If the existence of God was even minutely possible, he claimed, then the potential gain was so huge - an "eternity of life and happiness" - that taking the leap of faith was the mathematically rational choice.

Pascal's wager implicitly assumes that religion has no benefits in the real world but some sacrifices.

But what if there were evidence that faith could also contribute to better well-being?

Scientific studies suggest this is the case. Joining a church, synagogue or temple even appears to extend your lifespan.

These findings might appear to be proof of divine intervention, but few of the scientists examining these effects are making claims for miracles.

Instead, they are interested in understanding the ways that it improves people's capacity to deal with life's stresses.

"Religious and spiritual traditions give you access to different methods of coping that have distinctive benefits," says Doug Oman, a professor in public health at the University of California Berkeley.

"From the psychological perspective, religions offer a package of different ingredients," agrees Prof Patty Van Cappellen at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

Studying the life-extending benefits of religious practice can therefore offer useful strategies for anyone - of any faith or none - to live a healthier and happier life.

You may find yourself shaking your head in scepticism, but the evidence base linking faith to better health has been decades in the making and now encompasses thousands of studies.

Much of this research took the form of longitudinal research, which involves tracking the health of a population over years and even decades.

They each found that measures of someone's religious commitment, such as how often they attended church, were consistently associated with a range of outcomes, including a lower risk of depression, anxiety and suicide and reduced cardiovascular disease and death from cancer.

Unlike some other areas of scientific research suffering from the infamous "replication crisis", these studies have examined populations across the globe with remarkably consistent results.

And the effect sizes are large.

Dr Laura Wallace at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, for instance, recently examined obituaries of more than 1,000 people across the US and looked at whether the article recorded the person's religious affiliation - a sign that their faith had been a major element of their identity.

Publishing her results in 2018, she reported that those people marked out for their faith lived for 5.6 years more, on average, than those whose religion had not been recorded; in a second sample, looking specifically at a set of obituaries from Des Moines in Iowa, the difference was even greater - about 10 years in total.

"It's on par with the avoidance of major health risks - like smoking," says Wallace.

To give another comparison: reducing hypertension adds about five years to someone's life expectancy. Continue reading

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) today published data linking religion and health in a bid "to understand the circumstances of people of different religious identities".

It found that people aged 16 and over who had no religion were significantly less likely to be satisfied with their health.

The data has divided secular and religious experts. Some claim that people who have faith are more likely "to be hopeful for a better future", while others reject that religion has "any magic explanatory powers" at all.

The ONS found that 66% of Muslims, 68% of Christians, 69% of Sikhs, 71% of Buddhists, 72% of Hindus and 77% of Jews were satisfied with their health between 2016 and 2018.

However, in contrast 64% of people who had no religion reported being satisfied with their health.

Responding to the latest data, Michael Wakelin, head of programmes at Coexist House which works in conjunction with the University of Cambridge and chair of the Religion Media Centre, said: "Well, it's clearly complex!

"But I guess this has something to do with an attitude of gratitude. If you are of the opinion that God loves you and he created you you are more likely to be grateful for what you have."

"Also, if you have faith, you are likely to be more hopeful for a better future so that even if things are a bit tough, now they will improve in God's good time."

"For Christians, there is an understanding that love and suffering are the two great mysteries that cannot be separated - perhaps we endure the one in the knowledge that it is part of the other - leading eventually to a time of no more tears. As Charles Wesley puts it ‘ours the cross, the grave the skies'."

In contrast, Stephen Evans, chief executive officer at the National Secular Society (NSS), said: "Caution must be applied before granting religion any magic explanatory powers based on these findings."

"To do so would oversimplify a much more complex and nuanced picture. More research into the interplay between religion, non-religion, and health is necessary before any potential inequalities can be understood and addressed." Continue reading

Just a month ago, we had been celebrating my birthday at a hibachi restaurant, where Dad's only medical problem seemed to be his inability to hear conversation in such a noisy place. He sat at the end of the u-shaped table, with his good ear next to his granddaughter.

