Religion piece didn’t deserve page one
Re Want lasting happiness? Get religion, study suggests, Aug. 16 Why was this research deemed important enough to be on the front page? Buried in the middle of the piece one author of the study is quoted as saying, “It is not clear to us how much this is about religion per se, or whether it may be about the sense of belonging and not being socially isolated.” What a revelation!
We aren’t told the number of participants in the study, their ages or any other variables that need to be controlled. It seems unlikely that one would choose to join a church to avoid being depressed.
In the main, unless research can do better than throwing out an interesting hypothesis (particularly those in the field of health) it should be kept hidden away in the back pages, or better still shared only with those in the relevant health community. Ann Sullivan, Peterborough, Ont. According to your headline, a scientific study informs us that religion brings lasting happiness to all age groups. Well, not really. That certainly wasn’t the title of the study in question. It was “Social Participation and Depression in Old Age: A Fixed-Effects Analysis in 10 European Countries.” Obviously that doesn’t have the same attention-grabbing pull to merit a front-page story.
We need to understand that the study was limited to people who were 50 or older. It involves correlation, not cause and effect, and even suggests other possible correlations like social activity and not being socially isolated as a possible alternate boost to happiness.
Agnostics, atheists and skeptics are wary of a soft science study like this and the problems of leaping to a conclusion like the one suggested by the headline. Readers should know that there is no authoritative proof here telling them that religion will make a difference in their overall happiness.
As George Bernard Shaw tells us, “The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.”
The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality of happiness, and by no means a necessity of life. Russell Pangborn, Keswick, Ont.