Health and Religion

[IadixDev]

From neurology, the concept of health has lot to do with the mind or nervous system capacity to link perception of environment and inner state / physiology.

It's not very hard to see how understanding of self and "intelligence" play out in survival and maintaining the biological system healthy , and how negative emotion , stress, anger have negative effect on health.

In cognitive therapy they put lot of importance in the connection between belief, emotional state, and general health.

Early spiritualists knew this connection very well, it's found all into budhism, yoga, Shamanism etc.

One would say goal of religious practice is to refine those belief to get better health.

Actually there is a lot in aryuveda & yogic teaching confirmed by science and neurology.

I would even go as far as to say science is only scratching the surface of what is known by spiritualists or yogi since dawn of time.

Thank you for sharing those insights and observations. It' i good to see someone else believing what I do, no matter how un-mainstream it is. 

I will un do the wise he said

[Astargath]

The problem with religion is that it tries to brainwash you. It never explains anything, it just states things. God did it, God made it, never explaining anything. There is nothing healthy about religion. It's in fact poisonous to your mind. Almost no one picks his religion, you are just indoctrinated that way. 99.9% of people believe in what they believe because their family just told them that, they never stopped to actually look into it.

Well, actually there were several things explained. The things that were explained were the things that could be understood. These things are the things that happened to people who did or didn't obey God. The Bible is full of these explanations.

The tricky thing has to do with science. If you accept the proof of science things, science is not a religion. But if there is no proof, and yet science is believed to be true, science has become a religion to its believers.

We are finding out what happens when the science religion is adhered to rather than the God religion. There will be more, and it won't be fun. Why not? The God religion is way stronger. The only way we can understand the God religion strength, is to watch for the results.

Nothing is explained in the bible. It never explains what the universe is or how god made it, it doesn't explain what planets are or stars. It doesn't have any meaningful information about anything. It's just stories and god did it, god made it. Pointless.

Is there any thing that you could potentially NOT understand? For example, can you understand all the operations of heat and electron and molecule flow that make any particular leaf sway in the wind the way it individually does? If you understand a little of it, does that mean you could understand much of it? What about the far weaker understanding that many other people have?

The Bible wasn't written to explain all the workings of God, some of which would not be able to be translated into understandable language. The Bible was written as an overview for many things. If it had been written to be a detailed explanation, your name and a description of your life would be in there, along with all the rest of the people. And the Bible would be bigger than the whole earth.

As for planets and stars, the Bible DOES tell how God made them. He spoke them into existence.

The Bible has some of the most useful information within it. It shows the best simple living laws. In Exodus and Deuteronomy, the laws that make living this life in the best way are expressed.

What else is shown? Examples of what happens to people when they live or do not live according these basic laws is shown throughout the Old Testament.

The most important thing that the WHOLE Bible is about is the salvation from death, and the only way to get that salvation - believing in Jesus. There is no other book that shows this except that the info has been extracted from the Bible. Science is so far away from finding this out on its own, that science is essentially a little blind kind playing in the mud.

Nobody is capable of understanding the things of God, and certainly not in detail. After all, the kid in the mud has already developed computerization that he can't understand the calculations of. Yet, this computerization is so much less that the capabilities of God - universal cause and effect prove this out - that there is no way for people to understand God. So, why write about them in the Bible?

Read what I am writing here, and wake up... even if you don't like it.

Bible describes a world view of Bronze Age people.  Nothing more nothing less.  If you think otherwise, you are delusional.

There is a reason why Bible does not talk about DNA, stem cell research, evolution, distant galaxies, solar system, vaccines, nano technology or crypto currencies.

Bible shows the way that living works. It shows this by showing the examples of what happens to people who follow, and those who don't follow the laws of the Bible. Since people are still made of of flesh and blood, and soul, mind and spirit, the laws of the Bible still apply to people.

That's nothing. Any fictional book shows things like those but what useful things does it show? What have we ever accomplished with the bible. We dont have what we have today thanks to the bible or any other religious book which by the way, they are all the same. It's just science fiction written thousands of years ago. They even thought that god was in the sky because they didn't even know what the sky was LOL

[IadixDev]

That's nothing. Any fictional book shows things like those but what useful things does it show? What have we ever accomplished with the bible. We dont have what we have today thanks to the bible or any other religious book which by the way, they are all the same. It's just science fiction written thousands of years ago. They even thought that god was in the sky because they didn't even know what the sky was LOL

The bible was largely inspired from gnostic scholar ship, carried by people like plato, philo of alexandria, who coined the whole principle of rationalism, idealism, and is the core philosophy from which science stem.

Science suppose a constant eternal order in the universe, which is all what monotheism is about.

Sky = mental plane = realm of idea for plato.

Earth = physical plane = sensitive world for plato.

God head = perfection of mental faculty/intelligence.

[CoinCube]

Even The Athiest Stanford Professor Teaches That Religion Is A Mental Illness Acknowledges That Religion Is Good For Your Health
http://dailycaller.com/2017/07/11/atheist-stanford-professor-teaches-religion-is-mental-illness/

A Stanford University professor has been teaching for years that religion is a form of mental illness, according to a Tuesday report from The Independent highlighting the lessons.

Professor and neuroendocrinologist Robert Sapolsky teaches Stanford students that religion in all of its forms, regardless of benefits, is an irrationality and a kind of “organized schizophrenia,” and has made these claims since at least 2009.
...
Sapolsky admitted that religion had observable health benefits, despite his belief that it is an expression of mental illness.

“One of the healthiest things you could do with your life is to be religious,” Sapolsky said in a video. “And to be highly religious, it is a very strong protector against major depression. Religious belief extends your life expectancy, and that’s after you control for – it changes risk factors, you’re less likely to drink to excess, all of that.

[BADecker]

The problem with religion is that it tries to brainwash you. It never explains anything, it just states things. God did it, God made it, never explaining anything. There is nothing healthy about religion. It's in fact poisonous to your mind. Almost no one picks his religion, you are just indoctrinated that way. 99.9% of people believe in what they believe because their family just told them that, they never stopped to actually look into it.

Well, actually there were several things explained. The things that were explained were the things that could be understood. These things are the things that happened to people who did or didn't obey God. The Bible is full of these explanations.

The tricky thing has to do with science. If you accept the proof of science things, science is not a religion. But if there is no proof, and yet science is believed to be true, science has become a religion to its believers.

We are finding out what happens when the science religion is adhered to rather than the God religion. There will be more, and it won't be fun. Why not? The God religion is way stronger. The only way we can understand the God religion strength, is to watch for the results.

Nothing is explained in the bible. It never explains what the universe is or how god made it, it doesn't explain what planets are or stars. It doesn't have any meaningful information about anything. It's just stories and god did it, god made it. Pointless.

Is there any thing that you could potentially NOT understand? For example, can you understand all the operations of heat and electron and molecule flow that make any particular leaf sway in the wind the way it individually does? If you understand a little of it, does that mean you could understand much of it? What about the far weaker understanding that many other people have?

The Bible wasn't written to explain all the workings of God, some of which would not be able to be translated into understandable language. The Bible was written as an overview for many things. If it had been written to be a detailed explanation, your name and a description of your life would be in there, along with all the rest of the people. And the Bible would be bigger than the whole earth.

As for planets and stars, the Bible DOES tell how God made them. He spoke them into existence.

The Bible has some of the most useful information within it. It shows the best simple living laws. In Exodus and Deuteronomy, the laws that make living this life in the best way are expressed.

What else is shown? Examples of what happens to people when they live or do not live according these basic laws is shown throughout the Old Testament.

The most important thing that the WHOLE Bible is about is the salvation from death, and the only way to get that salvation - believing in Jesus. There is no other book that shows this except that the info has been extracted from the Bible. Science is so far away from finding this out on its own, that science is essentially a little blind kind playing in the mud.

