Speaker 1: I'm Anny, I'm Noah. This is Den and you're listening
Speaker 1: to no such thing the show where we settle ard
Speaker 1: arguments and yours by actually doing the research. This week,
Speaker 1: do the boys need to find God?
Speaker 2: No, there's no no such thing. No such thing. Touch Thank, Touch, Thank,
Speaker 2: touch Thank.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was pitched by my wife and it's about
Speaker 1: religion and happiness. The question is does being religious mean
Speaker 1: you're going to be happier. Over the past few years,
Speaker 1: there's been something of a resurgence in young people attending church.
Speaker 1: New data from the Barner Group, which is a Christian
Speaker 1: research organization, so you know, maybe biased, they it shows
Speaker 1: that Gen z and Millennials are more frequently going to church,
Speaker 1: outpacing older generations. So this is out of people who
Speaker 1: are already church goers. But in twenty twenty two, church
Speaker 1: going Zoomers and millennials went about one weekend per month.
Speaker 1: Now that's up to just under two weekends per month,
Speaker 1: so it's pretty big obviously, COVID whatever, I'm sure there's
Speaker 1: other factors, but there's also been tons of other reporting on,
Speaker 1: you know, arise in religion over the past few years.
Speaker 1: It's like the trad caath kind of oh yeah, trend
Speaker 1: these sorts of things that you can kind of see
Speaker 1: ambiance le. So we want to find out if religion
Speaker 1: makes people happier. To start, I guess why don't we
Speaker 1: all go around and explain our religious backgrounds.
Speaker 3: Many, Well, my parents are very religious. We are Catholic,
Speaker 3: Like we are a Catholic family growing up. There's it's
Speaker 3: called like Eastern right Catholicism, So it's basically the brand
Speaker 3: of Catholicism in like the Arab world are in East Africa,
Speaker 3: but it's still them in Catholic it's like just a
Speaker 3: subsect of that. I grew up Catholic Mass every Sunday,
Speaker 3: we went to like Sunday school. We like did it
Speaker 3: all like first communion. My confirmation saint was Saint Andrew
Speaker 3: because he was the saint of Lost the Items, and
Speaker 3: I was, I was, I was looking for my game
Speaker 3: boy at the time. You pick that, Yeah, you have
Speaker 3: to choose who your saint is, and they like they
Speaker 3: kind of hold your hand through it and like you
Speaker 3: look through them and like here's you're here's the saints
Speaker 3: and what they're the saint of. And I was like, okay,
Speaker 3: this makes sense.
Speaker 1: Did you ever find Find the Game.
Speaker 3: Yea, yeah, yeah, I think it was kind of loosely
Speaker 3: related to that.
Speaker 1: Hey he's just Devin. What about your background?
Speaker 4: My background, My dad went to like Catholic school and
Speaker 4: his family, he grew up brothers. But he had kind
Speaker 4: of the opposite reaction of like because it was like
Speaker 4: for down his throat as a kid.
Speaker 5: He was like, I'm not going to raise.
Speaker 4: Like we went to church who went to Mass every
Speaker 4: once in a while, usually around like I was baptized. Yeah,
Speaker 4: some major holidays, we didn't go all that often. So
Speaker 4: I would say there was like a vague Christianity in
Speaker 4: my life growing up, but like I didn't that wasn't confirm.
Speaker 1: More just like a vig cultural thing like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, Christmas is about Jesus in some way,
Speaker 4: you know, something like that.
Speaker 5: But yeah, we weren't overly religious.
Speaker 4: I like I never belonged to like a specific church
Speaker 4: over like you know, we'd go, oh, this church is
Speaker 4: cool and go for like two months and then And I.
Speaker 3: Feel like that's probably the average kind of relationship people
Speaker 3: have to religion, where it's like vaguely around the holidays
Speaker 3: kind of a reason, like some kind of like I
Speaker 3: don't know, amorphous glue to your family, but not something
Speaker 3: that you're like, yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it wasn't a weekly thing.
Speaker 1: Do you you know, have faith than Jesus Christ?
Speaker 5: Do I believe in Jesus Christ? Are you I believe
Speaker 5: in God?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 5: No? No?
Speaker 1: Not not you do? Wouldn't consider itself religious at all?
Speaker 5: No, I don't believe in God.
Speaker 1: What happens after Yeah?
Speaker 5: What do I think happens after you die? Nothing?
Speaker 1: That's a whole other episode we should be.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's just never like even going to church and stuff.
Speaker 4: It's just like I never felt like I see what
Speaker 4: it does for other people and I'm like, oh that's cool,
Speaker 4: but like, yeah, for me, I like I don't feel anything.
Speaker 4: I think I believe in God when I was younger.
Speaker 4: I think it's something I grew out of with time.
