I’m 100% atheist myself but I wouldn’t say that this meme is completely wrong. Sure, there’s no linear correlation as implied but I think religion can help people to see a greater cause in life, deal with difficult situations, connect with other people and have regular patterns in their life. There are numerous alternatives to religion for all that (family, friends, hobbies, sport, meditation, …) but still it’s one valid way I guess.
The biggest issue I see with religion is that faith is often misused to argue against facts and human rights which is unacceptable. But that critic doesn’t mean that it can’t be supportive for someone in need of support.
It’s not religion that helps people it’s being in a community.
I’m very religious but while I mainly agree with you, I’m always prudent when I see people (not you obviously) presenting religion as a cure for depression.
Religion is very powerful, but it can break people as much as it can help them. If someone is depressed or ill at ease, they can more easily be spiritually, psychologically or even physically abused.
That’s why, when someone with psychological troubles come in my community, I welcome them wholeheartedly, but encourage them to seek professional help first and foremost.
As you say there are many, many kinds of secular social group activities that can provide in person human contact and communities that reduce loneliness and depression.
But uh, those are rapidly becoming more and more accessible to only the wealthier and wealthier who actually can afford the spare time or other costs to engage in such things.
Add to that the mass proliferation of online interactions, which quite often take place in an unhinged way, or are basically parasocial fantasizing and idealizing ‘lives’ that are either fake or only possible due to immense wealth…
…and add in climate change fears, economic immobility…
I would say you can make a much better case that capitalism consuming itself, the adversarial, debt-based consumerist culture proliferated by this, and governments largely going along with cannibalizing their constituents, cut by cut by cut, rather than meaningfully pushing, is making the vast majority of people more lonely and depressed.
A lot of it seems to be “third spaces” (or maybe it’s “places”?) going away; it went from work, home, and [church, moose, lions, whatever] to mostly just work and home (or work and work and home) for many and this had a lot of negative impacts, I think.
I think spirituality is very important: believing in something greater than yourself for yourself. Centralized religious institution are the plague.
There’s something different with someone practicing their belief in their home as a spiritual journey and a large-scale institution participating in power plays with a societal & ideological project.
You should check out the spirituality book from Hermann Hesse, it’s really interesting (his work is amazing)
You can make the same graph with almost anything:
- Religion/books
- Religion/recipes on the internet
- Audio tape manufacturers/car models
- Working gramophones/depression
- Offline AAA games/hooded crows where I live
I think you might be onto something about the gramophones thing.
A friend of mine owns a gramophone and does not have a depression. I think that’s the proof. :)
So, if I start going to church, internet recipes will get shorter? Damn, I might have to consider that.