Nobody is capable of understanding the things of God, and certainly not in detail. After all, the kid in the mud has already developed computerization that he can't understand the calculations of. Yet, this computerization is so much less that the capabilities of God - universal cause and effect prove this out - that there is no way for people to understand God. So, why write about them in the Bible?

Read what I am writing here, and wake up... even if you don't like it.

Bible describes a world view of Bronze Age people.  Nothing more nothing less.  If you think otherwise, you are delusional.

There is a reason why Bible does not talk about DNA, stem cell research, evolution, distant galaxies, solar system, vaccines, nano technology or crypto currencies.

Bible shows the way that living works. It shows this by showing the examples of what happens to people who follow, and those who don't follow the laws of the Bible. Since people are still made of of flesh and blood, and soul, mind and spirit, the laws of the Bible still apply to people.

That's nothing. Any fictional book shows things like those but what useful things does it show? What have we ever accomplished with the bible. We dont have what we have today thanks to the bible or any other religious book which by the way, they are all the same. It's just science fiction written thousands of years ago. They even thought that god was in the sky because they didn't even know what the sky was LOL

But the Bible isn't fiction. Study the history of how the Bible came about. Study it in detail, and you will see that it is a historical, written record of events that happened.

[qwik2learn]

The  Bible describes some events that did happen and some that did not. The 4 canonical gospels appeared 70+ years after the events they describe, so they are not a real-time historical record. Contrast the Bible with the Phoenix Journals,  PJs are a real-time historical record with implications for Christian thought.

Some of the Biblical claims being disputed by Hatonn and Sananda (Jesus) in PJs are:
Jesus never resisted his capture.
GOD would be able to threaten a child (Isaac) with death and terrorize him.

The Bible is confusing in many places, I think it is because the adversary has tampered with the Bible, and the most important scriptural writings were suppressed.

More details about this are in PJs, but unfortunately BADecker is not interested in falsifying his "perfect book". For the "Biblical Christian" BADecker, as long as he believes in the perfect book and the perfect sacrifice of Jesus, he can have eternal life and share in that perfection with no strings attached. He brings this same offer of free salvation to this thread, but it is obviously an example of magical thinking:

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Magical_thinking

[Astargath]

The problem with religion is that it tries to brainwash you. It never explains anything, it just states things. God did it, God made it, never explaining anything. There is nothing healthy about religion. It's in fact poisonous to your mind. Almost no one picks his religion, you are just indoctrinated that way. 99.9% of people believe in what they believe because their family just told them that, they never stopped to actually look into it.

Well, actually there were several things explained. The things that were explained were the things that could be understood. These things are the things that happened to people who did or didn't obey God. The Bible is full of these explanations.

The tricky thing has to do with science. If you accept the proof of science things, science is not a religion. But if there is no proof, and yet science is believed to be true, science has become a religion to its believers.

We are finding out what happens when the science religion is adhered to rather than the God religion. There will be more, and it won't be fun. Why not? The God religion is way stronger. The only way we can understand the God religion strength, is to watch for the results.

Nothing is explained in the bible. It never explains what the universe is or how god made it, it doesn't explain what planets are or stars. It doesn't have any meaningful information about anything. It's just stories and god did it, god made it. Pointless.

Is there any thing that you could potentially NOT understand? For example, can you understand all the operations of heat and electron and molecule flow that make any particular leaf sway in the wind the way it individually does? If you understand a little of it, does that mean you could understand much of it? What about the far weaker understanding that many other people have?

The Bible wasn't written to explain all the workings of God, some of which would not be able to be translated into understandable language. The Bible was written as an overview for many things. If it had been written to be a detailed explanation, your name and a description of your life would be in there, along with all the rest of the people. And the Bible would be bigger than the whole earth.

As for planets and stars, the Bible DOES tell how God made them. He spoke them into existence.

