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Monday, November 1, 2010, 10:00 AM

A new report by Gallup finds a significant correlation between well-being and religiosity:

The most religious Americans show the highest levels of well-being as measured by factors ranging from physical and emotional health to self-evaluations of life to perceptions of work environment, according to a Gallup report released Thursday.

Americans for whom religion is an important part of everyday life and who attend religious services roughly once a week or more score an average 68.7 on a well-being index developed by Gallup and Healthways, a health consulting company.

Americans who are moderately religious or who are nonreligious, meanwhile, average 64.2 on the Gallup-Healthways well-being index.

Gallup Editor-in-Chief Frank Newport says that the gap is significant because there are typically few differences in the well-being index between Americans from different demographics.

3 Comments

    Ray Ingles
    November 1st, 2010 | 11:10 am

    As C.S. Lewis had Screwtape say, “Believe this, not because it’s true, but for some other reason. That’s the game.”

    Mick
    November 1st, 2010 | 12:39 pm

    Really, this is astounding given the number of religious persons wearing perpetually dour expressions. ;)

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    November 1st, 2010 | 9:53 pm

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