Speaker 1: So growing up, I mean, my family's Jewish. We always
Speaker 1: consider ourselves very much more culturally Jewish than religious. We
Speaker 1: would go to temple for like Passover and kind of
Speaker 1: the major holidays, and we celebrated Hanukah, but it was
Speaker 1: it was very much in the background and not you know,
Speaker 1: faith and belief hadn't really very little to do with it.
Speaker 1: It was much more about family and kind of just
Speaker 1: doing traditions. And I also just think at the time,
Speaker 1: like kind of politically and otherwise, like religion was a
Speaker 1: much seemed like a much bigger conversation as like I
Speaker 1: felt like there was so much music or other things
Speaker 1: about being not religious. It felt like a bigger cultural
Speaker 1: touchstone to like kind of point out the hypocrisy of
Speaker 1: the Christian right and all that, you know, like stuff
Speaker 1: like that seems so much more popular.
Speaker 6: We're making a documentary, but religion, Why doesn't he just
Speaker 6: obliterate the devil and therefore get rid of evil in
Speaker 6: the world? Will he will?
Speaker 1: And I think that helps explain why now younger people
Speaker 1: are exploring religion, because that's not like this big pervasive
Speaker 1: if you look at Pendulum, Yeah, it's like that used
Speaker 1: to be such a major thing of like pointing at
Speaker 1: you know, the hypocrisy of you know, Jerry Falwell or whoever,
Speaker 1: like these big religious figures. Yeah, like that whole thing,
Speaker 1: and like obviously that's still there and people criticize those
Speaker 1: things all the time, so it's not like that's gone.
Speaker 1: But it felt like he used to be like a
Speaker 1: major talking point and maybe not just our focus on
Speaker 1: just different things where it's like like yeah, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to argue with you about Jesus or whatever.
Speaker 3: Talking about this kind of cultural swing back to people
Speaker 3: exploring religion, it's now I think like there's a backlash
Speaker 3: towards what used to be. I think called like the
Speaker 3: Reddit atheist, which is pretty much that Bill Maher documentary
Speaker 3: where it's like okay, we get it, but yeah, you know, yeah, So.
Speaker 1: It never really even occurred to me to earnestly explore religion.
Speaker 1: I don't think now I'm I wouldn't consider myself religious,
Speaker 1: but I'm more interested in religion as like it's just
Speaker 1: when you look at the parallels between all the major
Speaker 1: religions and all these things are like I was just
Speaker 1: in Florence and you're looking at you know, painting over
Speaker 1: painting over painting over centuries, and it's all the same,
Speaker 1: you know, five scenes, and there's something at first you're
Speaker 1: you see you go those are really interesting, and then
Speaker 1: you see more and you go, okay, like it's baby
Speaker 1: Jesus again. Then eventually I kind of hit a wall
Speaker 1: and I was like, okay, wow, it's actually kind of amazing,
Speaker 1: Like this is what this is like all people were
Speaker 1: talking about, were like painting about for forever. It's like
Speaker 1: there's a power in that sort of thing. And that
Speaker 1: got me kind of then thinking more like, Okay, there's
Speaker 1: obviously a real attraction to this, and then you know,
Speaker 1: reading more about history or different things and different perspectives
Speaker 1: on theology, whatever, it's like I'm more interested in an
Speaker 1: academic way, I suppose. And then then kind of it's
Speaker 1: like wondering how many people who do go to church
Speaker 1: or temple or whatever every week believe in that stuff
Speaker 1: literally versus just like, Okay, these are good life lessons
Speaker 1: or whatever, which I think is probably more common or
Speaker 1: more common than maybe discussed where it's like, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a community aspect of Okay, these are people who live
Speaker 1: near me who I can talk to or whatever, and
Speaker 1: you know, we're learning this or that from whatever scripture.
Speaker 1: And in that sense, I get wanting to attend services
Speaker 1: and be involved in that way, even if you're not
Speaker 1: personally like looking for you know, redemption or whatever you
Speaker 1: pass this life. So I think I'm a little more
Speaker 1: sympathetic I suppose to religion that I than if you
Speaker 1: had asked me maybe ten years ago or earlier than that.
Speaker 1: Moving forward, Like my question with this and happiness is
Speaker 1: would you get as much out of going to church
Speaker 1: every week as you would by just joining a sports
Speaker 1: club or something else like any other recreational community thing,
Speaker 1: Like how much does the religious aspect play in versus
Speaker 1: just like having people around you who maybe aren't just
Speaker 1: your normal friend group but something else, and you're connected
Speaker 1: by something different.
Speaker 3: I'd be willing to bet that although both the religious
Speaker 3: activity and the sports activity provide at its core, like
Speaker 3: a sense of community that's like nice and familiar and comfortable,
Speaker 3: I'd be willing to bet that the religious one feels
Speaker 3: more important to people because it's like kind of the
Speaker 3: higher calling, as you've heard before, or like something that
Speaker 3: might affect what you think happens when you die, versus
Speaker 3: like the bowling league.
