I admit that at times I am a little hostile to religion. Not personally being a religious person, it is hard for me to understand the calculus of faith at times. In the interest of balance I present a positive link on the subject; Religious faith can lead to positive mental benefits, writes Stanford anthropologist.
Whether a creator or deity exists or not may be immaterial. They evidently become real for the practitioner and worshipper.
...the puzzle of religion is not the problem of false belief, but rather of what Luhrmann calls “real-making” – how gods and spirits become real for people and what that does for those who engage in the practice.
Rather than presume that people worship because they believe, or build cathedrals because the belief is already present, Luhrmann flips the equation. She argues instead that people believe because they worship. In other words, the process of “real-making” and engaging fully in rituals and practices that bring one closer to God is so satisfying to practitioners that their faith endures.
Research has repeatedly shown that people of faith report feeling better and healthier. One of the most striking findings in social epidemiology, Luhrmann notes, is that religious involvement with God is better for your body in terms of immune functions and reducing loneliness. One explanation for this, Luhrmann writes, is that for those with an intense faith, God becomes a social relationship. MRI results indicate that in terms of brain function, talking to God resembles conversing with a friend.
Whatever gets you through the day and night.
3 comments:
Reality can be unpleasant.
Give her a crack at Freud's "Future of an Illusion" and Freud's observations that much of religiosity is in direct relationship
to compulsion neurotics who cast the blind observation such as every time Hassim who every time they enter the room or house kiss a religious item and say God is wondrful except for the Auschwitz period of horror.
Also these people she analyses
upon their spiritual revelation burn non spiritual at the stake to nourish their ongoing faiths."The 30 Years War" was also a breakthrough and if she was on the "Wrong Side" might have not been around to even write her book
Say 5 Hail Mary's and 3 our fathers and go home and beat your wife even better get her pregnant with #9 while I go upstairs and check the choir
Isn't it amazing how some people faith have no issue with killing those of other faiths?
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