Yes, but of course there is only one REAL god! All of those other gods are made up. The only god that matters is the one that your parents brought you up to believe in, everyone knows that.
Who cares which god, look at the data. If I said meditation has positive effects on its practitioners no one would get particularly excited. But if I said belief in a god has positive effects, well, what a different reaction.
one would be hard pressed to provide data that believing in gods has been good for the muslims or the people of haiti. religion has been shown to have an inverse relationship to national wealth. in any case if it is so i will choose this god to believe in: Flora is the Roman Goddess of flowering plants, especially those that bear fruit. Spring, of course, is Her season, and She has elements of a Love-Goddess, with its attendant attributes of fertility, sex, and blossoming. George Bernard Shaw: The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.
You're trying to generalize to a population. Watch the video, and find fault with the doctor's brain scans.
Belief in a higher power has definite and conclusive health effects. Losing one's faith and definite and conclusive health effects as well.
If studies showed belief in leprechauns had the best health effects, would you switch to being a leprechauner ? Definition: leprechauner-one who believes in leprechauns.
I think you are making the error of attempting to objectify something inherently abstract. People and their faith is an abstract concept. But it is one that has measurable benefits, apparently. So, if you truly believe Leprechauns will take you to that pot of gold, then it has positive health effects.