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Notes -
This is a bit misleading. A lot of the ways that religion benefits individuals has a positive social effect. Off the top of my head, so I might mess a couple of these up, but regular religious practice tends to be correlated with increased fertility, increased fostering/adopting, decreased crime/recidivism, increased mental health, increased physical health, longer, happier marriages, and an increased history of charitable donations and/or volunteer work.
All of these have positive benefits for society as a whole that ripple beyond the believer.
On the flip side, we've seen that an decline of religious faith seems to generate a bunch of "nones" who don't really gain the supposed benefits of irreligiosity (they still often believe in ghosts, or God, or astrology, or whatever) but they miss out on the very real benefits of regular religious practice.
However, it's also worth pointing out that the benefits of mere religious belief are weak. Where you see these tangible benefits of religion is in people who practice it. (This isn't, like, a cheeky tautological statement, it's more that if you want to see the above effect in scientific research you want to look for e.g. frequent religious attendance rather than merely identifying with a faith tradition.)
Now, I am speaking here of the United States. It's entirely possible that things are different somewhere else.
(Interestingly, as I understand it, there's at least some research that suggests at least some of these health benefits conferred by religious belief only benefit the believer in a religious environment, and that stripping the broader religious culture removes some of those benefits. From a utilitarian analysis, I suppose this has harsh implications for people who try to remove that religious culture. But I'm not sure if I trust a what's likely a vibecoded gravestone analysis to get that right.)
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