A new report from the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing adds to the growing body of research confirming that religiously engaged people enjoy better mental health.

Here, as anywhere, the wisdom of the great C. S. Lewis should be taken to heart: “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. .. It is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind…which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously – no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.”  C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory. [italics added] Mental health A systematic review of mental disorder, suicide, and deliberate self harm in lesbian, gay and bisexual people BMC Psychiatry 8:70, 2008 §  “A twofold excess in suicide attempts in lesbian, gay and bisexual people” § ” Lifetime prevalence of suicide attempt was especially high in gay and bisexual men (RR 4.28, CI 2.32, 7.88)” §  “The risk for depression and anxiety disorders (over a period of 12 months or a lifetime) on meta-analyses were at least 1.5 times higher in lesbian, gay and bisexual people” §  “Alcohol and other substance dependence over 12 months was also 1.5 times higher §  “Lesbian and bisexual women were particularly at risk of substance dependence (alcohol 12 months: RR 4.00, CI 2.85, 5.61; drug dependence: RR 3.50, CI 1.87, 6.53; any substance use disorder RR 3.42, CI 1.97–5.92)” – Scapegoating the Church for LGBT Suicide and Stigma This June 27, 2019 article by Family Practice…

A glimpse of current literature regarding the benefits of monogamy: Effects on adults What Do We Know About the Link Between Marriage and Health? Journal of Family Issues 31(8):1019-1040, 2010: §  “Marriage reduces depression” §  “Unmarried adults are more likely to drink, use marijuana, and drive recklessly” §  “Married men and women experience lower mortality at every age relative to those who remain unmarried or lose their spouse through widowhood or divorce” §  “A number of rigorous studies reveal that marriage can also lead to better general physical health and better outcomes for some specific health conditions, including arthritis, hypertension, and heart disease” The impact of polygamy on women’s mental health: a systematic review | Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences 22(1):47-62, 2013 “Individual studies report a higher prevalence of somatization, depression, anxiety, hostility, psychoticism and psychiatric disorder in polygynous wives as well as reduced life and marital satisfaction, problematic family functioning and low self-esteem.”    Effects on children Parental Divorce or Death During Childhood and Adolescence. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 204(9):678-695, 2016: “Participants reporting a history of parental divorce present a significantly higher prevalence of psychiatric disorders, particularly alcohol and drug use disorders compared with control subjects. While participants experiencing the death of a parent reported a poorer overall health, the prevalence of psychiatric disorder after 17 years of age was not significantly higher than that of the control subjects.” The consequences of fatherlessness: “Children from fatherless homes are more likely to be poor, become involved in drug…

In the realm of logic there is a principle known as the fallacy of the false dilemma. The rules of logic are violated when a complex question is restricted to an arbitrary number of answers, typically just two. This occurs regularly in the public discourse and is a major contributor to polarization. Either global warming is a hoax, or global warming is the gravest threat to human existence. Either the complete neo-Darwinian paradigm is a fact or a total fabrication.  With both issues, there is a broad continuum of enlightened opinion that attracts little notice – because moderate people are boring. Recent insights from social psychology account for why we tend to gravitate toward extreme positions. It requires greater mental effort to parse complex issues, and we are naturally lazy. It enhances our ego when we can claim the mantle of moral superiority and vilify our opponents. That’s a lot less satisfying if your opponent might be even partially correct. A recent columnist asserted that liberals think Wall Street is the source of moral decay, and conservatives believe the decay stems from Washington. Are we facing a false dilemma? Let’s look a little closer. Taken at face value, the premise immediately leads to contradictions. The upper echelons of our federal government have been dominated by wealthy business types under both Republican and Democratic administrations, and for many a short career in government has been a Launchpad to success in business. Wall Street and Washington are more symbiotic than antagonistic. If…

Question: How does a procrastinating, crowd-averse father get his family from Edwards, CO into the path of totality for the 2017 total eclipse? Via Denver and I24? Heaven forbid! Back roads to Casper? No rooms or campsites for 50 miles in any direction. Answer: By schlepping northward to Shoshone, WY and pitching camp in the ersatz “Bill’s RV Park”. A mere sheep pasture until two days earlier, it was now a sheep pasture…with a PortaPotty.For our efforts we were rewarded with down-home hospitality and front row seating for one of nature’s most stunning spectacles: a total eclipse of the Sun.Now, you may think the Moon is quite ordinary. From an astronomical standpoint, nothing could be further from the truth. For starters, our Moon is 50 times larger than any other moon in the solar system, compared to its host planet.Even to have a perfect eclipse is quite remarkable  As luck would have it, the Sun is both 400 times larger in diameter than the Moon and 400 times farther, so that the Moon can perfectly occlude the Sun while allowing us to see and study its corona. Because the Moon is slowly pulling away from Earth, in about half a billion years there will be no more total eclipses. This may seem like a long time – it is, actually – but in geological terms we’re 90% there.    Until quite recently the origin of the Moon was a complete mystery. The prevailing theories during my youth – capture of a floating celestial…