[Hac-announce] I'm told my Letter to Editor on religion and suicide will be printed in the New Haven Register

[Cary S Shaw]

If you could keep your eyes peeled over the coming week and save a copy for me, I’d appreciate it.

The New Haven Register’s article is at:

https://www.nhregister.com/health/article/Study-Marriage-religious-doubts-can-raise-12539889.php


My letter to the editor is:

New Haven Register

To: letters at nhregister.com

Letter to the Editor – Veteran Suicide



Thanks for your article (Wednesday January 31) about religion and veteran suicide.  Readers may have misunderstood the title of the article, and thereby obtained the wrong impression.  The study shows that there is a segment of religiously reliant veterans who have “Negative Religious Coping”, having feelings of being forsaken or punished by god.  One can understand that this may be the result of wartime experience, and its mismatch with forms of religious belief.  This group has a significantly higher rate of suicide than others.  The words “religious doubts” in the heading of the news account (not a term used in the study itself) refers to these religious believers.  The other group of the religiously reliant have “Positive Religious Coping”, with feelings such as a secure relationship with God or a sense of spirituality.  They had the same, not lower, rate of suicide as those who were not religiously reliant.  Thus religiously reliant people as a combined group may have a higher suicide rate than others, an idea not contradicted by the study.  People who are not religiously reliant may find their strength in themselves and in their community, and in a naturalistic understanding of the world.



[The author of this letter, Cary Shaw, is an Analytics professional, with applications ranging from public policy to medicine, and is President, Humanists and Freethinkers of Fairfield County.]



Cary Shaw

President, Humanists and Freethinkers of Fairfield County





11 Lycett Ct

Norwalk CT 06850

(203)849-8978

caryshaw at optonline.net


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