Are religious people different from non-religious people?
More happy?  More depressed?  More ethical?  More anxious?   et cetera...

A great answer would be one web link pointing toward academic (objective) data.
Maybe from the Journal of Psychology, or something similar.

2-3 sentences of explanation would be terrific, but not necessary.

All comments (from believers, agnostics, or heretics) greatly appreciated!

:-)

Hi nronronronro and thank you for the question.

Well, the 'academic community' seems to be split on this question.  I
have researched only educational sites and there is 'proof' both ways
that religious people are and are not healthier, happier, live longer
etc......

"Dr. Harold Koenig has released the results of yet another study into
religion and health. The psychiatrist at Duke University Medical
Center says he has run the numbers, and older patients who are
religious spend less time in the hospital. Koenig's previous studies
into religion and health have shown that religious people are
healthier, recover faster, have fewer heart attacks and generally
handle life's ups and downs with less physical reactions. Even the
skeptics he says, should pay attention to his latest findings, since,
in practical terms, it means less expense for insurance companies and
hospitals."
http://dukemednews.duke.edu/news/medminute.php?id=1603

"A Purdue University study of religion and body weight finds 
that religious people are more likely to be overweight than are
nonreligious people."
http://www.cfs.purdue.edu/extension/efr/efr8-15.htm

*NOTE* Powerpoint presentation:
"Lykken (1981) reports that religious people are not noticeably
happier than freethinkers."
http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/lectures/love&hap.ppt

"Dr. David Myers, a leading researcher in happiness, has illustrated
that factors such as age, sex, race, or income make little difference
in an individual's level of happiness. Myers states that the following
factors can help promote a healthy, happy lifestyle"
"In study after study, actively religious people are happier."
http://www.wartburg.edu/counseling/Info.html

"Byrd’s findings are very significant, in that they showed that the
people who were prayed for were five times less likely to develop
pulmonary edema, none required endotracheal intubations, and fewer
patients died.  The results from the study conducted by Bryd show that
prayer is beneficial and in fact does work as a means of improving an
individuals health.  One the other hand there are also physicians who
do not believe that there is substantial evidence that proves that
prayer can be beneficial in physical healing."
http://inst.augie.edu/~cmswanso/paper.html

Thank you for the question, and if you have any questions regarding my
answer do not hesitate to ask.

Best regards

THX1138


Search included:
"religious people are"  site:.edu
://www.google.com/search?q=+%22religious+people+are%22++site:.edu&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&scoring=d&as_qdr=all&start=80&sa=N

Terrific answer !   
And your name is THX1138.  How approrpiate is THAT?!
heh  heh  heh     
Thank you.

I read somewhere that "religious" (don't remember how that was
defined) people live longer, on average.  I personally believe that
organized religion has done more harm than good throughout its history
and that faith rather than religion should be emphasized and
encouraged.  Unfortunately, attendence (at church, temple, synagogue,
etc.) is a whole lot easier to measure than adherence to any
particular faith.

In any event, I know the information you're looking for is available. 
If this question is still open after my econ exam, I'll see if I can
find some of it for you.

-Haversian

Thanks, Haversian.  Much appreciated!

I was raised an atheist, and was relatively comfortable as a
materialist, rejecting all concepts of spiritual realities or beings,
for many decades, until certain extraordinary experiences caused me to
jettison my unbelief.

I can't say for certain whether all those who hold devout religious
convictions are significantly different from other people. But I know
that I am vastly different from my former self.

To quote Robert Frost: I took the road less traveled by, and that has
made all the difference.

PinkFreud,

Please elaborate on your comments.  I am still a "rationalistic
materialist"---much like Hegel or Marx, without the beard.  heh  heh  
heh

But more seriously, I would like to make the same trek you have, but
have no idea how to start.

Please comment further or suggest a Google question (e.g., How does
one change one's life?).  I would be happy to post this question as a
Google Answer, just for you to answer.  Other people might also
benefit from your experience.   Thx in advance.  Ron

Ron,

While I would dearly love to be able to lead others to the faith that
"saved a wretch like me," I am reluctant to go into ecstatic detail
about my own religious awakening. My feeling about "witnessing" is
that one's "testimony" is appropriate when one is summoned to testify,
as in temporal courts. I imagine you can guess who the Judge is, in my
metaphor. ;-)

I don't want to feel like a jabbering madwoman on a street corner
hollering "Repent! The End is Near!"

I could certainly do a fair amount of expostulating on the subject in
a more general sense, but my personal "conversion" was mine alone, and
unlikely to have meaning outside the confines of my skull.

~pinkfreud

Thanks, PinkFreud.  

