Are people who believe in god happier than non-believers?

Nothin' on the tube, Kicky?

In my youth I was a pretty devout Evangelical Christian to the point that I was planning to go into the ministry. (I still give a pretty good sermon).

But, I left all that behind when I realized it wasn't making me happy.

I am happier now.

Of course this is just my story.

Hmmm...interesting, ebrown. Are you sure you weren't happy during the period of time when you really were a true believer? Could it be that it was just at that point when you started to question your faith that you lost the joy of your religious beliefs?

As a counter-anecdotal argument to what you've just posted, a friend of mine was recently talking about how he is currently going through some hardships. He is a non-believer. He said that he remembers when he was a true bible-thumpin' believer, back in high school and how much happier he was then.

I certainly hope that being a religious believer doesn't give you an extra advantage when it comes to being happy, but I have to admit, it sounds like a serious advantage in the pursuit of happiness to just be able to just simply put your trust and faith in a higher power when things get tough.

I maintan it's the individual and not the belief system makes one happy or miserable. My ex friend, XXXXX, who maintains he is a prophet, is one of the least happy individuals I know.

This is the only piece claiming some evidentiary base I could find upon cursory googling:


http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110010672




I'd say the religious are constantly under the influence of a pernicious drug, and always divorced from reality, of course!!!

I don't see a whole lot of difference between saying "That's life" and "That's God's plan." Both are ways of giving names to states of affairs that will exist regardless of what we call them. The same is true of the notion that one's individual suffering will ultimately be proven to "mean" something in God's grand scheme. If "meaning" is a function of being part of God's plan, and everything can be said to be part of God's plan (including one's suffering), then everything has meaning, which is to say that having meaning isn't a particularly special property since it is a property shared by everything. (According to this view, the statement "This event has meaning" is just as irrefutably true, and therefore just as trivial, as the statement "This object is made of matter.") This concept of meaning amounts to a tautology, since there is no way to refute that something is part of God's plan, and I agree with Edgarblythe that a concept of happiness which relies on grand tautological schemes rather than on individual actions and judgments is not a happiness that I am particularly worried about not having.

From my own personal experience I can give you my accounts. I have been re-evaluating my own life and happiness lately. maybe it has something to do with my age or the changes I have gone through in my life.
I was raised in a strict catholic household. We went to church every sunday and holy day. I went to catholic elementary and high school. I stopped going to church when I was about 19. I really questioned how the catholic people around me represented the religion. I don't think that you have to go to church every sunday to be a good christian, I think it's more on how you choose to live your life.
Now, getting to my own happiness part of the question, I went through a very difficult time in my life when my husband left. I didn't turn to god or the church. But I do feel that things happen for the reason of teaching you how to deal with pain. I do believe in a higher power. I really don't think I'm any less happy than people around me who practice their religion on a regular basis.

So, are you happy or unhappy?

Happy. Generally speaking.

Those that believe in god (if they are rational and educated) must deal with the concern of self-delusion in the form of faith.

That not a recipe for happiness.

Thus the question then becomes: "Are people who believe in god rational and educated?"

in essence then, the titular question has been asked many times on A2.

I've been very happy and very depressed - with all the levels in between. I've been an atheist throughout.

Is the source of your happiness a pernicious drug? If not, then I would think that the religious are happy not because of the pernicious drug of religion, but because of some other thing that may also be the source of your happiness. Maybe the source of that happiness is nothing more than well balanced brain chemicals and reactions, and religion is irrelevant.

This thread started because of a discussion I had with a friend recently who was bemoaning the fact that he is now a non-believer, and how much happier he supposedly was when he had his religious faith to lean on.

One of the things I told him was almost exactly what you just said here, Edgar. Some people are just perky idiots who are happy for no good reason, and some are mysanthropic downers for no good reason, and it has nothing to do with religious beliefs or even anything outside their own predispositions. I think this is a very persuasive argument.

Although, maybe that predisposition is due to a belief system as well, though it has nothing to do with what it is that you believe. Maybe it just has to do with believing in something, whatever that something might be.

Or maybe the secret to happiness is not to think about life in depth, which would explain the seemingly larger amount of happiness that religious people have, according to that article that dlowan posted. I think a lot of people use religious belief to divest themselves of thought. They just simply believe. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

I was a beliver and now long a non-believer. I'm the same person throughout those years, a perky little depressive. or sardonic hoper re daily life.

Kicky ignores Chumly
Then Chumly ignores Kicky
Then god ignores man
Then the world ends

I think that the people who cannot cope with life resp. take responsibility
of it, will look for a "higher power" and/or "God" so to speak, to bail
them out and help them. Praying to them, will bring much needed stress
relief and a way out of something they can't deal with (yet).

The rest of us (atheist, agnostic, heathen) has to deal with ourselves and take appropriate actions accordingly.

I didn't ignore you, Chumly. Actually, I wrote a response to your post then decided to go a different way.

The gist of my response though was that I don't believe the true believer has to concern themselves with the problem of self-delusion. If they are a true believer, they must, by definition, believe that they are not deluding themselves.

So you agree with Edgar, as I think I do?

That's true, Kicky. When I believed, I believed No problem.






Well, til later, when I didn't. Then that angst passed, and no problem again.