Submission + - Belief in God Can Improve Mental Health Outcomes (psychcentral.com) 2
Hatta writes: According to researchers from Harvard Medical School, belief in god is correlated with improved outcomes of treatment for depression:
In the study, published in the current issue of Journal of Affective Disorders, researchers comment that people with a moderate to high level of belief in a higher power do significantly better in short-term psychiatric treatment than those without.
"Belief was associated with not only improved psychological well-being, but decreases in depression and intention to self-harm," says David H. Rosmarin, Ph.D., an instructor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
This raises interesting questions. Does this support the concept of depressive realism? If the association is found to be causal, would it be ethical for a psychiatrist to prescribe religion?
Re: (Score:2)
Some people need a higher power, some others heal faster. None of these observations help with the question whether such higher power exists (in its plane, so the correct term would be meta-exists).
I think I don't need a God, because I am smart enough to decide about every ethical aspect of my life, and I do not fear at all to be mortal. Yet I tend towards belief*. Problem, believers? Problem, atheists?
(*) Just FYI, because as I create abstractions, so I could be an abstraction myself.