A Interesting Peice of Information

[mattyohh]

I found this on Page 2 of our school Newsletter.

During my regular reading last week I came upon an article in 'The Church of England Newspaper' (Thursday 2 March 2006) with the headline: Faith Plays a Part in Health of Teenagers. The article referred to some highly significant findings from a study carried out by the University of Wales in which over 23,000 students from urban schools between the ages of 13-15 were interviewed. This study backed up the findings of a Children's Society report from 2005 that highlighted the role of spirituality in influencing the overall wellbeing of young people.

The findings of both studies included the following points, which are equally relevant for our young people at Canterbury:

''Young people with no faith have such low self-esteem that one in four have contemplated suicide."

"Teenagers with no religious belief were found to be much more likely to feel bad about themselves and their relationships with other people."

"Teenagers who belonged to a faith community were much more likely to feel that their life had a sense of purpose."

"Increasingly it is recognised that the full and proper assessment of the health of young people needs to take into account three dimensions: physical health, mental health and spiritual health. Spiritual health is about relationships. Good spiritual health is reflected in four areas: good relationship with self, good relationship with others, good relationship with the environment, good relationship with the transcendent."

At Canterbury, we are doing all we can to foster the health of our students in all three dimensions.

Yours in the love of Jesus.

REV. Elroy Mee
Chaplain

I don't really think that this study is accurate. I think that this is more of the Church trying to scare parents into taking their children to church or trying to push faith onto them.

What do you guys think?

[Tasselfoot]

1. You need to learn how to spell. I before E except after C. The word is spelled P-I-E-C-E (or peace, in other contexts).

2.

''Young people with no faith have such low self-esteem that one in four have contemplated suicide."

What is the suicide rate for kids with faith?

3. An excellent quote of debated origin, "There are 3 forms of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." Studies done, no matter who does them, are biased. Statistics can be made to reveal ANYTHING you want them to (within reason).

Basically... I wouldn't trust it, and I'd learn how to spell (if I were you).

[GuidoHunter]

What department in the University of Wales carried it out?

I think the study is mostly accurate. Faith does give purpose to people and to be spiritually secure really does help people out. Without that I'd wager that someone is more likely to feel empty and bad about their life.

So, this is not some sort of conspiracy to say that if you don't have faith you're going to be suicidal; there's no scare tactic in this at all, matty. That's just ridiculous.

What I think it suggests that it possibly doesn't mean, though, is that if you don't have faith or anything you're more likely to contemplate suicide or be unhappy or something.

So, I think the study is trying to focus on the extremes. That is, disregarding the faithful AND faith-less students who are just fine with themselves, the rest are more likely to feel good about themselves if they have religion in their lives and are more likely to feel bad if they don't.

It's kind of tough to not read something in there that doesn't exist, I think...

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com

[stretchypanda]

Think of it as a PIEce of PIE.

Anyway, lots of studies have been conducted on the healing power of faith. They've all concluded pretty much what that study found. Unfortunately, as has already been mentioned, statistics are biased. Not to say that faith can lift a person's spirits and drag him/her out of a physically or mentally devastating time, but I'm not planning to rely on prayer alone if I'm ever diagnosed with cancer.

So, the article you found has some truth to it, but it can't be interpreted to mean that every student with faith has never entertained thoughts of suicide, or that every student without faith has low self-esteem.

Edit: Basically I've said what Guido said.

[mattyohh]

I shall make an attempt to improve upon my atrocious spelling.

EDIT: I am unable to find the article from the 'Church of England Newspaper' as you have to subscribe to it. I did google it with the 2 March aswell and was only able to find an article about their opposition to Homosexual marriage.

EDIT 2: An. Happy?

[Tasselfoot]

an attempt.
an article.

use a when preceding a consonant sound and an before a vowel sound.

A pen writes.
An inkwell used to be used for writing.