Speaker 1: It's really fun, but probably not going to get me
Speaker 1: into heaven maybe yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: Or like you know, religion at its core is kind
Speaker 3: of like selling you on something right, like that this
Speaker 3: thing will happen if you do X, Y, and Z
Speaker 3: the right way.
Speaker 1: Let's get our votes. Are religious people happier than non
Speaker 1: religious people?
Speaker 4: If I had the guess, yes, because it gives you
Speaker 4: something to look forward to, Yeah, especially now where things
Speaker 4: feel like they're so bad and it's just sort of
Speaker 4: like and it also gives I would imagine it gives
Speaker 4: your life some sort of even if you don't understand
Speaker 4: why things are happening, gives it some order. Yeah, if
Speaker 4: there's some sort of thought that there is some sort
Speaker 4: of order and there is something beyond sort of the
Speaker 4: struggle of today, I would guess.
Speaker 3: Yes, Yeah, same. I think it's it has to do
Speaker 3: with the level of comfort that you get if you
Speaker 3: really believe that if you're a good person in your
Speaker 3: whole life and then you get to go somewhere special afterwards,
Speaker 3: that gives you level of comfort and it gives you
Speaker 3: some direction.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Even think about when people die, right it's like, oh,
Speaker 4: you've seen him, and it's like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think I leaned towards yes as well.
Speaker 1: My only other thought on it was like, if you're
Speaker 1: really like, let's say, extremely religious, Oh, I think you
Speaker 1: could turn and then it could turn where it's like
Speaker 1: you're looking around you at all these sinners and yes,
Speaker 1: kind of just disgusted by everything you see. Then that
Speaker 1: could make you, you know, more of a recluse or
Speaker 1: like feel totally alone and isolated if you don't think
Speaker 1: other people are being you know, religious in the right
Speaker 1: way or religious at all, And it's what the hell, like,
Speaker 1: what the hell world is this? So unless you then
Speaker 1: I guess maybe you get through to the other side.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, this is what I have to bear
Speaker 1: to get through this. And then but with that count
Speaker 1: is happiness. It's hard to say, yeah, I'm purely like
Speaker 1: I'm going to church every week, and you know, I
Speaker 1: make these friends and we talk about this stuff that
Speaker 1: seems like a not positive in most cases. Obviously, then
Speaker 1: there's issues with the church or whatever where not everyone's accepted,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people maybe because their upbringing then
Speaker 1: rebel against it and don't you know, definitely are not
Speaker 1: interested even if maybe it would help them in some way.
Speaker 1: So I'm curious to find out what the research says.
Speaker 5: That's a good point.
Speaker 4: I feel like, like you said, it's yes, and then
Speaker 4: it's a no, because I think there are people get
Speaker 4: lost in it.
Speaker 3: It's like, what is that called the bell curve? Yeah,
Speaker 3: It's like it's like yes, no.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think if you hit the right medium level
Speaker 1: it can be probably very beneficial.
Speaker 4: People talk about like you know, people online and the
Speaker 4: like psychosist thing of like oh they see the devil
Speaker 4: and everything right, It's like, oh, actually that was that song.
Speaker 5: Wasn't just bad this is the devil?
Speaker 4: Yeah, trying that, It's like, okay, imagine living life like that.
Speaker 1: So next up, I'm going to look into the research
Speaker 1: and find out if there is a positive link between
Speaker 1: religion and happiness. And later I want to go to
Speaker 1: temple myself and hear from some religious people and maybe
Speaker 1: do some praying. That's all all that. After the break,
Speaker 1: we're back. We're trying to figure out if religion makes
Speaker 1: people happier. If I talked to doctor Harold Koenig, he's
Speaker 1: a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University.
Speaker 1: He's in researching spirituality and health. For about forty years.
Speaker 6: I had been a nurse and then I became a
Speaker 6: family physician, and during that time I would ask patients
Speaker 6: how they're coping with their health issues. It was part
Speaker 6: of what you know as a nurse we had been
Speaker 6: trained to do, and so I continued that as a
Speaker 6: family doctor, and many patients would talk about their religious faith.
Speaker 6: So I thought, gosh, you know, we haven't been trained
Speaker 6: on this in nursing school or medical school, or family
Speaker 6: medicine or none of those areas. This was completely new
Speaker 6: for me, and I thought, that's fascinating. Let's do some
Speaker 6: research and just see how common this is and what
Speaker 6: impact it has on a person's health. So that's how
Speaker 6: I got started. So there are measures of well being
Speaker 6: and happiness, and they are often maybe ten questions or
Speaker 6: twenty questions, and so there are scales that you can
Speaker 6: administer to give you a sense of how happy a
Speaker 6: person is. And then you can also measure religious involvement
Speaker 6: through scales that are assessing dimensions like intrinsic religiosity, a
Speaker 6: person's connection with God, the strength of their faith and
Speaker 6: their religious commitment, their frequency of prayer, of scripture study,
Speaker 6: those kinds of questions, and how often do they attend
Speaker 6: religious services. These measures are all included in a questionnaire,
Speaker 6: along with the person's age, race, gender, their socioeconomic status,
Speaker 6: their social support, various other characteristics, and then we look
Speaker 6: at the correlation.
