Science & Health Benefits of Belief in God & Religion | Dr. David DeSteno

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  'Does God exist?' is not a useful scientific question, but religion's effects are testable

  DeSteno, a Northeastern University psychologist, says that when every falsifying finding (like evolution) can be reframed as 'how God works', science cannot settle the question. He chose psychology over religious studies so he could gather data. His conclusion is that religious traditions intuited, long before randomized trials, practices that make life better, and that religion is about what you do, not only belief: many atheist Jews practice and benefit.

• 02

  Pascal's wager works better once there are benefits in this life

  Pascal argued that even a tiny chance of infinite, everlasting happiness outweighs earthly pleasures. Critics ask what happens if that chance is zero or you pick the wrong religion. DeSteno says Pascal saw the fix: the bet makes sense if religion also brings benefits in the here and now, and he argues the data show it does.

• 03

  Long-term religious engagement is linked to roughly 30% lower all-cause mortality

  Citing Tyler VanderWeele's longitudinal work at Harvard's School of Public Health, DeSteno says people who actively engage with faith over 15–20 years have about 30% lower all-cause mortality and about 25% fewer deaths from cancer and cardiovascular disease, along with less anxiety and depression and more meaning. Following people over time addresses the earlier objection that sick people simply stop attending services. Community helps too, but the effect is larger for religious community than for, say, a bowling club.

• 04

  'Religioprospecting': mine traditions for practices, then test them

  Drug companies once 'bioprospected' traditional cultures and found chemotherapy and pain drugs. DeSteno proposes doing the same with religious practices, then studying them scientifically. Huberman compares this to meditation and psychedelics moving from fringe to funded research.

• 05

  Formal prayer works like breathwork

  Recited prayer, such as the rosary or Hindu sutras, slows breathing and lengthens exhales. That increases vagal tone, lowers heart rate and cortisol, and shifts the body toward openness rather than threat, even when you pray about worries. Huberman adds that signals travel up the vagus nerve from the body, not just down.

• 06

  Rituals are 'symphonies' of mind–body tools

  DeSteno calls a life hack a single note and a ritual a symphony. In Jewish shiva mourning, eulogies help consolidate positive memories, which bereavement researcher George Bonanno identifies as a key predictor of healthy grieving. Covering mirrors avoids the documented effect of mirrors intensifying whatever emotion you feel. Not shaving or dressing up reduces self-focus, and a minyan of at least 10 people praying in unison adds motor synchrony.

• 07

  Moral behavior is far more variable than people think

  Because people feel 'something came over them' when they act badly, religions often place evil outside the self. DeSteno says moral computations happen largely below awareness and shift with context and reputation: we evolved to be adaptive, not saints or sinners. Dimitris Xygalatas found people cheat far less in a temple than in a restaurant kitchen.

• 08

  Certainty, either way, reduces death anxiety

  Death anxiety follows an inverted U. Firm believers in an afterlife are least anxious, firm non-believers are next, and the uncertain are most anxious. Many traditions build in non-morbid contemplation of death, such as Buddhist corpse meditations, the Ash Wednesday line 'from dust you came', and the Rosh Hashanah prayer listing who may die in the coming year. Like aging, this shifts values toward loved ones, service and legacy, which DeSteno says bring happiness at any age.

• 09

  A relationship with God guards against loneliness

  Religious people report much less loneliness, partly through community and partly through feeling that someone always 'has your back'. DeSteno notes that some evangelical traditions train people to 'listen' for God. He says that seeing God would light up the visual cortex, but that this does not mean the experience reduces to neurons; he does not claim to know whether it is real.