Books by Atheists on How Science Proves Moderate-Religiosity can be Healthy & Make us Happier

After reading books like Karen Armstrong's A History of God, I became curious about the origins of religious longing for the Transcendent and the numinous, and why we tend to believe, or want to believe, in religious ideas. I started with Michael Shermer's books on the subject and then I read several other books. Here are a sampling of the books I read that comes to mind; they are written mostly by atheistic scientists arguing that religion and theistic tendencies is innate in our species:

> Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief by Andrew B. Newberg, Eugene G. d'Aquili, and Vince Rause

> Born to Believe: God, Science, and the Origin of Ordinary and Extraordinary Beliefs by Andrew B. Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman

> The "God" Part of the Brain: A Scientific Interpretation of Human Spirituality and God by Matthew Alper

> Did Man Create God?: Is Your Spiritual Brain at Peace with Your Thinking Brain? by David E. Comings

> The Evolution of God by Robert Wright

> The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt

All (or most) of the books above are written by nontheists who do not believe in the supernatural veracity of religious claims; nonetheless they conclude that the science is clear that we evolved a "spiritual brain" if you will. Even the famous atheist Fredrick Nietzsche was "spiritual" (as a recent bio of him by Sue Prideaux argues). For example, as referenced in her book, in In Human All Too Human, section 251 -- The Future of Science, he wrote, "... a higher culture must give man a double brain, two brain chambers, so to speak, one to feel science and the other to feel non science, which can lie side by side, without confusion, divisible, exclusive; this is a necessity of health."

So all of this led me to question my rejection of any and all religious structure, belief, and ritual. Could all that stuff be healthy for our brain if practiced rationally in moderation? Was I actually ignoring the scientific evidence (offered in the books above) by at least not being a religious humanist? Then two books at the time really pushed me away from secular humanism toward more of a religious humanism. These books were Bruce S. Sheiman's An Atheist Defends Religion, and Alain de Botton's Religion for Atheists. Both books were written by atheists yet even as atheists they found value in religious ideas and ritual, and it was clear to me that benign non-fundamentalist religion was good for the psyche.

The LDS Religion as Pragmatically Useful to Overcome Cultural-Nihilism

 

“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.”

~ Seneca

Another version: "Religion was regarded by the common people as true, by the skeptical philosophers as false, and by the politicians as useful." I see no reason why this statement cannot be true and yet not used in a cynical way but as a way to see religion through a pragmatic lens as useful for herding the average person into a civilized mindset. For without Organized Religion where people gather to suspend their disbelief and skepticism to believe in a Higher Power and that life has ultimate meaning, Many people can (and do as we see today) lose a sense of meaning in life and dwindle into atheistic nihilism. 

In other words, why not chart a third alternative as Stephan Covey puts it and see religion as not literally or factually true in all cases, but pragmatically beneficial as dramatic ritual and artistic metaphor, as a love poem to reality, giving your life meaning and vitality. So what the LDS Church does when it's at it's best is imbue a sense of meaning and belonging in the individual by giving him Divine Parents who love him as a soul. Instead of falling victim to far-Leftism and atheistic nihilism diminishing his overall self-esteem as a cosmic orphan, the LDS community can bolster his belief system by being surrounded by like-minded individuals who share a higher ethical standard based on a theological worldview? 

After all, if you stick to nihilism as true and there is no meaning, no purpose, no soul, no right or wrong, then there is no reason not to use religion for your individual purposes. Martin Luther King Jr. did just that, he was a personally flawed man and personally did not believe in a lot of Christianity literally, but interpreted it more mythologically; yet this did not stop him from using religion and the metaphor of the Jews escaping slavery under Egyptian rule, in order to imbue African-Americans with inspiration for overcoming the oppression of that time; and thus spearheading a movement by giving it an artistic drama enforcing the Civil Rights Movement. Who can deny that his oratory skills and theological innovations buoyed up the Civil Rights Movement and made it as successful as it did. Who can deny the artistic power of his "I Have a Dream" speech which uses many biblical metaphors? In other words, why let all the Fundamentalist have all the fun? Why not use religion yourself for your own benefit, the benefits of your friends and family and loved ones? Why succumb to the depressive philosophy of nihilism anyway? Who's going to judge you if you do entertain  the religious worldview? Who's going to say you were stupid or silly if you're soon going to die and become worm food and you don't exist as a soul and nothing matters a thousand years from now from the atheists' point of view?