Speaker 1: To get straight to it. Here's what his research has found.
Speaker 6: One of the first studies we did actually now probably
Speaker 6: over thirty years ago was looking at this exact question,
Speaker 6: was a person's level of well being or happiness was
Speaker 6: it connected with their religious faith and their religious practices,
Speaker 6: And in fact it was then that's kind of what's
Speaker 6: prized me and encouraged me that to continue to do
Speaker 6: research in this area. So then we started looking at
Speaker 6: depression and anxiety, and then started looking at physical health
Speaker 6: including blood pressure, immune functioning, longevity, all sorts of different
Speaker 6: health outcomes, and they just kept coming up positively. Is
Speaker 6: that those who are more engaged in a faith community,
Speaker 6: those who had a stronger connection with God, just seemed
Speaker 6: to do better in every way. Their social relationships were better,
Speaker 6: you know, their blood pressure, as I said, was lower,
Speaker 6: their immune functioning it was better. They were living longer,
Speaker 6: from seven to fourteen years, longer than those who were
Speaker 6: not part of a faith community. It was just continually
Speaker 6: reinforcing what I had seen clinically as a family doctor.
Speaker 3: That's wild. The most fascinating part is how much longer
Speaker 3: you live if you are engaging in those kind of
Speaker 3: like regular religious activities. Seven to fourteen years is nuts.
Speaker 1: It's a long time. Fourteen years. I could I could
Speaker 1: pray a little bit for.
Speaker 3: That that's part of the part of what you get
Speaker 3: out of this.
Speaker 4: Well, that makes sense because if they talk about when
Speaker 4: you think about, you know, how deadly loneliness is. Yeah,
Speaker 4: if you have this built in community, it's like a
Speaker 4: shorthand for community right to me, right of just sort
Speaker 4: of like you see a lot of people who you
Speaker 4: are regularly seeing you're leaving the house, right, like, if
Speaker 4: you're not doing too well, people who are going to
Speaker 4: be checking it up on you and you you know,
Speaker 4: you think about okay, especially as you get older. Yeah,
Speaker 4: if people don't have their kids aren't around, right, see
Speaker 4: some older people where it's like, oh god, if that
Speaker 4: neighbored it and like just you know, get some sort
Speaker 4: of interest in that person that they would just literally
Speaker 4: be alone.
Speaker 1: And some of those studies look into this too, like
Speaker 1: you're less likely to smoke and drink and gamble and
Speaker 1: other vices to accountable that are gonna hurt your you know,
Speaker 1: so it leads to other things. Pew Research Center did
Speaker 1: a big study and released a lot of data on
Speaker 1: this in twenty nineteen looking at the correlation, and it
Speaker 1: bears out very similar results. They looked at a bunch
Speaker 1: of countries, but for the US for an example, like
Speaker 1: the percentage of people who say they are very happy
Speaker 1: among those who are religiously active is thirty six percent
Speaker 1: versus people who are unaffiliated or inactive it's twenty five percent.
Speaker 1: That is pretty consistent across the different countries. Some countries
Speaker 1: like Mexico's much more religious, it seems like, so like there,
Speaker 1: it's like seventy one percent of active religious people are
Speaker 1: very happy to sixty one percent unaffiliated. But it's pretty
Speaker 1: much about a ten point spread across the board. It's huge,
Speaker 1: it seems like, which is yeah, pretty big. And that
Speaker 1: also acts the same things as far as Health're more
Speaker 1: likely to be civically engaged too, so you're more likely
Speaker 1: to vote if you're religious, which makes sense, makes sense
Speaker 1: to knowing what we know, Yeah, and same with smoking
Speaker 1: in those things. Religiosity is on the decline overall societally.
Speaker 1: That that means we're probably going to see societal well
Speaker 1: being decrease. It's interesting to think about too, because it's
Speaker 1: like I wouldn't necessarily argue that it's better for countries
Speaker 1: to be religious, yeah, you know, especially separation of church
Speaker 1: and state these like, but it's it's kind of an
Speaker 1: interesting thing like what's best for people, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is what you hear from JD. Vance and
Speaker 3: like all these kind of maga guys who are so
Speaker 3: against the idea of like a secular society. Yeah, because
Speaker 3: they're afraid or they're pretending to be afraid that there
Speaker 3: might be societal decline if we move further away from
Speaker 3: a like church.