The Bible has some of the most useful information within it. It shows the best simple living laws. In Exodus and Deuteronomy, the laws that make living this life in the best way are expressed.

What else is shown? Examples of what happens to people when they live or do not live according these basic laws is shown throughout the Old Testament.

The most important thing that the WHOLE Bible is about is the salvation from death, and the only way to get that salvation - believing in Jesus. There is no other book that shows this except that the info has been extracted from the Bible. Science is so far away from finding this out on its own, that science is essentially a little blind kind playing in the mud.

Nobody is capable of understanding the things of God, and certainly not in detail. After all, the kid in the mud has already developed computerization that he can't understand the calculations of. Yet, this computerization is so much less that the capabilities of God - universal cause and effect prove this out - that there is no way for people to understand God. So, why write about them in the Bible?

Read what I am writing here, and wake up... even if you don't like it.

Bible describes a world view of Bronze Age people.  Nothing more nothing less.  If you think otherwise, you are delusional.

There is a reason why Bible does not talk about DNA, stem cell research, evolution, distant galaxies, solar system, vaccines, nano technology or crypto currencies.

Bible shows the way that living works. It shows this by showing the examples of what happens to people who follow, and those who don't follow the laws of the Bible. Since people are still made of of flesh and blood, and soul, mind and spirit, the laws of the Bible still apply to people.

That's nothing. Any fictional book shows things like those but what useful things does it show? What have we ever accomplished with the bible. We dont have what we have today thanks to the bible or any other religious book which by the way, they are all the same. It's just science fiction written thousands of years ago. They even thought that god was in the sky because they didn't even know what the sky was LOL

But the Bible isn't fiction. Study the history of how the Bible came about. Study it in detail, and you will see that it is a historical, written record of events that happened.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1917510.msg20244858#msg20244858

You don't study anything of what is said in the bible in your history class.

[CoinCube]

Report: Atheism in Russia Falls by 50 Percent in Three Years
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2017/07/27/report-atheism-in-russia-falls-by-50-percent-in-three-years/

The number of Russians who identify as atheists has fallen by 50 percent in just three years, according to a recent poll by the Levada research center.
The poll, which was conducted in late June, revealed that the number of Russian atheists, or those who consider themselves “absolutely irreligious,” fell sharply from 26 percent in 2014 to just 13 percent in 2017.

Religious believers now make up 86 percent of the population, the survey found, with 44 percent describing themselves as “quite religious,” 33 percent as “not too religious” and 9 percent as “very religious.”

Levada, a non-governmental Russian research center, conducted the survey on a representative all-Russian sample of urban and rural population among 1,600 people aged 18 and over in 137 settlements in 48 regions of the country.

Unsurprisingly, the poll found that Orthodoxy remains the dominant and most popular religion in Russia, and more than 92 percent of respondents view the Orthodox church with “respect and benevolence.” Regarding Catholics, 74 percent of Russians views the Catholic church with “respect and benevolence,” while 10 percent have “conflicted feelings” toward Catholics and another 5 percent look on them with “dislike” or “fear.”

Fifty-nine percent of respondents hold a favorable view of Islam, while 17 percent have “conflicted feelings” toward them and 13 percent look on Muslims with “dislike” or “fear.”

The poll furthermore seems to indicate that anti-Semitic sentiment is falling in Russia, as the number of those who say they either “dislike” or “fear” Jews has dropped significantly, from 15 percent in 2014 to 11 percent today.

[earthpocket]

health depends on it heredity and immunity. From the way of life also depends. But the fact that it depends on religion, personally I have serious doubts

Yet, God intervenes and helps those who trust in Him and call on Him.

God doesnt's give you more lifetime or the ability to be better than others, you're totally wrong.

[BADecker]

health depends on it heredity and immunity. From the way of life also depends. But the fact that it depends on religion, personally I have serious doubts

Yet, God intervenes and helps those who trust in Him and call on Him.

