Religion can be a source of comfort that improves well-being. But some kinds of religiosity could be a sign of deeper mental …
religion
Blessed Are the Sleek? Why God Wants You to Be Thin
Megapastor and bestselling author Rick Warren believes he has an answer to America’s obesity epidemic — and it lies in the Book of Daniel. (The full story appears in this week’s issue of TIME, available to subscribers here.)
Losing Your Religion? Analytic Thinking Weakens Religious Belief
Most of the world’s population believes in God, or gods, but alongside them there are also hundreds of millions of nonbelievers. What makes one a believer or not?
More Americans Are Praying About Their Health
More Americans are praying about health issues — both for themselves and for the health of others — according to a new study [PDF] published in the journal Psychology of Religion and Spirituality.
Why Going to Church Can Make You Fat
Maybe it’s all the church socials, but a new study finds that those who attend religious activities are more likely to gain weight than those who don’t go to church as often.
Q&A: How Our Brains Predispose Us to Believe in God
Psychologist Jesse Bering is best known for his often risqué (and sometimes NSFW) Bering in Mind blog for Scientific American, which examines human behavior — frequently of the sexual sort. But he’s also the director of the …
Explaining the Healing Power of Prayer
Why does prayer help people through hard times? To find out, a graduate student in sociology at University of Wisconsin-Madison interviewed 62 women who were the victims of partner violence.
Religion’s Secret to Happiness: It’s Friends, Not Faith
Religion can be good for your health, and especially your mental health, according to the latest studies, which show that church-goers are happier and more satisfied with their lives than those who don’t attend services. But …
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How to Lose Facebook Friends the Fastest
Now that Facebook has been joined by about one in every 13 people on the planet, it’s attracting the attention of the academy. A study out of the University of Colorado, Denver has studied the top reasons for unfriending. Not, …
Lindsay Lohan’s Relapse and Court-Mandated AA
Imagine that you had cancer and a judge mandated that you receive a treatment first introduced in the 1930s — one that had been described, by the world’s leading medical evidence–review group, as having “no experimental …
Jail time for parents who chose prayer over medicine
While their 11-year-old daughter Madeline lay dying, Dale and Leilani Neumann huddled around her in prayer. Though her health had been visibly deteriorating for some time, it wasn’t until after the child took her last breath that her parents called for medical help. The Wisconsin couple, who were sentenced to serve one month in jail
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Which College Majors Are Most Religious?
On average, Americans who study education or business become more religious while at college, while students in humanities and social sciences become less religious.