What if religion could help you live longer? This is what researchers at the University of Ohio have been studying, and their research was recently published in an American scientific journal. The result is conclusive: religious people lived on average four years longer than athiests and other agnostics!
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To get to this conclusion, the researchers analysed more than 1,500 obituary cards from 42 American states. When comparing those that indicated a religious belief and those that didn’t, it was clear to them that religious people lived longer on average.
'The study provides compelling evidence that there is a relationship between religious participation and a person's life expectancy,' says Baldwin Way, the co-author of the study. But this remarkable difference clearly doesn’t have anything to do with the Holy Spirit.
The authors of the study explain the difference through several factors, such as the consumption of tobacco, alcohol and drugs (things of which there’s a widespread fear amongst religious communities). There’s also social commitments such as volunteering and community work that they do, which can help combat loneliness and its harmful effects on your health.
