While purported health benefits are hardly a sound basis for religious beliefs and practices, and the question of religiosity’s medical effects do not lend themselves easily to scientific analysis, a number of studies have tried to measure the impact of religion on psychological and even physiological well-being. Jonathan Ford Hughes points to several that make the case that both faith and ritual can be salubrious:

During the past year, write Eitan Fischberger and Yosef Kuperwasser, both Tehran and Ankara have expanded their efforts to bring their views of the world to U.S. audiences—and these views tend to be anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic, anti-American, and deeply influenced by Islamism: