An analysis of obituaries in American newspapers revealed an interesting dependence - deeply religious people live on average 3-4 years longer than agnostics and atheists. This conclusion was reached by scientists who published an article in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.
“Interestingly, in cities where there are many religious people, these advantages“spilled over”to non-believers. This may be due to the fact that atheists and agnostics adopted part of life norms, habits and patterns of behavior from believing neighbors and acquaintances,”says Laura Wallace from Ohio State University (USA).
Over the past few decades, anthropologists have paid great attention to the role that faith played in the development of mankind. Most scientists today believe that man is biologically predisposed to religion, as such beliefs helped the communities of the first people to pull together.
In addition, biologists recently found a special area in the brain where exposure to magnetic fields undermines belief in irrational phenomena, and found that regular church attendance markedly reduced the likelihood of premature death among older women.
Wallace and her colleagues discovered another unusual relationship between denomination, health and longevity by examining several thousand obituaries published in local newspapers in recent years in 42 different US cities.
When analyzing these data, as the scientists note, they took into account the gender and marital status of each deceased. As a rule, women and family people live much longer than men, bachelors, widows and other people who do not have a family or just a "second half."
When sociologists took into account all these side factors, they found that religious people live on average 3.5-4 years longer than those deceased, whose obituaries did not indicate their confessional affiliation or mention its absence.
Part of this beneficial effect, Wallace notes, was due to the fact that religious people often participate in various community activities that their churches conduct and are more likely to lead healthier lives than non-believers, thanks to fasting and drug and alcohol bans. …
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All this, on the other hand, explains the beneficial effect by only about a third, and scientists do not yet understand what is the reason for the extension of the life of religious people for the remaining 2-3 years, which the statistics indicate. In the near future, Wallace and her colleagues will try to solve this mystery by analyzing other aspects of the behavior of believers and atheists, as well as collecting broader statistics.