On Health, Healing and Disease in Religion and Science

Abstract

In recent years there has been a sharp increase in interest in religiosity and health (especially in the context of the pandemic of the last two years). Accordingly, there has been an increase in studies on the relationship between religiosity and health. However, any knowledgeable researcher finds that the results of studies are often contradictory, if not problematic. Looking for an explanation of the contradictory results obtained by researchers in the field, we found that they are largely due to methodological or perspective deficiencies. As for me, I think a lot of these difficulties come from wrong definitions and concepts. Thus, either religion is confused with spirituality, or the two are considered completely independent realities. The truth is that Religion and spirituality are two different but objective concepts and only their approach is problematic. And to the extent that we clarify this issue, I believe that we will be able to interpret the results of future studies more coherently.