Speaker 4: Well that's the classic thing of like you take away
Speaker 4: something and then you don't feel devoid. Right, So it's
Speaker 4: like the country is becoming less religious and you don't
Speaker 4: build in.
Speaker 5: Other ways for people to kind of you're also.
Speaker 4: Shutting down the bowling alleys yeah, community, yeah, you know,
Speaker 4: and it's it's the class that you know. It's like
Speaker 4: if you talk about conservatives, you know, getting rid of
Speaker 4: government programs and saying rely on your churches for that
Speaker 4: sort of thing, right, I'm just sort of like, yeah,
Speaker 4: the church is supposed to fill that void in a
Speaker 4: lot of conservatives' minds, and which makes sense based on
Speaker 4: the study, right of like the people who are partaking
Speaker 4: in this stuff are doing better.
Speaker 5: But it's like it's crazy to.
Speaker 4: Be like, actually, the only way for you to live
Speaker 4: longer is you got to figure out you got to
Speaker 4: be a lot of one of these religions because we
Speaker 4: as a government, we're not going to do anything for you.
Speaker 1: So yeah, well that yeah, I know.
Speaker 5: The church.
Speaker 1: Is also a part of the study where it says,
Speaker 1: like I'll read this. The data presented in the report
Speaker 1: indicates that there are links between religious activity and certain
Speaker 1: measures of well being in many countries. The numbers don't
Speaker 1: prove that going to religious services is directly responsible for
Speaker 1: improving people's lives. Rather, it could be certain kinds of
Speaker 1: people tend to be active in multiple types of activities,
Speaker 1: secular as well as religious, many of which provide physical
Speaker 1: or psychological benefits. Moreover, such people may be more active
Speaker 1: partly because they are happier and healthier rather than the
Speaker 1: other right around.
Speaker 5: Which makes sense, Like it's correlation versus cause.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like some total loner who doesn't go to church
Speaker 1: probably might not go to something else or be involved
Speaker 1: in something else too, So it's yeah, it's like which
Speaker 1: is the start or which is the cause. It's interesting, like,
Speaker 1: and I think a valid point to make for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wanted to know how the social community factor weighed
Speaker 1: against the faith element by itself, because the benefit coming
Speaker 1: from having a community, or does belief itself impact health outcomes?
Speaker 1: If I go to church every week, but maybe I
Speaker 1: don't personally believe in God per se, I might still
Speaker 1: reap some benefits of being involved in my community and
Speaker 1: all this. How do you kind of balance those things
Speaker 1: or what do you see when you look into that.
Speaker 6: I think they're both going on in terms of the mechanism.
Speaker 6: So being part of a faith community reinforces your belief
Speaker 6: and your commitment, and of course your belief and commitments
Speaker 6: are reinforcing your engagement in a religious community, so they
Speaker 6: are mutually reinforcing. Social activities are part of it. So
Speaker 6: that's part of the mechanism, but it only explains about
Speaker 6: twenty five percent of the effect that religious involvement has
Speaker 6: on happiness. A lot of it has to do with
Speaker 6: a personal connection with God, you know, believing that life
Speaker 6: has purpose and meaning and that you're part of God's
Speaker 6: plan in the world. That this gives you a sense
Speaker 6: of energy, and that's a big part of it.
Speaker 1: So, I mean, you couldn't replace church going with say,
Speaker 1: joining the bowling league. You're probably going to see different effects.
Speaker 6: You are, You're going to certainly derive benefits, social benefits
Speaker 6: and physical benefits from joining a bowling league. But it's
Speaker 6: not to have the same impact that religious faith has
Speaker 6: simply because you know, not only is religious faith dealing
Speaker 6: with with behaviors and beliefs and social interactions in this life,
Speaker 6: it's talking about life after this life, you know, life
Speaker 6: after death, kind of the spiritual world that is in
Speaker 6: some ways maybe connected with with the physical world that
Speaker 6: we live in. So it goes far beyond just the
Speaker 6: social or even the behavioral and the cognitive aspects of it.
Speaker 6: Because religion really has power in it. There are very
Speaker 6: few things that people will die for, you know, but
Speaker 6: religion is one of them.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about the community aspect because it's like,
Speaker 1: all right, well, I'm picturing now like some not like
Speaker 1: a monk necessarily, but basically like a recluse who is
Speaker 1: very devout. Is that person going to be as happy
Speaker 1: as someone who is, you know, maybe not involved with
Speaker 1: their church but has more of a social life. Obviously
Speaker 1: there's going to be a million different factors to control.
Speaker 6: Many many different factors a play there. But yeah, you know,
Speaker 6: a recluse who has a strong religious belief is probably
Speaker 6: gonna be happier than a recluse without such a belief.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fact, you know.
Speaker 6: But but certainly the social interaction is a significant part
Speaker 6: and that's what the scriptures teach. They teach to love
Speaker 6: your neighbor, and you can't do that unless you're around
Speaker 6: your neighbor.