So I'm going to set up a Google Answer question for you (just you)
tonight at 6 PM (PST).  If you want to tackle the question...great! 
If not, I understand completely.  Thanks again !

My personal opinion may be better than most, as I consider myself
objective, and have experieced several denominations significately in
my 70 years, plus some periods of religious in-actvity. Religion
modifies personality considerably in about half the religious
population, but the effect on the world population as whole is close
to negligible. Religion nuetral people seem to be just as nice kind
well adjusted and happy people on the average. Anti religious people
are often a mess in many ways, but exceptions abound. This may be
because anti-religion is a special kind of religion lead by Satan. 
Neil

The media seems to say that certian religious sects are bad in various
ways, but I have not found this true in first hand contact, so it may
be propaganda = dis-information. We should not blame a religion,
because a few people who claim to be members are rotton.   Neil

Thanks for your comment, Neil.  I followed THX1138's direction, and
ordered two of Dr. Myers' books:  The Pursuit of Happiness: Who Is
Happy-and Why (1993) and The American Paradox: Spiritual Hunger in an
Age of Plenty (2000).  Will be interesting to look at the data in
these books when they arrive.  Thanks again, Neil.

Hi,

if you're beginning your spiritual journey you might want to read
Kathleen Norris's "The Cloister Walk." She's a Protestant poet who
was suffering a spiritual crisis when she fell in with a bunch of
Benedictine monks in South Dakota. All her books are worth reading
to aid your on your journey...God be with you...cath-ga

Thanks, Cath.  I appreciate it!  ron

There was an article in TIME Magazine that showed research which saw
AIDS patients who were prayed for have less symptoms and doctor
visits. The article is here (written by a skeptic who also offers an
opposite view):

http://www.time.com/time/columnist/jaroff/article/0,9565,193084,00.html

"She is investigating what she calls "distance healing," in which
those offering the prayers are far removed from the patients, who
themselves are not even aware that incantations are being recited on
their behalf.

It's an effect that would seem to defy reason — yet Targ reports
striking results. In a 1998 study, after selecting practicing healers
from a number of traditions — Christians, Buddhists, Jews, Indian
shamans — she supplied them with the first names, blood counts and
photographs of 20 patients with advanced AIDS. For an hour a day, over
a ten-week period, the healers concentrated their thoughts on the
pictures of these patients, but not on those of a control group of 20
other AIDS patients.

According to Targ, the prayed-for patients had fewer and less severe
new illnesses, fewer doctor visits, fewer hospitalizations and were
generally in better moods than those in the control group."

Thank you, filian!  Very interesting indeed.  I'll read this right away.

In my opinion all religions are forms of anti-reality escapism....
religion is used as a crutch and a block to fully confronting the
reality of every day life.

Religion leads to cult follow the leader mentalities; such mentalities
are incapable of fully knowing themselves and the reality of the world
surrounding them.

The human brain is designed by nature to integrate and understand self
and the world. It is this ability to understand and to know that leads
to peace and serenity. If one cuts of this natural process through
religious dogma then happiness cannot be fully possible.

Here is an excellent article on this subject:
Are Atheists More Depressed than Religious People?
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/buggle_20_4.html

Thanks for the link, deepstar. 

ron

Here are a few thoughts. First, the definition of "religious" may vary
significantly across studies and is likely to have a crucial bearing
on the results. If different studies define the key term differently,
it's not surprising they find different results. Does meditation count
as being religious? Does someone who attends church but is otherwise
uninterested in religion count? Does someone who is intensely
interested in religion, reads a lot about religion, but does not
belong to any organized church?

Second, you might consider what functions religion would serve, and
whether and how those functions would affect the various factors
you're interested in (e.g., happiness, ethical behavior, etc.). You
might check out work by C. Daniel Batson who has suggested that
religion functions as either a means, end, or quest for different
people (who, presumably, have different spiritual needs). Presumably
religion offers individuals a coherent and meaningful picture of both
the world and their place in it. Some people are "lost" without such
meaning, others are fine believing that human life simply ends at
death.

Third, some churches and religions (e.g., the Mormons) actively help
their members with their problems, which would obviously be related to
outcomes such as happiness. However, supposing this is true, then the
causal factor may not be religion, but social support (and which some
non-religious people may get elsewhere -- e.g., a close family, a
harmonious work environment, etc).

Fourth, one can easily imagine "religious" people being much less
happier than others, if, for example, they constantly are reminded
that their behavior does not live up to the standard set by Jesus
Christ (i.e., they are troubled because of sin), or they are
surrounded by non-believers who harass them, or they hold a different
religious view than the majority.

That's all I have time for at the moment...