Sky must agree with you because she didn't respond to your post by saying 'off topic!'

;-)

> To answer your question about psychology and psychiatry research as opposed to religious research; the psychs have no religious agenda to prove while religious research does.

Firstly, it is useful to distinguish between church sponsored research and theology (comparative theology) research. What is the difference? Church sponsered research has an agenda to push whereas theology research typically doesn't. Theology is an academic discipline that is related to philosophy, psychology, anthroplogy and sociology. Many people who study theology are atheists or agnostics or spiritualists or whatever. Theology is the OBJECTIVE study of religious beliefs.

The studies I posted links to were from a theology / sociology journal, for example. If you were correct that those kinds of journals always have a religous agenda to push then you would expect to find more support for your position from there. The studies I cited did not support your position, however.

> I did not post here to get into an argument.

Neither did I. I do think it is wise to think critically about the research, however. For every study for there are typically several against. Even scientific research can be influenced by political and funding agendas (sponsored by the dairy board or by drug companies, for example. Psychologists can have a religous agenda to push too...)

> The relationship between faith and health is well studied, and the majority in the field agree that it is beneficial.

I disagree.

Firstly:

How is benefit measured? Self report? Beneficial to the individual or to society?

You may be correct with respect to self report. What questions are asked? 'Are you happier because of your religious faith?'

Self report typically isn't given terribly high credance in scientific disciplines. One of the major advances was to look to objective measures of improvement rather than relying on self report. How many people self report benefit to seeing a psychoanalyst 5 times a week? How many people report benefit to taking a placebo? How many people confabulate self reports where the self reports are actually inaccurate with respect to the causes of behaviour?

This bears on the original question in the thread in the following respects.

Firstly, it is controversial whether people self report more happiness as a result of... What? Belief in a personal God who cares? Church attendance? Reading the Bible?

Cross-cultural studies muddy the waters considerably. Even if there is a consensus on the above with respect to American culture (which I'm personally dubious about) there is far from consensus that this is a universal phenomena. There is considerable cross cultural variation...

Secondly, it is controversial whether people actually are better off as a result of belief in a personal God, church attendance, or reading the Bible.

Thirdly, it is controversial whether society is better off as a result of the members believing in a personal God, attending church, or reading the Bible.

Controversial.

That is my answer to the question the person asked.

From my personal perspective I've found much benefit to replacing supernatural explanations with natural explanations and belief in supernatural agents with belief in natural agents. Sure I have no God, but the converse is that I have no Satan. I've found a benefit to looking to natualised ethics with respect to figuring out what sort of a person I want to be and hence what sorts of things I should do instead of looking to religious faiths with respect to their telling me what sort of a person I should be and what I should do.

That is my personal experience.

Whether that is the norm or whether people vary considerably on that is controversial. The majority of people were posting their experiences of benefits to the above. When people started making claims about the way things are for people more generally I thought the original poster might benefit from hearing the other side of the story, however.

To provide for a more balanced thread so that...

They could decide for themself.