Speaker 3: Well, I'd like to disagree with the notion that bowling
Speaker 3: is not a religious Maybe that's just me.
Speaker 5: You haven't you haven't bold game like a bowl?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that turkey, you're gonna be frying after that?
Speaker 1: God, God, right, because that was my probably my biggest
Speaker 1: question I was wrestling with was like that kind of
Speaker 1: extreme end of it where it's like if you're totally
Speaker 1: isolated or something like, how does that benefit you or not?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting. I was thinking about, you know, a
Speaker 3: total you know, recluse who is religious and then a
Speaker 3: recluse that isn't. Before this episode, I might have thought
Speaker 3: that the recluse that's religious might not be that as happy.
Speaker 1: That doesn't seem very happy to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but if you're compared to a recluse, like maybe
Speaker 3: maybe that person's like content, you know, like with living
Speaker 3: their life that way. But it does make sense the
Speaker 3: kind of the higher calling the life after death that
Speaker 3: he's referring to that that it makes sense that would
Speaker 3: drive you towards a contentness.
Speaker 1: Then I was also curious about his work with veterans
Speaker 1: because I wanted to know how religion does come up
Speaker 1: in those context and you know, like I was curious,
Speaker 1: like does he actively encourage it and how he kind
Speaker 1: of approaches that.
Speaker 6: So typically, in a clinical situation, I would not encourage
Speaker 6: people to turn to religion. I would listen to them,
Speaker 6: take a spiritual history and try to learn what's been
Speaker 6: their experiences in the past with religion. You know, have
Speaker 6: they left their home religion because of you know, hurt
Speaker 6: and because of their lifestyle now, et cetera. I would
Speaker 6: want to learn about that, just see how religion currently
Speaker 6: and in the past has influenced their their health and
Speaker 6: mental health, and pretty much just walk alongside of them
Speaker 6: as they're going through various things. I might support whatever
Speaker 6: religion is there, you know, but I wouldn't necessarily introduce it.
Speaker 1: That a lot of people, you know, maybe have a
Speaker 1: very religious upbringing and then reject it because maybe the
Speaker 1: you know, the religion doesn't accept their lifestyle or other reasons,
Speaker 1: and then they kind of move away from it and
Speaker 1: never kind of look back. What would you say to
Speaker 1: someone like that, whether they maybe don't want to go
Speaker 1: back to whatever they grow up in or are a
Speaker 1: little nervous about exploring something new, what's your kind of
Speaker 1: response to that sort of angle.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, you know, there are so many different options
Speaker 6: in terms of different churches, different religious faith traditions that
Speaker 6: you could go into. You know that that may be
Speaker 6: different from the faith tradition that you grew up in,
Speaker 6: and so there are a lot of options out there.
Speaker 6: One thing we didn't cover was the fact that religion
Speaker 6: doesn't always make people happier, and sometimes people manipulate religion
Speaker 6: in ways that is hurtful for them and for others
Speaker 6: around them. So, you know, it's anything very powerful can
Speaker 6: be used in a negative way to create unhappiness and
Speaker 6: poor health. It happens, people get abused by clergy, you know,
Speaker 6: there are a radical religion, or people kill other people
Speaker 6: or their religion. But again, if you look over all,
Speaker 6: it does seem to have a benefit when it's done
Speaker 6: in a sensible way, in a committed way, and in
Speaker 6: a way that most encourages love of God and love
Speaker 6: of neighbors. I think you've got to have both of
Speaker 6: them in balance.
Speaker 1: There's obviously tons of stories and studies about the decline
Speaker 1: in religiosity, what's caused that? And then the second part
Speaker 1: is how do you think that could be restored?
Speaker 6: Well, I think the the increase in science, which has
Speaker 6: certainly provided tremendous benefits, you know, to humanity, and the
Speaker 6: science world has kind of become the new source of truth.
Speaker 6: You know, for a long time, it was the clergy
Speaker 6: and the ministers that were you know, influencing you know,
Speaker 6: sources of truth in the world. But that's all changed now.
Speaker 6: Now there's technology and science that are that are providing
Speaker 6: you know, us with great ability to control things in
Speaker 6: our world, and that's becoming more a source of truth
Speaker 6: as opposed to you know, a person's religious faith. What
Speaker 6: do we do about this decline in religious involvement? You know,
Speaker 6: religion is hard too, It's not like an easy pathway
Speaker 6: to follow. You have to be self disciplined, you have
Speaker 6: to control your natural desires and all of these things,
Speaker 6: so it's hard to follow. So what do you do
Speaker 6: about it? Well, I think you want to keep an
Speaker 6: open mind, keep an open mind that you know what
Speaker 6: we're seeing and feeling and going through right now in
Speaker 6: this physical world. This may not be all there is.