Now, he was confined to a hospital bed on the oncology floor of a local hospital at the lowest point in a regimen of chemotherapy. He was suffering from the debilitating side effects of chemo drugs destroying the cancerous cells in a tumor just below his colon.

Although his speech barely rose above a whisper, the poetry he was repeating in an age-old cadence was clear: "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death."

Thankfully, it was not the hour of his death—not then, and not today, eight months later. But during the worst hours of his life, he summoned the grace of Mary, chanting the prayer as a soothing meditation, humming the prayer as a soft lullaby, mouthing the therapeutic words when speech failed him.

It isn't often that I see faith manifested in such a simple, unornamented way. During the deepest and darkest days of suffering, Dad turned to God—not to beg or bargain but to find solace from suffering and comfort from Catholicism.

Witnessing his quiet faith in action brought me back the meaning of prayer in the very basics of life, death and faith.

Dad's faith cleared away the clutter of my own Catholicism. Continue reading

• Shirley Salemy Meyer is a former newspaper reporter who teaches in the College Writing Program at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, New Jersey.

The factors contributing to the crisis are complex.

They span generations and virtually every human institution: families, peer groups, schools, churches, work environments, law, and culture.

As scholars and marriage advocates from around the world consider new initiatives to strengthen marriages and families, it may be helpful to remind ourselves of the sources of this crisis—why it has emerged and how it has been sustained.

The Nature and Causes of the Marriage Crisis

The US marriage rate is currently the lowest ever recorded, cohabitation is rapidly becoming both a precursor and alternative to marriage among young adults, and more than half of births to women under thirty years of age now occur outside of marriage.

Among those over age thirty-five, divorce rates continue to rise, even as an increasing number of divorcees choose cohabitation over remarriage.

No longer are abuse and infidelity the main reasons given for divorce (although some research suggests infidelity occurs around the time of most divorces).

Rather, divorcing spouses routinely claim they have simply "grown apart."

Explaining how an institution like marriage—as old as civilization itself and revered by virtually all societies and religions—reached such a state of decay in the West is not a simple task, but certain sociological trends are undeniably significant.

For example, studies show that religious faith—an important component of happy, permanent marriages for women in particular—is in rapid decline.

A 2012 Pew survey found that "One-fifth of the U.S. public—and a third of adults under 30—are religiously unaffiliated today, the highest percentages ever in Pew Research Center polling."

This finding is of particular concern in light of recent data showing narcissism on the rise and empathy indecline among younger generations. Continue reading

Sources

• The Witherspoon Institute
• Image: The Marriage Counselling Blog

Between 2005 and 2011, the proportion of Irish people declaring themselves to be religious dropped from 69 to 47 per cent — a percentage drop in religiosity exceeded only by the Vietnamese.

Over the same period, the proportion of Irish people describing themselves as either "a convinced atheist" or "not a religious person" increased from 36 to 54 per cent.

These results are contained in a WIN-Gallup International poll on religious beliefs, conducted in 57 countries (not including New Zealand).

Ghana (with 96 per cent of the population saying they are religious) was the most religious country and China (14 per cent) the least religious.

A spokesman for the Catholic Communications Office said faith was not a "numbers game". He said the latest survey contrasted sharply with last year's census in the Irish Republic, which found that 84 per cent described themselves as Catholic, and just 5 per cent said they had no religion.

Although Irish Mass attendances remain among the highest in Europe, a survey published last February by the Association of Catholic Priests showed that just 35 per cent of all Catholics now attend Mass at least once a week while 47 per cent go to Mass less than once a month.

David Quinn, a staunch defender of the faith who heads the Iona Institute, said the WIN-Gallup International findings indicated a significant amount of hostility towards institutional religion. He said this and other polls had found that a quarter of those surveyed "would be happy if the Church vanished from Ireland completely."

The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, who has previously warned that the Irish Church is in crisis, responded: "The Catholic Church cannot simply presume that the faith will automatically be passed from one generation to the next or be lived to the full by its own members."

Sources:

WIN-Gallup International

The Independent

Image: Write on New Jersey