God doesnt's give you more lifetime or the ability to be better than others, you're totally wrong.

You don't know that God DOESN'T extend the lives of people at times. King Hezekiah in the Old Testament prayed that he would not die, and God extended his life for 15 years. There are many more who have not been recorded in the Bible.

God extends the lives of people who believe in Jesus salvation. God extends their lives forever, even though they die in this life for a short time. That's why Jesus often talks about those who have died that they have fallen asleep.

[qwik2learn]

But "Jesus Salvation" is not a teaching given by Jesus.
Even if you believe that Jesus is lord, that is not enough, according to Jesus:

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven."

Jesus does not say that the kingdom of God is external to you or that it is a destination that one reaches only after physical death, but that it is within you--present in this very life at this very moment.

https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/15353/did-jesus-actually-ever-say-if-you-dont-believe-in-me-you-will-go-to-hell

It is important to understand the events that created Christianity:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007Q1H4EG#

[BADecker]

John 6:25-59, Jesus speaking much of it:

25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”

26 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. 27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”

28 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”

29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

30 So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’[c]”

32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”

35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37 All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

41 At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”

43 “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. 44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’[d] Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. 46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47 Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

53 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59 He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

So you see, Jesus is Jesus salvation.

[karmamiu]

health depends on it heredity and immunity. From the way of life also depends. But the fact that it depends on religion, personally I have serious doubts

Yet, God intervenes and helps those who trust in Him and call on Him.

God doesnt's give you more lifetime or the ability to be better than others, you're totally wrong.

You don't know that God DOESN'T extend the lives of people at times. King Hezekiah in the Old Testament prayed that he would not die, and God extended his life for 15 years. There are many more who have not been recorded in the Bible.

God extends the lives of people who believe in Jesus salvation. God extends their lives forever, even though they die in this life for a short time. That's why Jesus often talks about those who have died that they have fallen asleep.

              Yes right, there is nothing wrong on having faith, even though people above often say that bible is just fictional, it depends on how strong your faith was. I don't like to argue about religious matters because in the end, it will just end up being nonsense or whatsoever, This is also why i think suicidal is a worst decision to make, because for me if God would extend my life, I would love to see through it til the end without committing any suicidal intents.

[CoinCube]

Adolescents in Crisis: Why We Need to Recover Religion
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/449877/teen-suicides-depression-anxiety-rising-religion-can-help

With no belief in higher meaning, too many young people turn to hook-up sex, drugs, and social media for fulfillment.

Our teenagers and often those still younger are taking their lives in increasing numbers, many seemingly without warning. Many more young people are suffering from depression, anxiety, or related mental-health problems. The reports often link to social media: bullying leading to suicide; serious self-harm in an attempt to deal with emotional pain; suicide pacts; a widely cited post giving reasons for suicide by a child who killed herself; drug abuse and other destructive behaviors; school shootings that often end in suicide.

Other evidence of youthful mental-health problems: Pre-adult suicides are up three to five times (depending on the source) since the 1950s and still increasing. One study reported that 10 percent of the young are taking anti-depressants. In “Teen Depression and Anxiety: Why the Kids Are Not Alright,” Susanna Schrobsdorff  of Time magazine noted that “adolescents today have a reputation for being fragile, less resilient, and more overwhelmed than their parents growing up.” We are also seeing an increase in mental-health issues in college-age students. The average well-being of entering college students has been in decline since the 1970s, when the measuring began. During college years, mental-health problems are on the rise, according to recent studies.

Yet American society today is far better off economically than it was 50 years ago, and we have a better understanding of mental-health problems. Moreover, we now have a great many more psychiatrists, psychotherapists, counselors, and mental-health practitioners than we did even a generation ago. So what’s wrong — what has happened?

Schrobsdorff proposed that the cause for the decline is the social climate that teenagers experience. She attributes this climate to social media, smart phones, and school pressures. These factors are recent, though, and did not emerge until well after the observed decline of adolescent mental health.

