60 Spirituality Studies 11-1 Spring 2025 1 Introduction As Valiente-Barroso and García-García (2010, 162) indicate, people’s health can be determined by some positive actions, one of which is religious practice. Religiosity can have a far-reaching impact on personal attitudes, being essential in the lives of individuals (Koenig, 2009, 289; Molina et al. 2020, 12), as it is determinants of thought, affect, and behavior (Valiente-Barroso and García-García 2010, 158). In addition, they can be fundamental in the perception that each person has of the world, their purpose in it, and the type of interventions/actions they would have to perform. In the analysis of religiosity, we should ask ourselves what role life purpose can play, that is, it would be useful to know whether people who engage in religious activities have a clearly determined life purpose. To provide information on this question, several recent investigations are highlighted (Boylan et al. 2023, 4–13; Abu-Raiya et al. 2021, 221–227; Tedrus and De Castro Fagan Marti 2002, 3). The recent study by Boylan et al. (2023, 4–13), conducted in the United States, shows the relationships between religiosity and mortality, having a purpose in life, and social support. This article investigates whether social support and purpose in life are two explanatory factors responsible for mediating the relationship between religiosity and death. The dates indicate that the purpose of life is a partial mediator of the relationship between religiosity and mortality. Specifically, they find that people of high religiosity have a stronger purpose in life, which positively affects their health. Another aspect to consider is related to self-esteem; we could ask ourselves if people with a larger number of religious practices have a better perception of their self-esteem. In line with this, we can highlight the work of Abu-Raiya et al. (2021, 221–227) carried out in Israel. This research shows that religiosity influences self-esteem and, in turn, that this relationship is marked by the cultural component. More specifically, among their findings, they discovered that religiosity influences self-esteem, but this effect is determined by the religious group to which people are linked. The conclusion drawn from this work is that religiosity serves to predict self-esteem, although its impact is marked by other contextual factors. Similar data are obtained in the work of Serpanou et al. (2024, 3437), which analyzes how religiosity interacts with different psychological variables in two different groups: people with spinal cord injuries and healthy people. Through multivariate linear regression analysis, it is shown that more intense views of religion on life were related to lower self-esteem. In this study, the patients themselves indicated that it was very important in daily life to exercise religious practices. Among their data, it is notable that religion could be used as a tool to improve self-esteem and reduce anxiety and depression, especially in people with certain pathologies. Similarly, Tedrus and De Castro Fagan Marti (2002, 3) explore the relationships between religiousness, self-esteem, and quality of life using a multidimensional approach in people suffering from mental illness. In this work, it is shown that religiosity is positively related to self-esteem and that there is a relationship between religiosity and purpose in life, all of which affect quality of life. Therefore, among their recommendations, they establish the need to use religiosity as a relevant resource to improve the self-esteem of patients. In the relationship between religiosity, spirituality, and self-esteem, Cheadle and Schetter (2018, 712–719) analyze how religiosity and spirituality can be a buffer for postpartum depression and how this relationship is mediated by self-esteem and optimism. In this investigation, it was demonstrated using statistical mediation, the existing relationships between the variables, specifically, it was discovered, among other aspects, that there was a significant and negative relationship between religiosity and postpartum depression, and that the link between both variables was mediated by self-esteem. On the relationship between religiosity, purpose in life, and self-esteem, it would be worth highlighting the work of Błazek and Besta (2010, 949–959), conducted with Polish university students, whose results reveal, among other aspects, that religious orientation favors life purpose and self-esteem. For their part, Sharma et al. (2023, 3–6) conducted research with students from public high schools, demonstrating, through structural equations, that students with a clearer life purpose have higher self-esteem. Therefore, as they indicate, the purpose of life is not only an existential goal but could be considered as a tool to improve, improve, or optimize the self-esteem of young people. In summary, it could be said that religiosity is an essential component in the attitudes and growth of the human being, which can be determinant in some aspects of the human being. In summary, there are several reasons for this work. The first reason is that, despite the importance that religiosity, self-esteem, and purpose of life seem to have in human beings, the number of studies on these topics is quite small. Second, it is important to promote studies on religiosi-
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