Post subject: Mental health and influence of religion: Buddhism

We briefly discussed correlation between mental health and religion. What's your thought on the correlation between mental health and Buddhism?

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I think Budhism makes folks more chilled out & less materialistic. Of all the poeple of various faiths that I've met, I've found the Budhists to be the least stressed-out.

What have you found?

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What do you think about them having the highest life expectancy? Do you think there are reasons due to lifestyle or is it just genetic?

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I talked about this in this forum, but I'll describe reasons again. Also I want to add a couple of more new thoughts.

Developed countries have much higher life expectancy due to the following reasons:

1. Clean water's availability
2. Relatively clean air
3. Relatively accessible healthcare and Medicare (though healthcare and Medicare can cost much depending on where you live, and you may even be forced to be in debt in some cases, healthcare and Medicare are accessible)
4. More than sufficient amount of food

There is a huge gap between developing countries and developed countries because of reasons 1, 2, 3 and 4. Japan has one huge difference in addition. The difference between rich and poor in Japan is the smallest among developed countries. Surely, they have problems of inequality, but problems are much less severe. This is believed to make the most fundamental differences in society, and these contribute to the longest life expectancy in the world.

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But don't they also work one of the longest working days in the developed world? Does this not add to stress though?

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I agree. Don't you think it's about time we developed another system?

What kind of system would you like to see be developed?

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I'm not a philosopher or scholar, so I cannot say what kind of system would be far superior to any of existing systems and past systems, but I can say the followings. All existing systems have some problems; capitalism has number of serious problems. Communism has number of serious problems. Anarchism, though not experimented much, probably has some problems. However, all systems have some things to offer. Capitalism offers some things. Communism also. Socialism offers many good things.

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Fair play to you, but if you had to imagine living under a system where you think you'd be most happy, what kind of qualities would that system you imagined have?

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Hybrid of capitalism and socialism (communism) is probably more ideal than capitalism or socialism (communism). I believe that providing necessities to everyone in the society is critical. Necessities include healthcare, Medicare, welfare, child support and all. Some argue that healthcare is not a bare necessity, but the society essentially becomes a representation of social Darwinism without it. There are also other reasons why something like healthcare needs to be provided to everyone. At the same time do I believe that for-profit organizations, businesses, drive innovation, and they do benefit the society in many cases; there are things that should be not traded, but it's healthy to trade many things and embrace free market. I'm not a big proponent of Anarchism; though I strongly believe that any state represents some kind of power structure and it is usually a violent one, I don't think it realistic to envision a sustainable society without the presence of state/government.

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Do you know of any country that's practicing this type of government? Which government, if you could choose to live in any country, would you find to be closest to what you'd like to see?

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Tough to find the closet, but Canada seems to be doing a pretty good job. They have universal healthcare, and also their taxation is better adjusted than many countries. More specifically, those who have income above a certain level have higher tax rate.

A lot of people criticize universal healthcare, and one of the main complains is that they are so slow to handle many operations like knee surgery. I'm sure that their complains are legitimate, but their over all health has improved pretty significantly if you look at the average life expectancy.