New research: kids from religious families faring far better, mental health wise

quote:

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Jonathan Haidt
@JonHaidt
Kids in religious families have fared better in the smartphone era, with smaller rises in mental illness. @ZachMRausch and I believe it is primarily due to being anchored in real-world communities with rituals and obligations, low anomie.

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LINK


The data is jarring. Mental health issues are *78%* higher among non religious families.

This is what, in my view, atheists and agnostics did not foresee when they became a dominant force in the early 2000s. They focused the debate solely on the issue of reason, faith, philosophy, etc. they did not focus on real world effects of ditching religion such as decline in community, decline in youth groups, feeling belonged, etc.

It is my personal belief that there are 2 main culprits of the mental Health crisis among our youth

1) smart phones
2) the atheist movement ripping away youth activity/involvement/extracurriculars without replacing them with secular alternatives


I vividly remember the famous agnostics of the early 2000s ensuring us that the ongoing decline in religion among the youth would be the best thing to happen to the world

Can anyone honestly argue they were right?

Instead of ditching faith, the agnostic youth have simply found new forms of faith/meaning (trans activism, Identity based living, Black Lives Matter, etc). None of these movements are anymore reason-based than religious activity

There is a long literature on the protective effects of religion on wellbeing going back to when forma social science research began. It is only surprising because academia is so aggressively anti-religious that these protective effects are not as widely known as they should be.