It's belief systems that keep us healthy, not religion

Dein et al ¹ appear to believe, on the basis of suggestive but by no means overwhelming evidence, that religious belief is associated with good mental health. Bruno Bettelheim, in his account of his concentration camp incarceration, ² noted that those who survived best were those with firmly held beliefs and ideology. Devout Jews and committed Marxists (atheists all) survived longer than those without a belief system. It is not religion as such that saves, but –however derived – a sense of community and connection, and the capacity to put even indescribable suffering into a wider context. Christianity can do this, but so equally do secular belief systems, including non-theistic religions such as Buddhism.