The Power to Uplift
Pamela Paul
1    Not many people could smile through what Karen Granger, 41, suffered last year. First, her husband Eric was laid off from his telecom job. Then in March, finally pregnant and eager to start a family, she had a miscarriage. One month later, her closest cousin Sharon received a diagnosis of advanced breast cancer. No sooner did Granger return from visiting Sharon in Tower Lakes, Ill., than two hurricanes smacked her hometown of Boynton Beach, Fla. Finally, in early December one of her best friends died at age 50 from a brain tumor. After that, she found herself asking, “Why, God? Why?”
2    But Granger, a devout Christian who attends Presbyterian services weekly and prays daily, doesn’t allow circumstances to get her down. “We’re not in heaven yet,” she says, “and these things happen on this earth.” Granger credits religion with helping her cope and giving her a feeling of connection and purpose. “We’re putting our lives in God’s hands and trusting he has our best interests at heart,” she says. “I’ve clung to my faith more than ever this year.
As a consequence, I haven’t lost my joy.”
3    Comfort and joy. Inner peace. A sense of well-being. Sacred texts and sermons have long promised such rewards to the faithful. Now the rigor of scientific research is being applied to this seemingly ineffable tenet of religious belief. According to Dr. Harold Koenig, a co-director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at Duke University, from 2000 to 2002 more than 1,000 scholarly articles on the relationship between religion and mental health were published in academic journals ---- as opposed to just 100 from 1980 to 1982. Such studies indicate that religion buffers its adherents from worry.
提升的力量
帕米拉·保罗
1  没有很多人能笑着经过 41岁的凯伦·格兰杰去年所遭受的苦难。首先，她的丈夫艾瑞克从他的电信工作下岗。接着在三月，终于怀孕的，并渴望建立一个家庭的她流产了。一个月之后，她最亲近的表亲沙龙被诊断出患有晚期乳腺癌。格兰杰从伊利诺伊州塔尔湖的沙龙回国
后不久，便有两次飓风袭击了她的家乡佛罗里达州的博因顿海滩。最后，在12月上旬，她最好的朋友之一在50岁因为脑瘤死亡。经历了这些事之后，她发现自己在问:”为什么，上帝为什么？”
2 但是，格兰杰是位虔诚的基督徒，她每周参加长老会礼拜，每天祈祷，不允许任何情况使她失望。”我们还没有进入天堂”，她说道,”这些事情在地球发生。”格兰杰认为宗教可以帮助她应付并给她带来联系感和目标感。“我们正在把生命放在上帝的手中，并相信他将我们的最大利益放在心上。”她说，“今年以来，我更加坚定了自己的信念。结果，我没有失去我的欢乐。”
3  舒适与欢乐。内心的平静。幸福感。长期以来，神圣的经文和讲道已向信徒们提供了这样的奖励。现在，严谨的科学研究已被应用到宗教信仰这一看似无法言喻的信条上。 根据杜克大学灵性，神学与健康中心的联合主任Harold Koenig博士所说，从2000年到2002年，学术期刊上发表了1000多篇有关宗教与心理健康之间关系的学术文章， 与之相比，从1980年到1982年，这一数字仅为100。这样的研究表明，宗教可以缓解信徒的担忧。
Religious people are less depressed, less anxious and less suicidal than nonreligious peop
le. And they are better able to cope with such crises as illness, divorce and bereavement. Even if you compare two people who have symptoms of depression, says Michael McCullough, an associate professor of psychology and religious studies at the University of Miami, “the more religious person will be a little less sad.”
4    Chances are, he’ll also be a little happier. Studies show that the more a believer incorporates religion into daily living ---- attending services, reading Scripture, praying ---- the better off he or she appears to be on two measures of happiness: frequency of positive emotions and overall sense of satisfaction with life. Attending services has a particularly strong correlation to feeling happy, and religious certainty ---- less is more 翻译the sense of unshakable faith in God and the truth of one’s beliefs ---- is most closely linked with life satisfaction begun to exa
5    The question is why. To find out, researchers havemine nationwide data and conduct smaller in-depth studies asking people what they believe and why they pray. (1) We know religion’s benefits can be roughly divided into four areas: social support, spiritual support, a sense of purpose and meaning and the avoidance of risky and stressful behaviors.
6    The value of social support is the easiest to demonstrate. Religion, after all, derives from the Latin religio, meaning “to bind together”---- linking individuals to family and ancestors, friends and community, clergy and congregation. A person with strong social connections could get similar benefits from family meals or knitting circles, McCullough allows, but “people who are religious may just get more of it.” Plus there’s the added layer of spiritual support.
信奉宗教的人几乎不会沮丧，紧张并且比不信奉宗教的人自杀更少。他们更有能力应付疾病，离婚和丧亲之类的危机。 迈阿密大学心理学与宗教研究副教授迈克尔·麦卡洛表示，即使比较两个患有抑郁症的人，“信奉更多宗教的人也会少一些难过”。
4 他也可能会更快乐。研究表明，信徒越是将宗教融入日常生活-参加礼拜，阅读圣经，祈祷-越能使他或她的幸福感提高两个方面：积极情绪的发生频率和整体感觉 生活满意。 出勤服务与幸福感和宗教的确定性有着特别强烈的联系-宗教信仰的坚定性-对上帝的坚定信念和信仰的真相-与人们对生活的满意度开始密切相关。
5 问题是为什么。为了出原因，研究人员掌握了全国范围的数据，并进行了较小规模的深
入研究，询问人们他们相信什么以及为什么祈祷。（1）我们知道宗教的好处能被大体分为四个方面：社会支持，精神支持，目的感和意义感以及避免冒险和压力行为。
6  社会知识的价值是最容易说明的。毕竟，宗教源于拉丁文宗教，意为“捆绑在一起” ----将个人与家庭和祖先，朋友和社区，神职人员和会众联系起来。麦卡洛承认，拥有良好社交关系的人可以从家庭聚餐或编织圈子中获得类似的好处，但“有宗教信仰的人可能会从中得到更多。” 另外，还有一层精神支持。
“If you believe there’s a God watching out for you, that’s profoundly comforting,” he says. “It’s the grand-scale equivalent of thinking. If I can’t pay my rent at the end of the month, my dad will help.”
7    Doing good works through acts of charity or prayer and meditation provides another sense of connection to community for many believers. That is a key factor in Buddhism’s capacity to foster happiness, says clinical psychologist Lorne Ladner, who has written on the topic. “A person might emulate the Buddha by imagining he’s breathing in the suffering of others and breathing out energy to heal them,” Ladner explains. “You literally breathe in
sadness and exhale joy. (2) This doesn’t magically alleviate people’s suffering, but the practice does help a person develop a strong sense of compassion, and compassion has been linked to happiness.”

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