Broke my Heart...

[downbeatplumb]

Oops, sorry for the bad link.
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2006/02/1...happy-yet/

People who attend religious services weekly or more are happier (43% very happy) than those who attend monthly or less (31%); or seldom or never (26%). This correlation between happiness and frequency of church attendance has been a consistent finding in the General Social Surveys taken over the years...

[And while we're there...]

Some 45% of all Republicans report being very happy, compared with just 30% of Democrats and 29% of independents. This finding has also been around a long time; Republicans have been happier than Democrats every year since the General Social Survey began taking its measurements in 1972...

Married people (43% very happy) are a good bit happier than unmarrieds (24%) and this too has been a consistent finding over many years and many surveys.

Well they do say ignorance is bliss.

[Cyberman]

I'd be interested to know how the people who analysed those numbers define "happy". Content? Blissful? Smug? I know from experience that a drunken person can be happier (though not necessarily so) than a sober one, albeit temporarily. Collect together a group of similar-minded individuals and convince them they are God's Chosen and hence superior to the rest of humanity, and I've no doubt their "happiness" rating reaches to high heaven.

[John V]

I'd be interested to know how the people who analysed those numbers define "happy". Content? Blissful? Smug? I know from experience that a drunken person can be happier (though not necessarily so) than a sober one, albeit temporarily. Collect together a group of similar-minded individuals and convince them they are God's Chosen and hence superior to the rest of humanity, and I've no doubt their "happiness" rating reaches to high heaven.

It was a survey. People were asked if they were very happy, somewhat happy etc. and were left to define it for themselves.

[festive1]

Happiness is subjective.

[Creed of Heresy]

John, if you are surprised at all that people believing a lie engineered to make them feel special are reportedly happier, then I've no hope for you.

I imagine children who believe in Santa Claus are generally happier than those who realize the truth to the magic. When the illusion is dispelled, there is some disappointment. It's more fun to believe the fairy tale than to accept reality, at least to the under-matured mind, at any rate.

Solipsism.

[Gilgamesh]

Religious people tend to be happier

I actually believe this. I've thought about it a lot. Atheists always happen to be depressed and have some mental disorder.

[paulpablo]

Every jewish person ive ever seen always looked really clean cut, with money and happy, i dont really feel sorry for them, i doubt they really believe in the torah its a bit of a mental crazy book.
I think its more of a cultural thing. I could be wrong though, but its the old testiment id be surprised if any logical thinking person could ever really believe in that.

[John V]

John, if you are surprised at all that people believing a lie engineered to make them feel special are reportedly happier, then I've no hope for you.

I presume you're referring to religion. I expressed no surprise in the survey's findings. Your comment is rather random.

I imagine children who believe in Santa Claus are generally happier than those who realize the truth to the magic. When the illusion is dispelled, there is some disappointment. It's more fun to believe the fairy tale than to accept reality, at least to the under-matured mind, at any rate.

So, why feel sad for a religious child, or adult for that matter?

[Minimalist]

Religious people tend to be happier

The delusional usually are.

[Creed of Heresy]

It's this little thing I like to do where I flavor a comment or a post by utilizing figures of speech. You'll get used to it.

Now, to be entirely honest, I am a weird person who has it in his head that lying to my child would not be a good way to establish a terrific relationship wherein they grow up to realize that regardless of the rest of the world, they will be able to trust me, their father, as it should be. And I have this strange mentality where the idea of telling my children that there's a fat red-coated man in the arctic bringing everyone presents one day of the year might kind of contradict that whole thing. Knowingly telling my son or daughter something that I know to be false is bad enough. Telling them something that I personally have no proof of for myself and I believe it "just because," is disingenuous, a word I seem to finding very useful lately. "This is truth, son/daughter! I mean granted here's no way to prove it but since I believe it so very very intensely, I want to ensure that you, impressionably-young as you are, will grow up to believe just like me!" It is, essentially, like a child grew up never being shown that Santa Claus was not real...or that the story was engineered so well that so many grew up never knowing the truth, unless told the truth by others, or having to dig into the story to realize its falsehoods. The child grows up, still thinks Santa Claus exists, and because he thinks it is an immutable fact and something that has meant so much in bringing him joy and happiness, that his children need to be told the story as if it were true, because, hey, if it works for you, it works for your children, right?

Thus do the seeds of gullibility end up planted. With a mentality of "someone told me something so it MUST be true" being something ingrained in a child's psyche that he grows up to always have, what's the WORST that could happen? Other than never really living his life for himself, for example?

THAT is why I feel sad for a religious child. They're being told a very very carefully engineered Santa Claus story, one that is too complex for their age to be able to analyze and learn to be false, and so by the time they ARE old enough to analyze this story, it's become ingrained in their mind as truth. This is indoctrination, pure and simple. If they really want to believe in it, then wait til they are old enough of mind to make up their own mind. If you are really so confident in the truth and veracity your religious story tells, then when introduced at an age of independent reasoning it will still hold up as fact to them.

Unless, of course, as a I strongly suspect, this is not the case and there's some subconscious aspect of your mind that didn't get fully indoctrinated, nagging at you that something just isn't quite right, and that should you pass up the opportunity to get at the children now, they'll grow up to see what a load of shenanigans your supposedly infallible stories are, and thus ensuring the shrinking relevance of your beliefs in the world.

Solipsism.