Speaker 6: There may be something more, something that intersects with this
Speaker 6: physical world in some way that is that it's maybe
Speaker 6: impossible to study. And recognizing that eighty percent of the
Speaker 6: world's population believes in God or a higher power, and
Speaker 6: so if you're looking at you know, beliefs in terms
Speaker 6: of you know, the supernatural, most people that there is
Speaker 6: something beyond just this life. So just keep an open mind,
Speaker 6: and you know, life will teach you lessons if you
Speaker 6: let it. If your mind is open, and consider maybe
Speaker 6: attending a church. You know, if you've been part of
Speaker 6: a faith community before it, you know, you might consider
Speaker 6: going back and and seeing if if that fits for you.
Speaker 6: And even if it doesn't fit for you, maybe ought
Speaker 6: to force yourself to do it, because you know there
Speaker 6: are tremendous benefits to your health and and you know,
Speaker 6: maybe even your life after death with regard to this,
Speaker 6: And it's a it's a pretty easy risk to to
Speaker 6: take because if there isn't anything after death, you know,
Speaker 6: you're not going to be any worse off. You'll you'll
Speaker 6: just never know, uh, you know, and if there is something,
Speaker 6: then you'll be better off. So you're you're you're not
Speaker 6: losing anything by developing a and engaging in a practice.
Speaker 6: And we know that these practices do have a very
Speaker 6: positive effects on your health, your relationships, and and even
Speaker 6: your your physical health and your longevity.
Speaker 1: So overall, I mean, what do you guys think of this?
Speaker 1: Does it change your views or like your outlook on religion.
Speaker 3: Not really, but it did. It provided a lot of
Speaker 3: insight about like how people think about this. I think
Speaker 3: all three of us said that we think that religions
Speaker 3: probably makes you more likely to be happy if you
Speaker 3: believe in it. But it is interesting to hear about
Speaker 3: the faith part of it versus the community driven and
Speaker 3: part of it. Where like if you ask someone who
Speaker 3: grew up Catholic, for example, just to keep using this
Speaker 3: example because it's my experience in America, they're probably not
Speaker 3: that religious today.
Speaker 4: It's like a common trope. Yeah, it's like they become
Speaker 4: less religious, right.
Speaker 3: But there is probably like if they do, if they
Speaker 3: have kids or whatever and they felt like they wanted
Speaker 3: to be a part of some community, there does exist
Speaker 3: like a default way to do that. I guess, yeah,
Speaker 3: versus like trying to find at like an art club
Speaker 3: or something like that. Like at least you know that
Speaker 3: there's gonna be something around the corner from you where
Speaker 3: you could go do that if you wanted to. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it feels less kind of feels less about the praying
Speaker 3: and the worship and more about like being a part
Speaker 3: of a community.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's definitely tied into so much just cultural stuff
Speaker 1: in like how people are raised, even if it is
Speaker 1: pretty secular really in practice, Devinny, any takeaways from this, Yeah.
Speaker 4: I guess to me, what it brought to mind is like, okay,
Speaker 4: religion has It's like it's this template for these things that,
Speaker 4: especially as you're getting older, can help you in life.
Speaker 4: Like you're talking about community, belief in something beyond yourself, right,
Speaker 4: like drive towards something. Yeah, And like I'm not religious.
Speaker 4: I don't plan on becoming religious anytime soon, you know.
Speaker 4: When I have kids, I don't plan on, you know,
Speaker 4: certainly enjoining a church or whatever. So that it brings
Speaker 4: to mind to me, Oh, how are what are ways
Speaker 4: for me to instill these things into my life, my
Speaker 4: children's lives that are not tied to a church that
Speaker 4: you know, it's going to take a bit more work,
Speaker 4: Like man is saying, I can't just show up somewhere
Speaker 4: and be like, all right, these are we're all going
Speaker 4: to be a community. And you know, like I think,
Speaker 4: you know, I don't go to church, but like I
Speaker 4: go to therapy and like I try to work on
Speaker 4: myself in different ways. So I think in some ways,
Speaker 4: I'm already doing a version of like I don't have
Speaker 4: that thing, so like what is my thing or my
Speaker 4: way of doing this?
Speaker 5: But it is like there's not as much structure to it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's certainly it's certainly not the case that
Speaker 3: if you're not religious then you can't be happy. And
Speaker 3: it's like there's like that's a whole different thing.
Speaker 1: Now. To wrap things up, I'm going to try to
Speaker 1: connect for the local synagogue here in New York, go
Speaker 1: to a service and talk to a rabbi to get
Speaker 1: their take on the value of religion in these modern times.
Speaker 3: Beautiful blessed right.
Speaker 7: Everybody, All right, I'm back.
Speaker 1: This is Noah. What you're hearing right now is the
Speaker 1: Shabbat service. I went to a congregation base in Katsurah.
