t people who are religious and spiritual tend to have better mental health, which you would think shatters the idea that religion is a "mental illness," as some non-religious people ridiculously claim.
But if religion is a mental illness, it is clearly not recognised as such, so mental illness would clearly be vastly underdiagnosed among the religious…
Note that it is well established that, in many cases, the only difference between delusion and religious faith is the level of social/subcultural acceptability.
The bigger picture is that this is hard evidence that Divinity exists. Why? For the simple fact that depression is a real condition, a chemical imbalance, and thus, it's not something that you can "believe" away.
I actually facepalmed hard several times.
The psyche is part of our biological systems, and as such, it interacts with all the other biological systems. And that is particularly true with mental illness.
It is not gods that alleviate depression. It is not even faith in itself that alleviates depression. No, faith can alleviate stress by the way of easy superiority and convenient lies. And that - REDUCED STRESS - is what alleviates depression.
Also, this is funny, considering how neuroscience makes it ever clearer that materialism is indeed true, and quite frankly, as far as I’m concerned, dualism is pretty much as untenable as old earth creationism.
All that is Divine can do good for the human condition. Take the Sun for instance, which was and still is a God to certain people and groups.
People, in their desperation to, as social animals, empathise, manipulate and negotiate with the forces of nature so beyond of their control, have worshipped literally ANYTHING. And especially anything that was very obviously beneficial, pleasant and/or powerful. As such, this is meaningless.
Also, what about Nergal, the Babylonian archer-god of war, disease and the merciless desert sun?
Apollon being God of the sun and healing
Fun fact: Apollon is actually the Hethite version of said Nergal, Apaliunas, patron of Wilusa (aka Troy), after the Greeks appropriated him.
The light can as well push depression out of the mind and even heal infants of jaundice. The Sun saves the babies from permanent brain damage and death caused by this affliction. Again, jaundice is not something you can "believe" away.
…this is even more idiotic than the first “proof”!