Is decline in religion to blame for rise in mental health issues, asks Lisa Fouweather

While I’m not religious (at all), I do question if there’s something in the increasing secularisation of society which points to our, seemingly collective struggle to find a place in society.

A struggle to feel ‘at home’ in society. A struggle with, to put it frankly, what can only be likened to a mental health ‘epidemic’ in society.

With rates of mental ill health on the rise, one has to question, to use the official language: “What the f*** is going on?!’’

An increasingly secular society is, seemingly, an increasingly unhappy society, according to statistics released last year by the British Medical Association, which highlight the increasing rates of mental ill health in the UK, particularly amongst children and young people.

For example, between 2017 and 2022, rates of probable mental disorder increased from around 1 in 10 young people aged 17–19, to 1 in 4.

Furthermore, the percentage of adults aged 16–74 with a common mental disorder is also shown to have risen dramatically in recent years, having increased from 23.1% in 2000, to 39.4% in 2014, an increase of over two thirds (71%).

Considering rates of religion in society from the turn of the decade to now, one can’t help but notice a correlation.

As religion declines, mental ill health increases.

Between 2001 and 2011, the number of people who ticked ‘no religion’ on the UK’s census grew by almost 60%.

And it’s showing no sign of slowing down, either, with secularisation growing by a further 12% (an increase of over 8 million ‘atheists’ in a decade), between 2011 and 2021.

As such, the UK is now considered to be one of the most secular countries in the world, with only five other countries (China, Sweden, Japan, South Korea, and Norway), being less likely than the UK to believe in God.

Important to note, that it’s not just ‘God’ in the traditional sense that people are losing faith in, either. Four in ten (41%) of Britons believe there is neither ‘a god’ nor ‘a higher power’- nothing.

And, even for (the minority of) people who do still describe themselves as ‘religious’, their motivation for doing so is questionable, when, among British Christians, for example, 44% say that religion isn’t important in their life. This, to me, suggests that they’re self-describing as being ‘religious’ from a place of compliance as opposed to conviction, because they want to ‘belong’, not necessarily believe.

So, how does this all tie in to increasing rates of mental ill health?

With a decline in religion comes a decline in the community that comes with churches, for example, churches within which groups of likeminded people gather every week to practice their faith. When we are arguably the most disconnected we have ever been in human history, social media giving us all a false sense of connection, we are missing this sense of community, the sense of ‘togetherness’ that comes from believing in something, together, as a collective.

It’s therefore not religion itself that we are suffering from a lack of, I would argue.

In fact, I believe that the decline in organised religion can only be a good thing, in terms of religion being, in my opinion, nothing more than a source of control, all about fearmongering, scaring people into a state of compliance.

It’s the traditions, the community, the togetherness, that the decline in religion sees us suffering from a lack of.

The problem we have is that where secularisation has increased in society, we’ve been left with a gaping hole where the community that coincided with religion used to be, with nothing to ‘fill the gap’ that religion has left/nothing to replace it with.

And so, with no other source of connecting with people/of practicing the goodness of humanity, it can be easy to lose hope, demoralising, a bit (a lot) of a headf***.

But, we forget that we don’t need to be told what we can and can’t do by a figure depicted as ‘God’, sat on a moral high ground, and that we can act like good humans, develop connection and understanding with other people, ‘just because.’

This is the whole premise of atheist ‘churches’, such as the Sunday Assembly.

Reiterating the fact that we don’t need to believe in ‘God’ to come together/to practice humanity.

‘Instead of hymns, the non-faithful get to their feet to sing along to Stevie Wonder and Queen songs.

There is a reading from Alice in Wonderland and a power-point presentation from a particle physicist, Dr Harry Cliff, who explains the origins of antimatter theory.’

Without such events that continue to bring people together post-religion/in our increasingly secular world, without anything to fill the gap, it’s easy to spiral into a state of what I can only describe as ‘existential dread.’

Questions of, ‘so what is this all for?’, arising in response to the realisation that organised religions are but a source of control, not rooted in fact but in fairy-tale...

‘What is this all for?’

‘Why am I here?’

‘Where am I going?’

‘WHAT IS HAPPENING??’

And the fact is that, such questions will keep coming up, again and again and again, because ultimately, we all need something, if not religion, just something, to get us through life (because life is like, really really hard, and there’s no getting away from that fact).

There’s no getting away from the fact that, with all the beauty that comes with life, also comes pain.

Simply for being alive we know that we are going to die, that we are all going to have to go through the grief of losing the people we love. Knowing that nothing lasts forever, that everything is constantly shifting and changing shape and that we too will one day move on (where to, being the big debate), is hard.

And when religion has for so long been a coping mechanism for so many, a place to seek comfort from the big, unanswerable questions of life, with the rejection of it [religion], one of two things will happen.

You will either;

1) Become an atheist, which is what statistics suggest that the overwhelming majority of people will do - believing in absolutely nothing.

Or you will

2) Find solace in your own interpretation of religion/spirituality.

I am on the latter path now, having become ‘awakened’ to our oneness a few years ago in the wake of a depressive episode (I say ‘episode’ but it was months and months of feeling helpless, as though everything was futile, pointless. I was just in a very bad place, not even wanting to be here anymore).

Having no belief in the concept of a God or a higher power, for me now, is impossible.

I have to believe in something to stop me from disbelieving everything.

To refer back to the title of this article then.

‘Is A Decline In Religion To Blame For A Rise In Mental Ill Health?’

I really do query if the lack of belief in society, the lack of hope that something exists that is bigger than us, that we are here for a reason, a reason that is more important than our worries (superficialities) is, at least in part, having an impact on the increase in poor mental health.

Because again, writing from personal experience here, I know that when I didn’t believe in anything, I also couldn’t see the light in anything. Spiralling into a state of self-deprecation, I would constantly fear that I was a ‘failure’/’useless’/’hopeless’(insert self-deprecating word of your choice here), my eyes and ears shut to the subtle messages of the universe, refusing to acknowledge their existence, let alone their credibility.

I was angry at the world, constantly questioning if I was ‘on the right path’/’where I should be in life.’

How ironic.

The irony that so many people who believe in nothing find themselves in this cycle of worrying that their life isn’t ‘going to plan’, when the very basis of atheism is that there is no plan. If you want to feel like you are where you need to be, then the simple solution is to open your mind to the concept of spirituality.

When spirituality tells us that we are all ‘on the right path’, for there is only one path meant for us, predetermined, then we realise that it’s inevitable that we will find our way back to it, one day,

if we

just...

keep...

going.

And I don’t know about you but, in a world that is so unpredictable, in a world within which we have so little control (if any, arguably), the idea that there is a ‘higher power’, that we are protected by it, guided through life by it, ‘on the right path’ because of it, is incredibly comforting.

Not the ‘solution’ to poor mental health by any means. Believing in something greater than oneself won’t erase childhood trauma, or alter brain chemicals, but it might just make life that little bit less difficult. The gap that religion leaves being filled, not by something to control us/to force us to be compliant in the upholding of division, but by a

sense of oneness, an awakening*.

*An ‘awakening’ being the best way, the only way, to describe it. An awakening from a 22 year sleep, eyes and ears shut off from anything good coming your way, filled with resentment towards the seeming ‘futility’ of existence to, finally, being able to see clearly, for the first time in your life.

Returning home, to yourself, where everything is the same as it always was, but somehow, everything is different. Like a warm hug, a squeeze on your shoulder, and the realisation that ‘Everything’s gonna be alright.’

(and so it was).

AWAKEN.