Colorful background girl portrait. Photo: Capuski (Getty)
Yeah, but don’t religious people want to die earlier and go to heaven?
Ohio State psychology researchers recently analyzed more than 1,000 obituaries published across America. They came to the conclusion that people of faith live up to four years longer than those who don’t believe in God.
In the study’s first installment, researchers took a gander at 505 obituaries published in the Des Moines Register in January and February 2012. They found a huge difference there. Religious people lived 9.45 years longer than atheists, with that number dipping to 6.48 years when they took gender and marital status into account.
They then more than doubled the amount of obits in the study’s second installment. After analyzing “1,096 obituaries from 42 major cities in the United States published on newspaper websites between August 2010 and August 2011,” they discovered deceased people with an obituary that mentioned a religious affiliation lived an average of 5.64 years longer than those whose obits did not. That number shrunk to 3.82 years after gender and marital status were considered.
Religious people with guns, however, is another story entirely: Idiot Shoots Himself In Church While Advocating For Right To Bring Guns To Church
The reason researchers believe religious people live longer? They often times volunteer in social groups and drink less alcohol than those who don’t go to church. Those two traits have been associated with living longer on many occasions.
So yeah, if those are the two traits that matter most, then it looks like a lot of us are f–ked (possibly for eternity).