A far stronger case can be made for our society’s decline in religious faith as the cause of these mental pathologies in the young. The decline in religion that began in the ’60s has accelerated in the past 15 years and is especially great among young people. A recent Pew report noted that over a third of its young respondents described themselves as “believers in nothing in particular.” Schrobsdorff’s omission of religious decline is one indication of how great the decline in religion has been — and how much our secular culture is in denial on the issue. The media just doesn’t “get” religion.

‌
In America, the transcendent dimension of life has historically been expressed primarily through the Judeo-Christian tradition, whose decline in recent years has created an enormous vacuum in meaning. This vacuum has been “filled” by postmodern nihilism combined with the “deconstruction” — aggressively taught in the academy — of belief in objective truth, goodness, and beauty. Moral relativism now eclipses transcendent meaning. The fragility of many young people — often termed “snowflakes” — shows their emotional vulnerability. They interpret ideas that challenge them as unbearable acts of aggression, and they use harsh and even violent measures to silence disagreeable opponents. In short, the prevalence of political correctness is a clear sign that belief in higher meaning and rational discussion has ceased to function in much of our higher-education system. Furthermore, political correctness is itself a symptom of the unstable mental condition of those who insist on it.

Countless young people now live in a world without any real meaning; they feel there is nothing for them to believe in. Emotional numbness is one of the consequences. They no longer value themselves for their inherent worth and dignity as created by God; they no longer find self-worth in their efforts to lead lives based on truth and love. Instead, many of our young people look outside themselves for validation — to material goods and social feedback. But many find these superficial, transitory, and empty. In addition, the decline of religion has resulted in sexual relations becoming trivialized and deprived of any greater meaning. The “hook-up” culture leaves many wounded young people in its wake.

While the secular class and those victimized by their policies have been shedding their religious beliefs, evidence for the positive effects of religious life have been repeatedly reported by many studies over the past decades. Many of them show that strongly religious people are happier, healthier, and live longer than those with no religious belief and practice. Having faith in God and attributing a religious meaning to life anchors people, directs their efforts to things beyond the material world, protects them against setbacks, and provides supportive community.

What might be done to imrpovee mental health via religious practice? To begin, this is not a problem for government policy. The government just needs to get out of the way — and be less hostile to religion. Recent Supreme Court decisions dealing with religious issues suggest that this will happen.

Individuals can respond in many ways. Fathers and mothers can encourage their children in religious practice centered in family life and encourage them to join serious religious peer groups. Relatives — grandparents, aunts, and uncles — can give valuable advice. For young people drawn to atheism, many recent books address the topic brilliantly (see Alister McGrath’s Twilight of Atheism,for instance). Darwinism, materialism, and atheism have received powerful recent critiques (as in Thomas Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos, Stephen Meyer’sDarwin’s Doubt, and Robert Spitzer’s New Proofs for the Existence of God).

Religious and private schools can make a tremendous difference in their student communities by regularly emphasizing the importance of God and promoting faith.

Business leaders and others in the professions can speak out about their faith in public settings and implement new ideas about how to reach the young.

There have been times in America’s past when religion was in decline and seemed on the way out — especially according to its intellectual detractors. But at these moments, Biblical religion recovered with new movements and energies. We propose that we are now at the threshold of another such renewal. Let us pray so, since our secular culture offers no credible reasons to believe in higher meaning. It offers only empty materialist distractions on a slow march to societal suicide. The plight of our young sounds a wake-up call we can no longer ignore.

— Paul Vitz is a senior scholar at Divine Mercy University and a professor emeritus of psychology at New York University. Bruce Buff is a management consultant and the author of the scientific-spiritual thriller The Soul of the Matter.

[Sithara007]

Report: Atheism in Russia Falls by 50 Percent in Three Years
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2017/07/27/report-atheism-in-russia-falls-by-50-percent-in-three-years/

How ironic? The Eastern Europe, which used to be a bastion of atheism once has become a bastion of Orthodox Christianity now. On the other hand, the western nations (including the US and Australia) are becoming more and more atheist.

