In terms of health benefits, is it useful to distinguish between personal spiritual practice and organized religion?
I think the word “spirituality” is much more inviting and it includes religion. But from a research perspective, it’s really religion that’s studied and been shown to benefit health— not the less definable, more vague, and individualized spirituality. In your writing, you say that the crucial support system tends to be missing from individual spiritual practice. Yes. Not only the social support, but the social guidance, too. You can bounce things off other people you know, crazy ideas you have. Everybody has crazy ideas. If you’re alone, they can get blown out of proportion, and pretty soon you’re off on some weird tangent. But if you’ve got people around you, helping to say “OK, that’s an interesting idea, but that sounds a little weird, maybe,” it’s helpful for people. Is there a reason to believe that the religious practices are somehow more powerful than other forms of stress-reduction and social support? I think getting a pet is useful; it can help somebody who is lonely and livin
