THE BENEFICIAL EFFECTS OF RELIGION.
Richard Dawkins has insisted that religion has pernicious effects. The majority of historians, sociologists, and scientists disagree with Dawkins on this point, and suggest that religion has been hugely beneficial to Humankind. Below you can see quotes from accredited academics that substantiate this:-
This quote is from New Scientist (magazine), issue for September 21st, 2019 – Article (pages 38 to 41) Features Interview (with Richard Dawkins) “I want to break the cycle, not indoctrinate” (Interviewer is Graham Lawton):- (Dawkins tells the interviewer):- “We should be mistrustful of ideologies where they have pernicious effects, which I think virtually all religions do.” (My comment:- Now we have heard from Dawkins – who is a biologist, and not a historian or sociologist), let’s see what properly qualified accredited academic historians and sociologists have to say on this topic:-
Here is a quote from The Spectator (magazine), issue for 22nd July, 2017, page 12. Article:- Deus Ex Machina, by Melanie McDonagh:-
“Mental wellbeing - - - happens to be a documented side-product of - - - religion. - - - In the field of mental health - - - - there is a beneficial effect of church attendance. - - - - The research suggesting a link between better mental health and active religious engagement - - - is a sizeable one. - - - - Religious attendance is - - - significantly associated with lower levels of depressive symptoms.”
The next quote is from New Scientist (magazine), issue for August 6th, 2016, pages 32 to 33. Article:- When Human Rights Become Wrongs, by John H. Evans (Professor of Sociology at The University of California, San Diego)
The author compares the theological view that humans are made in the image of God with the biological view that humans are simply defined by their DNA.
(In interviews) “The more a respondent agreed with the biological definition of a human - - - they were less willing to stop genocide - - - - - MORE LIKELY TO HOLD VIEWS INCONSISTENT WITH HUMAN RIGHTS. - - - - Richard Dawkins - - - is an advocate of the view that humans are (just) DNA based machines.” (My capitals.)
The next quote is from the book – Bounce. The Myth of Talent and The Power of Practice, by Matthew Syed, published by Fourth Estate, 2011, page 148:-
“In the 1960s a groundbreaking series of epidemiological studies found that heart disease is far less common among the actively religious than in the general population. - - - - The actively religious have significantly better health outcomes. The scientific community was forced to accept - - - - - that religious belief, in and of itself, confers real and tangible health benefits. - - - - Jeremy Kark of Hebrew University, Israel, undertook a - - - - study of mortality rates in secular and religious kibbutzim. - - - - They found that mortality rates in the secular kibbutzim were nearly twice that of their religious counterparts.”
The next quote is from The (London) i (Newspaper), Wednesday, 23rd August, 2017, page 13. Article:- Words Used on Social Media Hint at Beliefs, by Padraic Flanagan:-
“Psychologists - - - - studied 12,800 Facebook users - - - - and discovered that positive words such as “happy” and “family” were more likely to be posted by people who are religious - - - - - but words denoting negative emotion - - - such as “angry”, were more common for those who are NOT religious than those who are believers – say researchers. Their findings published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science - - -”
The next quote is from the book The Heretics. Adventures With The Enemies of Science, by Will Storr, published by Picador, 2013, page 243:-
“Many studies show that religious people are happier than non-religious people. Analysis of one hundred such papers at Duke University Medical Centre in North Carolina found that 79 (of these 100 papers) concluded that religious believers have more positive emotions and show a greater satisfaction with their lives than others.”
The next quote is from the book The Liberal Delusion, by John Marsh, published by Arena Books, 2012, page 81:- “Jonathan Haidt, Professor of Psychology at The University of Virginia argues that religion - - - is a key component of successful communities, by fostering trust and co-operation. He cited research showing that religious people are more generous with their time and money in helping communities than secular folk and research into 19th century American communes found that after 20 years 39 % of religious communes had survived, but only 6% of secular ones.”
The next quote is from The (UK) I (newspaper), August 26th, 2021, pages 36 to 37. Article:- Can You Believe It?, by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. The article discusses the work of Doctor Lisa Miller:- “Over several decades, she has been - - - exploring the neuroscience of spirituality - - - - Her new book, The Awakened Brain, based on her - - - clinical experience and research, demonstrates the measurable positive effects of spirituality on people caught up in cycles of mental and emotional crises. It helps them heal, grow resilience, overcome addictions.”
The next quote is from New Scientist (magazine), issue for April 15th, 2017, pages 32 to 35. Article:- Unholy Faith? – by Graham Lawton:-
“Religious ideas - - - provide stability and reassurance in the face of uncertainty - - - PROVIDE A MORAL FRAMEWORK - - - helping alleviate stress and anxiety.” (My capitals.)
