Religion can show us the way in a world in which bad things happen. It can teach us that much of what we see is so complex we cannot understand why and how it occurred.
Everywhere in our world there is mystery. Everywhere there are questions. Religion offers answers, religion offers consistency, religion offers hope.
Doris is in her seventies and has had two heart attacks and cancer. By any normal medical calculation, she would be dead. Instead, she visits with her grandchildren and takes time to
meet with medical students to discuss the importance of religious faith to her survival. Doris believes that without her religion she wouldn't have survived.
Skeptical? It's just one woman's opinion, after all.
Researchers at the Harvard Medical School, the National Institutes of Health, and countless other centers have backed up her claim. Active religious practices, their studies find, are associated with longer, healthier, and, yes, happier lives.
While doctors don't necessarily understand why this is, Father McGlone, a priest, thinks religion is important "not because we know all the answers, but because we have the best answer there is: faith."
Research on the effect of religion on life satisfaction found that regardless of what religion people affiliated themselves with, those who had strongly held spiritual beliefs were typically satisfied with life, while those who had no spiritual beliefs typically were unsatisfied.
Gerwood, LeBlanc, and Piazza 1998
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