[Varyg]

Having a PhD in psychology I can honestly and scientifically tell you that the stories don't exhibit bi-polar flight of ideas or paranoid schizophrenia at all. The stories are from a time period when our understanding of the forces of nature and the world around us were limited. These stories are nothing more than humans trying to grasp the complexities of the planet with little information. Not evidence of psychological disorder.

If you can claim any type of psychological disorder now, it would be mass cult conditioning.

[Haynes]

Health and religion. Two important things that can not be separated. Because according to my religion (Moslem). Many activities of worship that can make our body become healthy. For example solat. In solat one of them there is a prostration movement, where the head is flat with the ground so the brain will contain a lot of oxygen that can facilitate the performance of the brain. And many other examples. So healthy in religion will always be healthy in life. 

[CoinCube]

Suicide Rate for Teen Girls Hits 40-Year High
http://time.com/4887282/teen-suicide-rate-cdc/

The suicide rate among teen girls reached a 40-year high in 2015, according to new analysis from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.

Researchers found a substantial increase in suicides among teen girls and boys in the U.S. from 1975 to 2015, with the rate among girls hitting a record high. From 2007 to 2015 alone, suicide rates doubled among teen girls and by more than 30 percent among teen boys.

While the suicide rate fell in 2007—3.7 to 2.4 per 100,000 girls and 18.1 to 10.8 per 100,000 boys—it spiked again in 2015 to 5.1 per 100,000 girls and 14.2 per 100,000 boys. To put it another way: In 2015, 5 girls per 100,000 committed suicide compared to 14 boys.

Overall, this analysis speaks to a rising national trend, CDC suicide expert Thomas Simon told CNN.
"We know that overall in the U.S., we're seeing increases in suicide rates across all age groups," he said, adding that the pattern is "pretty robust."

Church attendance linked with reduced suicide risk, especially for Catholics, study says
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-church-attendance-suicide-20160629-snap-story.html

Against a grim backdrop of rising suicide rates among American women, new research has revealed a blinding shaft of light: One group of women — practicing Catholics — appears to have bucked the national trend toward despair and self-harm.

Compared with women who never participated in religious services, women who attended any religious service once a week or more were five times less likely to commit suicide between 1996 and 2010, says a study published Wednesday by JAMA Psychiatry.

It’s not clear how widely the findings can be applied to a diverse population of American women. In a study population made up of nurses and dominated by women who identified themselves as either Catholic or Protestant, the suicide rate observed was about half that for U.S. women as a whole. Of 89,708 participants aged 30 to 55, 36 committed suicide at some point over 15 years...

The suicide-prevention effect of religion was clearly not a simple matter of group identity: Self-identified Catholics who never attended mass committed suicide nearly as often as did women of any religion who were not active worshipers.

Instead, the authors suggested that attendance at religious services is “a form of meaningful social participation” that buffers women against loneliness and isolation — both factors that are strongly implicated in depression and suicide. “Religion and spirituality may be an underappreciated resource that psychiatrists and clinicians could explore with their patients, as appropriate,” wrote a team of researchers led by Tyler J. VanderWeele of Harvard’s  T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

[SinLinJim]

Health and religion. Two important things that can not be separated. Because according to my religion (Moslem). Many activities of worship that can make our body become healthy. For example solat. In solat one of them there is a prostration movement, where the head is flat with the ground so the brain will contain a lot of oxygen that can facilitate the performance of the brain. And many other examples. So healthy in religion will always be healthy in life. 

Yes, almost in every religion there are teachings that tell believers about the importance of maintaining their body in health. I believe that this is very important and correct. A person should take care of his health and religion should help in this

[penguinlols]

False ideas that modify behaviour may also happen to impact health outcomes.

The placebo effect for example, is very real.