and perverted because they never understand what real love is. How can they understand the love of God when they have never experienced love . The only thing that Jesus taught was to be kind to everyone. It's too bad Catholics are led by power craving mad-clergy. That's why Protestants protested and left Europe and all that ignorant Catholic teaching.

[James S]

[SiGen]