Self-Control and Religion

So, thanks to the NY Times for an article about studies of self-control in intrinsically religious people. For Good Self-Control, Try Getting Religious About It. It seems like a pretty positive article, except, of course, for the fact that it seems to assume that the reader will not be a religious person. Maybe they're just trying to be cute.

Choice quotes:

Researchers around the world have repeatedly found that devoutly religious people tend to do better in school, live longer, have more satisfying marriages and be generally happier.

Does this mean that nonbelievers like me should start going to church? Even if you don’t believe in a supernatural god, you could try improving your self-control by at least going along with the rituals of organized religion.

But that probably wouldn’t work either, Dr. McCullough told me, because personality studies have identified a difference between true believers and others who attend services for extrinsic reasons, like wanting to impress people or make social connections. The intrinsically religious people have higher self-control, but the extrinsically religious do not.