What Purpose Does Religion Serve? Why Does Religion Continue

One major effect of well-developed spirituality include having a positive and meaningful view of life and developing a sense of coherence that allows survivors of abuse and neglect to comprehend and make meaningful sense of trauma, and manage personal resources to deal with stressors in life (Glenn, 2014). As a Christian it is easy to make the correlation between a strong, confident spiritual relationship with the ability to overcome struggles and trauma of our past. It is encouraging to see empirical research to support our beliefs.

Rosmarin, Mary C. Malloy and Brent P. Forester was written for educational purposes. The format of the article is scientific. The title states what the subject was studied and why this subject was studied. The authors use literal language by lacking imagination. For example, “These findings appear to contrast with previous research, which has suggested that general religious belief and practice can buffer against depressive symptoms among older adults in both community and clinical settings.” The use of medical jargon makes this paper hard to read for people who are not in the medical field. For example, “Our MANOVA test also identified a significant association between symptom factors and spiritual struggle but not positive religious

Reading this article further persuaded me on the positive correlation between mental and physical wellness with spirituality. Integrating spirituality and scriptures with mental health approaches promote and increases overall wellness. Cognitive-behavioral therapies have proven to be effective in sustaining restructure in the client’s perception, which in turn decreases depressive symptoms.

Religious exercises give a premise to social backing outside of the home, consequently battling the dejection, despondency and separation which can prompt psychological wellness issues (Sherkat and Ellison 1999). An investigation of 14,521 understudies utilizing the National College Alcohol Study information set found that the individuals who reported being in any event to some degree religious experienced less manifestations of misery than the individuals who pronounced themselves not religious, but rather it didn't control for any outside components (Phillips and Henderson, 2006). Understudies who discovered significance in religion adapted preferable to stressors over the individuals who did not (Pollard and Bates, 2004). Then again, understudies who were more included in most profound sense of being accounted for larger amounts of individual

Religion and spirituality reach into the depths of the human psyche and strongly influence a nation’s way of life.

After leaving Italy, Elizabeth Gilbert traveled to India, researching the effects of prayer and religion. Through practicing yoga and meditating in an ashram, to common activities that are a big part of the Indian culture, she reached spiritual enlightenment and created a better relationship with God. According to Stephanie Papps’ “8 Ways Religion Impacts Your Life,” religious people tend to be happier than non-believers. In 2010, the Journal of Clinical

Religion can be defined as a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance. It contains a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices that allow its followers to live their life a certain way. The world consists of 19 major religions, which are further subdivided into 270 larger groups. According to David Barrett et al, editor of the “World Christian Encyclopedia,” there are 34,000 separate Christian groups around the world. Just from those numbers alone, we can conclude that religion has a prevalent effect on people and society. Religion is viewed as a positive influence on an individual both psychologically and physically. Throughout history we can study the various effects that religion has on society. Studies generally provide great evidence in favor of religion having a positive effect on individuals and society as a whole.

Although previous studies have generated many valuable results, more research needs to be done to understand the way religion influences sophisticated human subjective well-being. Krause (2003) examined the relationship between religious meaning and subjective well-being. The findings suggest that older adults who derive a sense of meaning in life from religion tend to have higher levels of life satisfaction, self-esteem, and optimism. Although the work of Krause (2003) provides valuable insight into the potentially important role of religious meaning, the interface between religious meaning and well-being, more specifically, is needed. In essence, nothing in life has a high value, unless it is practiced. The finding of this study has been

Even though religiosity and spirituality are recognized as highly complex and multifaceted concept, majority of studies on religion and family from the past several decades measure religiosity with only one or two items (Mahoney, 2010). Religion is measured as mere frequency of attendances or self-reports importance of religion in life. It is imperative to include deeper measurement of religion such as religious and spiritual fulfillment, connectedness to higher being, difficulties or conflicts with higher entity or faith community, and deeper integration of religious and spiritual beliefs in one’s everyday life.

The article I chose is about how marriage and religion can affect someone’s life. The article says that people with religious involvement often experience more positive outcomes when trying to recover from a health problem. Religious and married people tend to have a higher average longevity as well. These two factors also positively influence mental health. People associated with a religion tend to have higher self esteem, less anxiety and less chance of drug and alcohol abuse than someone who is not actively participating in a religion. Economic well being also sees a positive correlation.

Some people may argue that religion will continue to be a part of everyday life, and the idea of religion is going to stay around indefinitely. Patrick Fagan, author of the article “Why Religion Matters” goes on to say “Religious practice appears to have enormous potential for addressing today's social problems.” Actively participating in religion has high potential to benefit mental health, lead to higher self esteem, and greater family and marital happiness. Consequently, religion also has been shown to help repair broken relationships. Therefore, people often seek religion when in times of need.

The outcomes revealed that prayer played and important role within the mental health of the individual. However, the frequency showed no improvements in the results, scientists assumed the effect was due to it being “entirely [dependent on] the individual’s rating of importance of faith.” (Meisenhelder 9) This could prove our point by implying that the significance of prayer relies, not in the frequency of the prayers, but on the level of significance each prayer has for that individual. If the person considers his religious faith to be highly important in his life then his belief will also show an increase over their level of happiness. The book of Mormon, another testament of Jesus Christ, it’s proof of such belief.

Rituals reduce anxiety by providing confidence and a feeling of control. Malinowski argues that religion promotes social solidarity by dealing with situations of emotional stress that threaten

Religion, as defined by Dr. Mike Sosteric, “is a social institution set up to fill our need to know by answering the big questions of our existence.” This explanation proves to be penetrative, insightful, and valuable in providing a sense of understanding not only what religion is, but also why it is so significant to our society. It is useful in provoking thought and providing a basic level of discernment regarding religion from both a sociologic perspective and that of merely, an average human being. This definition assists in comprehending that religion provides a sense of community, a sense of purpose, and a sense of direction for people in life.

I also believe that to some people religion does play a large part of their lives and how they might live it according to how their religion tells them to. Subjectively, if someone lives by the book or the belief of their religion it will make them happier to know that they accomplished what their “god” has set for them to do with their life, and ultimately letting them into the “afterlife” (or heaven) of their religion. Besides the factors that a person can control in their life to make it good, there are also many things in play that one cannot control such as health. Being healthy can be considered one of the most valuable aspects of a person’s life. It can also be one of those aspects that can control the probability if someone getting a job, earning an adequate income, and a person’s range of active activities. According to an OECD study, people with good health have always shown to be happier in most aspects but have a huge increase in happiness when it comes to marriages and relationships. During the duration of my life I have met many people that go through or have someone close to them that have had some type serious sickness, and what I have always noticed is that during those times they look like the most miserable people on the planet. Whenever I try to put myself in their position it’s really hard for me to imagine myself being in