This week’s question addresses Wave III of the Baylor Religion Survey, which you can find here. Below, the Texas Reason panel responds to the question of whether or not this survey shows that people with strong relationships with God have better mental health.
Dale Husband, Humanists of Fort Worth:
Did it ever occur to the poll takers that people with less education have less understanding of real issues with real people that are different from them, instead falling prey to their cultural biases that appeal to their egos? That is not a good thing! But to those in the ruling classes, the relatively uneducated are easy to manipulate to further their own interests.
Read more here.
DT Strain, Humanist Minister:
…when it comes to those who do believe in one God, it makes perfect sense that a person’s disposition toward that God would be affected by one’s mental health, and the reverse causality should also be obvious. In more broad terms, what’s likely going on is that, when one has ‘made peace’ with one’s situation as they believe it to be (God, Nature, the universe, etc) then they are mentally more healthy, and are more healthy by that disposition.
Read more here.
Marilyn Westfall, First Unitarian Universalist Church in Lubbock:
It’s also worth noting that putting one’s troubles into “God’s hands,” can be an avoidance strategy that in the long run isn’t good for an individual or those around him/her. Sure, for the short term, this can be a satisfying means to keep calm and let matters play out; but often it is the case that push comes to shove and decisions have to be made and action taken.
Read more here.
Noelle George, Houston Freethought Alliance:
It seems that I, as a non-expert in the field of conducting survey-based research, could easily come up with several more objective ways to collect information about a person’s mental health, not to mention the aforementioned difficulty of measuring a person’s relationship with their god or gods. What could be going on with those Baylor sociologists?
Read more here.
Dr. Robert Sloan Lee, Philosopher:
Without some argument for thinking otherwise, there is no reason that the mere fact that a belief (be it a positive theistic belief, an ambiguous theistic belief, or a non-theistic belief) is statistically inclined to promote mental health is (in itself) a reason for taking that belief to be true.
Read more here.
Zachary Moore, Coordinator of the Dallas/Fort Worth Coalition of Reason:
The authors conclude that people who believe their relationship with God is a positive one have a benefit to their personal psychology, while those whose conceptions of their relationship with God is more ambiguous do not. However, it’s not reported at what level of responses indicated an “ambiguous” relationship.
Read more here.
