And "drinks one to two servings of alcohol a day" is a pretty good proxy for "has enough money to afford to drink wine regularly, but is in a stable enough community to not slide into alcoholism".
Some religions aren’t really over the moon with dogma and mostly just loosely hold a community together. Try a Friends meeting sometime and see what you think.
Going to a community event on a regular basis is a way to meet people and build relationships.
Faith is a way to incentivize going to a community event on a regular basis, and faith communities provide quite a lot of the supply of community events.
Former born-again evangelical Christian here, stopped believing about 10 years ago. I haven't yet found anything like the communities within the churches I was deeply involved in. But I do think it's possible to find outside religion, and I'm getting closer every year.
I've been lucky to live for the last 10 years in a place* where it's easy to form lasting friendships with like-minded, earnest people. For me, I know I'm in the right place when I have friends with whom I can share my insecurities, and they can share theirs, and there's no judgment.
From here I think it's just a matter of prioritizing community whenever it's time to move next, whether it's seeking out groups of friends from our little diaspora or making new friends. That makes sense to do whether I have a partner or not.
(*never expected that Beijing would be so great in this way. I don't know if the expat scene in other major cities is similar; maybe it's just because the community is small here and the city attracts people who prefer not to coast through life)
Did they control for marriage and divorce? Maybe religious people are just more likely to marry and remain married when older. Lonely elderly people are at increased risk of death, as loneliness increase risk of mental disease and death from disease and accidents, when nobody is around to call help
Maybe, but in that case they could just say "married couples live longer".
I really think they're referring to the communal feeling of religion. Forget about the religion itself, it's an incredibly effective way to get to know hundreds of people, which enriches your life.
We're social creatures and religion is social on steroids.
Makes a strong case for us atheists to form some sort of community and chat about STEM and acknowledge our science gods like Einstein. Now that I think about it, we will probably end up entering into some sort of debate. haha..
I'm religious and this seems like some serious causation/correlation confusion. Maybe attending services/having purpose is correlated, but establishing causation for such a thing afaik is impossible.
lol! I needed that laugh, thanks. I know you're being funny, but if you already hold similar belief systems and also practice healthy living / thinking on your own, you'll be fine.
I'm technically a Roman Catholic. My parents told me that if I performed the rituals, like communion, I'd get a new bike and it would make grandma happy. My father's belief system:
Dad: "It's freezing in this church".
Mum: "Shhhht! We're in session, have some respect".
Uh-oh.
"Research shows that attending faith-based services 4 times per month will add 4 to 14 years of life expectancy."
Looks like my atheism is is worse than smoking, who knew.