Plan B Forum

A strong correlation exists between religiosity and personal happiness, according to a new study by the Austin Institute for the Study of Family and Culture.

The study found that people who attend religious services on a weekly basis are nearly twice as likely to describe themselves as “very happy” (45%) than people who never attend (28%). Conversely, those who never worship are twice as likely to say they are “very unhappy” (4%) as those who attend services weekly (2%).

Building on prior research, this broad survey of American adults comprised a representative sample of 15,738 Americans between the ages of 18 and 60.

The study indicated that not only religious service attendance, but self-reported “religiosity” and religious “affiliation” are also linked with happiness levels. Yet of the three indicators, service attendance has the highest correlation to increased happiness. The study showed that higher levels of church attendance “predict higher life satisfaction,” even after accounting for how important religious faith is in people’s lives.

The correlation between religiosity and happiness is clear, but explanations of the connection and possible causal relationship are less clear. One theory suggests that the social support that religious communities can provide may be a key factor contributing to increased happiness, since “religious Americans are more apt to be involved in their communities.” Yet even here, the study found “that those who attend religious services often are happier than their peers with similar levels of involvement in the community.”

These statistics tying happiness to religiosity have held true over time. A similar survey conducted ten years ago generated similar results, leading to the same conclusions. When the General Social Survey asked a sample of Americans in 2004, “Would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?” religious people were more than twice as likely as the non-religious to say they were “very happy” (43%-21%). The secular people, or those who never attend worship services, were overwhelmingly more likely to say they were not too happy (21%-8%).

http://www.breitbart.com/national-secur ... udy-shows/

bigskygal wrote:Whatever the source of this article, I've seen that general statistic reiterated in the press for years - studies show that those with religious/spiritual faith tend to be happier than those without.

MajGenl.Meade wrote:... It's also possible that happy people become religious. No?

Scooter wrote:

bigskygal wrote:Whatever the source of this article, I've seen that general statistic reiterated in the press for years - studies show that those with religious/spiritual faith tend to be happier than those without.

Well, self-reported "happiness" is a rather ephemeral concept, isn't it? Particularly if people are joining such entities looking to be told what to do, and those entities tell them that belonging should make them feel happy.

RayThom wrote:

MajGenl.Meade wrote:... It's also possible that happy people become religious. No?

It's a well known fact that naturally happy people are the least religious. They don't have anyone at a pulpit dictating what or how they should feel.

Did I ever mention that my PA car tag reads "GUILTY"? When I'm ask why I tell them I was raised catholic. Anyway, when people around me detected I was being unduly happy I was told it was gas and they'd offer me Beano to correct my mismanaged euphoria in order to get me back on track with God.

I fart in your general direction!

am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell.

You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to

it's my opinion that most religious people are 'happier' because they have their heads in the sand and/or are so focused on the afterlife that they can better tolerate devastation in this one.

Meade, I wish you wouldn't take my every comment about religion and religious people as directed at you and in the most negative light

MajGenl.Meade wrote:

RayThom wrote:... "Dictating what or how they should feel" indeed. I am sorry for your childhood. It must have been unpleasant judging by your hurt and cheap insults.