There are no atheists in foxholes; or so we hear. The thought that the fear of death motivates religious belief has been around since the earliest speculations about the origins of religion. There are hints of this idea in the ancient world, but the theory achieves prominence in the works of Enlightenment critics and Victorian theorists of religion, and has been further developed by contemporary cognitive scientists. Why do people believe in gods? Because they fear death. Yet despite the abiding appeal of this simple hypothesis, there has not been a systematic attempt to evaluate its central claims and the assumptions underlying them. Do human beings fear death? If so, who fears death more, religious or nonreligious people? Do reminders of our mortality really motivate religious belief? Do religious beliefs actually provide comfort against the inevitability of death? In Death Anxiety and Religious Belief, Jonathan Jong and Jamin Halberstadt begin to answer these questions, drawing on the extensive literature on the psychology of death anxiety and religious belief, from childhood to the point of death, as well as their own experimental research on conscious and unconscious fear and faith. In the course of their investigations, they consider the history of ideas about religion's origins, challenges of psychological measurement, and the very nature of emotion and belief.

This book provides a new perspective on the association between religious beliefs and mental health. The book is divided into five parts, the first of which traces the development of theories of organic evolution in the cultural and religious context before Charles Darwin. Part II describes the major evolutionary theories that Darwin proposed in his three books on evolution, and the religious, sociological, and scientific reactions to his theories. Part III introduces the reader to the concept of evolutionary psychiatry. It discusses how different regions of the brain evolved over time, and explains that certain brain regions evolved to protect us from danger by assessing threats of harm in the environment, including other humans. Specifically, this part describes: how psychiatric symptoms that are commonly experienced by normal individuals during their everyday lives are the product of brain mechanisms that evolved to protect us from harm; the prevalence rate of psychiatric symptoms in the U.S. general population; how religious and other beliefs influence the brain mechanisms that underlie psychiatric symptoms; and the brain regions that are involved in different psychiatric disorders. Part IV presents the findings of U.S. studies demonstrating that positive beliefs about God and life-after-death, and belief in meaning-in-life and divine forgiveness have salutary associations with mental health, whereas negative beliefs about God and life-after-death, belief in the Devil and human evil, and doubts about one’s religious beliefs have pernicious associations with mental health. The last part of the book summarizes each section and recommends research on the brain mechanism underlying psychiatric symptoms, and the relationships among these brain mechanisms, religious beliefs, and mental health in the context of ETAS Theory.

This first systematic guide to the latest research about religion and aging focuses on the linkage between religion and health outcomes in people over 55, who will represent one-third of America's population by the year 2025. A short introduction points to the rapidly growing literature since 1980; the conclusion offers a brief synthesis of the varied basic and applied studies on the subject and suggests a useful model to consider applying. Nearly 300 entries with concise and comprehensive annotations are organized under four main subjects: religious beliefs, behaviors, and experience; relationships between religion and health; practical applications of research findings; and measuring religiosity and spirituality. Arranged under numerous additional sub-topics and with author and subject indexes, the guide is accessible and designed for varied use by students, teachers, researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and professionals in the fields of sociology and social work, psychology and psychiatry, and medicine and health. Researchers, educators, and policymakers will find this book invaluable in identifying research and application studies and in evaluating their quality and methodology. Arranged under additional subtopics (by populations in many situations with varied problems, in terms of concerns relating to mental and physical health and with applications in different fields) and with author and subject indexes, the guide is accessible and designed for varied use by students, teachers, practitioners, and professionals in the fields of sociology and social work, psychology and psychiatry, and medicine and health.