I can keep the faith in bake sales for a longer life

I’m an atheist; always have been, always will be. But there are often moments when I envy believers. It must confer so much structure, meaning and hope on things that to me and my fellow atheists just

seem chaotic, random and grim.

What I really envy isn’t the God-fearing aspect of religion, it’s the jaunty communality of it – the ritual, the get-togethers, the bake sales, garden parties, dinners, and interesting discussions with likeminded folk. While a literal reading of the Bible is never going to be possible for me, I often think wistfully of how nice it must be to belong to a tight-knit community keen on making, selling and eating lots of cakes (cakes being pretty central to my understanding of church life in Britain today).

Well, now it appears that those who go to church really do have better – and longer – lives. A researcher at

Ohio State University in the US studied 505 obituaries in an Iowa newspaper and found that those who said they were Christians seemed to live an average of six years longer than non-believers.

Of course, people immediately responded that this was purely a function of elderly church-goers being less lonely. It is probably fair to say that the social side of religion in the modern era – feeling part of a community – explains those added years. Still, I suspect that belief comes into it a bit. The feeling that someone out there is looking after you must be balm to the soul. Sadly, I won’t be able to make that particular leap. But bake sales for longer life? Amen to that.