Suicidality and the LDS Church

Episode 7: Youth Suicidality and the Church (Justin Dyer) MAY 2020

It’s not uncommon to hear popular narratives that link depression and suicide with the Church.  Are those claims accurate? Dr. Justin Dyer finds the research suggests a different narrative. In this episode, professor Dyer shares his important studies about Latter-day Saint youth suicide, depression, LGBTQ members, and religiosity that can help us act in more informed and compassionate ways.

Listen to podcast #7 at this link here.

Publications:

Depression, Religiosity, and Parenting Styles among Young Latter-Day Saint Adolescents” (Religions, vol. 10, 2019).

Guest opinion: The church and LGBT youth suicide: Inaccurate claims may do more harm than good” (Deseret News, May 2019)

Commentary: Did the same-sex marriage policy of the LDS Church coincide with an increase in youth suicide?” (Salt Lake Tribune, September 2018)

Op-ed: Responding to Ellen on Mormons and teen suicide” (Deseret News, June 2018)

Other links:

Suicide Prevention and Ministering (churchofjesuschrist.org)

Utah Suicide Prevention Coalition

Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Why Faith is Good for your Health

Dan Peterson shares the sad story of a young man who left the Church and later took his life.  Dan points out positives associated with faith.

Peterson quotes Bertrand Russell’s dreary thoughts about the pointlessness of life.

Bertrand Russell

“That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave;

that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the débris of a universe in ruins—all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand.

Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.”

 

The best solution to lack of faith and despair is a return to faith and hope.

Among other things, Peterson shared research by Harvard scholars and compared C.S. Lewis’ life to Freud’s.  They correlated better mental health with faith and church attendance.

Latter-day Saints do well, according to Pew Research data in 2013:

Atheism, not God, is an Illusion

First, some perspectives from the 3 Mormons:

John Lennox is a master.

Lennox mentions world-famous atheist, Richard Dawkins, around the 3:45 mark.  Dawkins best-selling books is “The God Delusion.”

Lennox draws on experts in psychiatry who shares all the benefits of belief in God.  Atheism, in John’s estimation, is the illusion.