The following quotes are from the book Not in God’s Name – Confronting Religious Violence, by Jonathan Sacks (Professor of Law and Ethics at King's College London.), published by Hodder, 2016:-
Pages 35 to 38:- The author explores the proposition that religion acts as a “glue” for society, holding society together.
Page 35:- “Religion - - - clearly has adaptive value because it appeared at the dawn of civilisation, and has been a central feature of almost every society since. The early religions created moral communities, thus solving the problem of trust between strangers. They sanctified the social order. They taught people that society is as it is because this is the will of the gods.”
Pages 36 to 37:- Sacks quotes studies by Richard Sosis (et al.) of communes, comparing religious communes with non-religious communes. “6% of secular communes were still in existence 20 years after their founding, as compared with 39% of religious ones.”
The next quote is from the book Sapiens – A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari (Ph.D. in History from Oxford University), published by Vintage, 2011, pages 234 to 235:-
“RELIGION HAS BEEN THE THIRD GREAT UNIFIER OF HUMANKIND. - - - Social orders - - - are all fragile - - - The crucial role of religion has been to give superhuman legitimacy to these fragile structures. Religions assert that our laws are not the result of human caprice, but are ordained by an absolute and supreme authority. This helps place at least some fundamental law beyond challenge, THEREBY ENSURING SOCIAL STABILITY. - - - - - Universal and missionary religions began to appear only in the first millennium BC. Their emergence was one of the most important revolutions in history, AND MADE A VITAL CONTRIBUTION TO THE UNIFICATION OF HUMANKIND.” (My capitals.)
The next quotes are from the book Social Evolution, by Benjamin Kidd, published by Methuen and co. Ltd., reprint 1921:-
Page 91:- The author quotes Immanuel Kant:- “Religion consists in our recognizing all our duties as Divine commands.”
Page 105:- “A religion is a form of belief providing an ultra-rational sanction for that large class of conduct in the individual where his interests and the interests of the social organism are antagonistic, and by which the former are rendered subordinate to the latter.”
Page 119:- “An ultra-rational sanction for the sacrifice of the interests of the individual to those of the social organism has been a feature of all religions.”
The next quote is from the book Sociobiology (The abridged edition), by Edward O. Wilson (Wilson is[update] the Pellegrino University Research Professor, Emeritus in Entomology for the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, and a lecturer at Duke University,), published by The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1980, page 286:-
“If any family worked out rules of behavior on its own, the result would be - - - - chaos - - - Any set of conventions works better than none at all. - - - - Sanctification (ie:- religion) transforms the arbitrary into the necessary to the extent that the rules have been sanctified - - - - the majority of people regard them as beyond question, and disagreement is defined as blasphemy - - - - WHEN CONFORMITY BECOMES TOO WEAK, GROUPS BECOME EXTINCT.” (My capitals.)
The next quote comes from the book An Urchin in The Storm, by Stephen Jay Gould (Harvard promoted Gould to professor of geology and curator of invertebrate paleontology at the institution's Museum of Comparative Zoology. In 1982 Harvard awarded him the title of Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology.), published by Penguin Books, 1990, page 35:-
“BELIEF IN A HIGHER POWER is, no doubt, markedly functional, even ADAPTIVE IN EVOLUTIONARY TERMS.” (My capitals.)
The next quote come from the book The Long Emergency, by James Howard Kunstler (regular contributor to The New York Times), published by Atlantic Books, 2005, page 87:- “As the postwar economy uprooted so many southerners - - - and plunked them in alienating, lonely, disconnected suburban nowheres - - - religion became ever more important as the only remaining place of social enactment. Church membership across this sterile suburban social landscape increasingly compensated for the absence of real communities based on networks of local economic relations.”
The next quote is from the book Religion in The Modern World From Cathedrals to Cults, by Steve Bruce (Professor of Sociology at The University of Aberdeen), published by Cambridge University Press (reprint) 2010, page 40:-
“Many of the first hospitals - - - were religious foundations.”
The next quotes are from the book The Shortest History of War, by Gwynne Dyer (whose twice-weekly column on international affairs appears in 175 newspapers in 45 countries), published by Old Street Publishing, 2022:-
Page 113:- “In the West, the reformation had made paramount the individual’s relationship with God, and the reading and understanding of God’s word, SUPERCHARGING THE DRIVE TOWARDS LITERACY.” (My capitals.)
My comment:- In summary, it appears that religion increases the stability of society, and is beneficial to both physical and mental health. I could provide many further quotes to this effect. If the majority of people took notice of Richard Dawkins, a terrible dystopia would ensue.