Speaker 1: I thought it was important for the episode to check
Speaker 1: out a religious service myself. Not that I was expecting
Speaker 1: to have a major epiphany, but just to go in
Speaker 1: with an open mind and really see how it felt.
Speaker 1: I'll write up some more thoughts on my experience for
Speaker 1: this week's newsletter, but for now, I wanted to share
Speaker 1: some bits of my conversation with the ten Sad rabb
Speaker 1: by Jason Klein about the role of religion in people's
Speaker 1: lives today. Rabbi Clin broke it down three tenants Belonging, behaving,
Speaker 1: and believing.
Speaker 8: I'm Rabbi Jason Klein. Since July of twenty twenty four,
Speaker 8: I've been the senior Rabbi of Congregation bets Sinkata. Rad
Speaker 8: Werkai Kaplan, the founder of the Jewish Reconstructions movement, kind
Speaker 8: of took the words belonging, behaving, and believing and really
Speaker 8: centered them around how people have religious experiences. He talked
Speaker 8: about Judaism as a civilization, and often it's that belonging
Speaker 8: piece that sometimes gets saved for last when people talk
Speaker 8: about religion, because people somehow go right to God, God, God,
Speaker 8: God God, or what happens when I die? Die, Die,
Speaker 8: Die Die, you know, instead of the piece that often
Speaker 8: really comes first, which is, have I just found a
Speaker 8: group of people with whom I'm happy to connect, a
Speaker 8: community where I feel like I can be myself, a
Speaker 8: community where I'd want to celebrate simply happy occasions in life,
Speaker 8: or figure you more, or even struggle together. Sometimes I
Speaker 8: think that ritual gives us a framework to stop and
Speaker 8: mark certain moments. Right, If I'm someone who prays three
Speaker 8: times a day, then no matter what.
Speaker 9: I'm doing, there are going to be three times during
Speaker 9: the day where at least for a couple of minutes,
Speaker 9: I stop, I put my feet together, I face Jerusalem
Speaker 9: and say nineteen blessings.
Speaker 8: And maybe that's sort of like a little baseline of something,
Speaker 8: but it's it feels powerful that even when I feel
Speaker 8: like the most distracted or the most stressed, that there's
Speaker 8: a little, a little gift in there to myself, you know,
Speaker 8: maybe a little focused connection between me and the divine.
Speaker 8: And sometimes I think that when we talk about words
Speaker 8: like spiritual practice, right, this idea of practice is that,
Speaker 8: you know, not every time that we do a certain
Speaker 8: act like prayer, does it makes sense to expect to
Speaker 8: have this like earth shattering, transformative spiritual experience. But by
Speaker 8: making room for some of these things, we do open
Speaker 8: the possibility that something different will happen, that we kind
Speaker 8: of shift our miliu for a moment. Maybe that's what
Speaker 8: leads into the third piece, the third bee of believing,
Speaker 8: which is possibility coming to a mentality where we have
Speaker 8: choices in our life, where there's not just like a
Speaker 8: simple end of despairing position and instead creating a space
Speaker 8: to think about something in a different way, creating knowing
Speaker 8: that there could be rituals to mark moments of joy,
Speaker 8: to really stay in them and not just kind of
Speaker 8: move on to the next thing. I think some of
Speaker 8: that ritual behavior can create opportunities. I'm not even sure
Speaker 8: if the word is to quote unquote be happy, but
Speaker 8: I do think that only cultivate the awareness of our happiness.
Speaker 8: That does something to our brains, and we can kind
Speaker 8: of come back to that to that place. So the
Speaker 8: practical difference between like, Okay, that was delicious piece of caracake,
Speaker 8: now let me move on, versus like that was a
Speaker 8: delicious piece of karakeke.
Speaker 10: I'm just gonna sit here for a minute and think, like, wow,
Speaker 10: how was really specials.
Speaker 1: He's no such thing as the production of Kaleidoscope Content.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Kate Osborne and make Guest Shot Secure.
Speaker 1: The show was created by Manny Fidel, Noah Friedman, and
Speaker 1: Devon Joseph. Themon credits song by Manny, mixing by Steve Bone,
Speaker 1: Thanks Steve. Our guest this week are doctor Harold Koenig
Speaker 1: and Rabbi Jason Klein. Special thanks to Congregation Baits and
Speaker 1: Katsurah and Stephanie Kramer at the Pew Research Center. Visit
Speaker 1: No Such Thing dot show to subscribe to dig into
Speaker 1: the research and see some other info on the subject.
Speaker 1: If you have feedback for us or a question, our
Speaker 1: email is Manny Nodevin at gmail dot com, or you
Speaker 1: can also leave us voicemail by calling the number in
Speaker 1: our show notes.
Speaker 2: Thanks, Hell's raids, Hell's rams, Hell's as Hell's No Such Thing.