Ho Hum - beyond the US, I think you'll find that throughout history, the more religious the nation, the lower the standard of living.

The more secular the country, and the more people who aren't religious, the higher the standard of living.

The findings of the article don't surprise me, earlier posters have aptly summed up the reasons why, and they're all psychological rather than 'god' imbued.

And boaz, as for the 'industry' comments there, I can't help but wonder what those Christian bookshops and so forth are known as. Christianity has elements of 'industry' as does anything where monetary transactions take place, be it a school fete or a multinational corporation.

As the author points out, defining spirituality is a difficult endeavour. I'd regard many of the 'new-age' style ritualistic faiths (crystals, tarot, etc) as very similar to religion, and given that they're well outside mainstream society, it doesn't surprise me in the least that the people in them are probably unsettled.

That however, is entirely different to agnostic or even offshoots of atheistic spiritual belief sets that discard any need for ritualism.

The devil's in the detail.

"So, why not simply turn away from sin, come back to the living God, revealed in Jesus of Nazareth, and receive the Holy Spirit and enjoy the fruit thereof?"

Well for one thing doing so appears to have no mental health benefits "By contrast, belief in God, church attendance, and religious background appeared to have little connection with anxiety and depression or thought disturbance in young adulthood." - connections which I would have expected would flow from "Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Self control etc etc."

Maybe a touch of self control derived from the fear of retribution "Lower rates of antisocial behaviour were found however among males who attend church on weekly, and among females who were either unsure about God or believed in God."

David focussing on the weakness of non-thiestic sprituality highlights the failure of thiestic faith to make any difference in areas where faith should make a difference if it's claims have any basis. Someone in-dwelt by the holy spirit in fellowship with god, knowing that their sins are forgiven and that death has no hold on them should have better mental health than those of us making it up as we go and facing our own mortality have. They don't which is quite damming.

Own goal on David's part I suspect.

R0bert

TRTL... you said:

Ho Hum - beyond the US, I think you'll find that throughout history, the more religious the nation, the lower the standard of living.

The more secular the country, and the more people who aren't religious, the higher the standard of living.

Well.. nothing against you personally but that is utter rubbish.

We have a term in 'Missiology' (the social aspects of the incoming of the Gospel to a secular or animistic society) which is "Redemption and Lift"

Spiritual renewal, and most of repentance, brings with it some very identifiable benefits, both personal and economic. The Gospel has 2 pats.
1/ Repentance. ( a turning away FROM...sin)
2/ Faith. ( a turning TO...Christ and the ethics of the kingdom of God)

Drunkenness and substance abuse (both very costly habits) will not generally remain when someone seriously repents. (a glass of wine at a meal or social occasion is not 'drunkenness)
They immediately have more disposable income. Thus, now having direction, more income, more motivation, a new moral and mental framework....their lives 'lift' and rise on the socio economic scale.

While churches are not immune to personal squabbles and disputes, the general tone is far more uplifting than anything secular society can offer. All this improves one's mental health, well being and peace of mind.

The 'Spirituality Industry' is easy to find.

http://www.lifeact.com/catalogue.html but it pretty much always costs MONEY $$$....

Salvation and knowledge about Christ is no more expensive than a low cost Bible, an open heart and mind at a free evangelistic meeting, or.. if you have a computer, 100% free as you explore the online good news at Bible Gateway.

I've only heard of ONE 'zero cost' secular/newagey thing which I mentioned on my thread 'A Journey'called "KNOWLEDGE"... SEMINAR.

My non Christian mate described his experience doing this. The culmination was simply placing their tongue on the roof of their mouths, and focusing (meditating?) and the idea was that this (it could have been any kind of physical action) brought about a tranquility and well_being feeling.

You also have to understand the spiritual philosophy and possibly the connection to why some people "Jump the rails" within the spiritual aspect. Spirituality requires that you work through yourself your problems and to live in the now which requires a lot of hard work for most people as they would not know what to do or how to do it. So most would have given up but say they are "spiritual". How were the questions asked? Have these people been on spiritual courses? Do they still go on spiritual courses or have contact with the teachers? If they have, what were the courses on? How qualified were the teachers? Do they know how to "work with yourself to find the answers". Is the teacher available for follow up discussions?

The concept of religion though is more one were you have set rules and you follow them at all times and talk to a guru of the religion once a week for all of your questions and if you make a mistake in life, you are quickly forgiven so that you can move on. They have no freedom to explore their own spirituality due to the constraints of that religion. Their questions have been answered by another.

And that's the thing. I am not saying either is good or bad, but more than one is highly structured and filled with rules creating a sheep mentality, whilst the other requires you to think for yourself and this is harder.

Before you answer me saying that "religion is great and no we don't have a sheep mentality", understand the concepts of your religion and what you do when you go to church. Are you allowed to challenge what the priest or minister is saying even in a scientific aspect? If you did, you would soon find as I have, that you would be ostrocized.

It will be interesting to see where we are with spirituality in 100 years time. Will we have returned in droves to religion for the security and reminder of a rules based society (as Timbo describes) in the face of a major change, or will we have challenged the rules and abandoned 'mainstream' religion for another type of spirituality or none at all until the next challenge awaits us.

I agree with gecko's observation that it is not difficult to believe that those who have been born into a faith, particularly one that is considered mainstream, are more at peace with their lives than someone who might be 'dabbling' or looking for answers down a less 'mainstream' path ie.seeking answers. Although, religious mania can be a sign of mental health problems in itself and I am not confining this to 'mainstream' religion but to any overly paranoid response to a set of beliefs.

Perhaps the answer is that there is none. There is nothing wrong with that but the human species now no longer consumed entirely with their next meal and hunting the next mammoth or gathering a few berries needs to find 'meaning' to their lives. Some don't believe that this meaning can come from life itself and the wonders of the world around us.

Maybe we are destined to be forever debating the various intricacies of spirituality for a long time to come.

No, boaz, your response was utter rubbish. Nothing against you personally either, but you're just plain wrong.

Look. At. The. World.

Your answer, was that missionaries changed the religion of certain other people and improved their lives. I have no doubt this is true and yes, they simply changed from one religion to another.

Ho Hum pointed out that the US has a higher rate of religiosity, but also higher rates of violence, when compared to more secular nations.

That may be a coincidence I suppose. I suppose it may also be a coincidence that Europe, which is becoming steadily more secular, is far less violent, by and large, and the violence hotspots tend to be in more religious nations.

It's a simple fact of life that the less education on average a country has, the more religion and the more violence. Look at the Christian nations of South America. Look at the nations of Africa, steeped in religiosity, be it tribal, Chrisian or Muslim.

It's a simple fact, boaz. No matter what way you try and twist it. There may be other reasons. I'm not saying religious people are less educated, than non religious, though in large demographics it tends toward that direction. You generally can't make hard and fast statements either way.

But when you try and deny the facts because it doesn't suit your religion, that makes me very annoyed. By all means, try to find other explanations to fit the facts, but don't dismiss the reality as 'rubbish.'

That mentality reeks of the dark ages, and is what I fear in Christianity. Not violence in this day in age, but rejection of facts because it doesn't suit, as exemplified by the creationists who seek to deny science in favour of their bible.