It is my understanding that some fundamentalist Protestant groups do advocate beating children. Looking on the web, there are numerous sites on the subject, like THIS ONE,and THIS ONE; THIS ONE; Another work in the same vein would be Larry Tomczak, God, the Rod, and Your Child's Bod. The idea seems to be to break the child's will.

As for studies which show that religious persons enjoy better mental health, I would point out there are also studies showing that gun-owners prevent 1 million crimes each year, and a very famous study proving that 10% of all people are really Gay. But my very favorite study is the one that proves that 85 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot! There are studies which prove just everything! MSG