People who lack kinship and friendship ties, find solace and comfort in faith, according to a survey
Faith helps lonely people to find support and purpose in life, show the data of sociological research which involved more than 19 thousand respondents.
The researchers brought together data from three surveys that have shown that people who lack kinship and friendship ties, find solace and comfort in faith, reports christianpost.com.
The researchers concluded that, because “religious beliefs compensate for the lack of many meanings and purposes, which are usually placed via social relations,” lonely believers respondents compensates for the lack of social ties and relationships through faith, because faith offers “a great goal to focus the soul” and “divine images as a replacement for social and family relationship”.
The study authors emphasize that “most people form their life goals based on mainly personal experience of social relations, while religious people are suffering from loneliness, word life meaning and purpose on the basis of their faith and religious experience, gradually achieving social well-being until the complete reunification of the society”.
Doctorate from the University of Michigan and one of the authors of the report, Todd Chan (Chan Todd) said that religious beliefs “provide life-affirming, life-saving effect on single people in the long term.”
“If we leave aside religion as such, among the unbelieving groups that is lonely people see much less of the meanings and purposes of life than people with strong and extensive social connections, says Chan. The devotion and strength of faith greatly contributes to overcoming the problems of social exclusion, especially in transitional situations”.
As reported by the SPM, earlier sociologists called the most religious among Orthodox countries.