Nevertheless, around 14 million people call themselves Mormons the world over, which is a little less than the entire Jewish population. In other words, they're not just a little renegade band of lunatics that got lost one night along the Oregon Trail.

As the opening quotation suggests, there are Mormons who are confidently, even arrogantly, attached to Mormonism and everything that it represents. Their religion, in addition to embodying a repository of dogma, is also a lifestyle. And the Mormon faith may indeed improve its practitioners' quality of life. Without it, they might feel miserably lost and forlorn.

But filthy rich folks feel the same way about their bespoke 500-ft. Yachts and $65,000 Luxuriator sunglasses. The truth is that these possessions are completely unnecessary for attaining happiness. The emotional impact of losing great wealth would dissipate following an adjustment period. Can the same be said of religion? Is it superfluous? As Marilyn put it, "And your religion I think is bulls**t - just another excuse for f***ing around." Or are pious folks really receiving unique and substantive benefits from their faith?

Psychologists study religion using both moderately and highly rigorous scientific methods. Sometimes they examine denominational differences, but more often than not, they don't discriminate and look at religious involvement more generally. They test its impact on outcomes like physical and mental health, criminality, and marital stability. We'll review the findings for these in order.

Religiosity and physical health

There's been a boom in research on the religion-health connection in recent years. What is the relationship between religious involvement and physical health? In brief, positive and significant. Attending church, being a part of church activities, praying, feeling a sense of spiritual closeness to a deity (i.e., subjective religiosity), etc. are all associated with better health status. Many of the major ailments have been studied, e.g., heart disease, stroke, cancer, and positive results have been discovered across a wide range of them.

Why does this relationship exist? Is God answering the prayers of his stricken sheep? Mayyybe. But in addition to that possibility, there is the fact that religious people generally have supportive social networks (here on terra firma) that they might not have otherwise. Also, the religious apparently take good care of themselves by engaging in salutary health behaviors like eating right and not smoking (Strawbridge et al., 1997).

Religiosity and mental health

We see similar results for mental health. Religious involvement is negatively correlated with depression, as well as suicidal impulses. In addition, there are positive relationships between religious commitment and subjective indices of psychological well-being (e.g., happiness).

However, the direction of this relationship is as yet unclear (actually, that's true for physical health as well). It may simply be that people who are not depressed to begin with are more likely to get out of the house and attend church. More research is needed, but the initial results for mental health are at least ambiguously positive.

Religiosity and criminality

Religious people are less likely to use illicit drugs and abuse alcohol. There is also a negative relationship between religiosity and delinquency, but only when religious behavior (e.g., church attendance) is considered, rather than religious attitudes. Another interesting study found that religious people were less likely to feel inclined to cheat on their taxes.

The explanation here involves something we're all familiar with: shame. People who are religious are more likely to expect to feel shame following an unlawful act. This is partly due to the influence of their religious belief system, but also to sanctions imposed by a social network based on religion. Indeed, the criminal behavior in which religious people are less likely to engage is disproportionately weighted towards victimless crimes. In other words, even when nobody gets hurt, religious people want to do the "right thing" because otherwise they'll feel shameful. (I can tell you from personal experience that atheists have no such reservations about committing victimless crimes. Hahahahaha.)

Religiosity and marital stability

As you might expect, religious involvement is associated with lower rates of divorce. On the surface that might sound good, but is it merely that religious people are more likely to remain in unhappy marriages because they wish to abide by religious prohibitions against annulling their vows? No, that does not appear to be the case: in addition to being less inclined to resort to divorce, religious couples also report higher degrees of marital satisfaction. Predictably, this relationship between religiosity and marital satisfaction is strongest for partners that are homogamous (rather than heterogamous) with respect to their religious involvement. That is, it's best when they're both religious. The bottom line is that religious couples stay together longer and report being happier together than non-religious couples.

So, maybe the Henrickson's really are onto something with this whole religion thing. Actually, the effects we've been discussing are more pronounced for the really conservative denominations (e.g., Mormons, Baptists). So if you want to live a long, happy life, religion seems to be the ticket, or at least one ticket. As for myself, maybe one day I'll drink the Cool-Aid. Except not everybody needs religion. I just need to get those annoying bible-thumpers I'm always running into to believe me when I say that. Any ideas? :)

 Ted Cascio is co-editor of House & Psychology (John Wiley & Sons).

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