STUDY: Want ‘sustained happiness’? Get religion.

[Ravenshire]

As I have stated elsewhere in this forum, God is not interested in our happiness; He is interested in our holiness. If we are also happy in this life, that's a bonus.

If this is indeed your position, then don't you dare ever equate gawds love to the love of a parent for their child. Any parent (or any gawd, if one existed) that's worth a damn makes their children's happiness a top priority. That makes most parents better than your gawd Randy.

[Ravenshire]

You are aware that jimi hendirx did not commit suicide. He died of a medical mistake. Just wanted to point that out.

From Wikipedia:

Death, post-mortem, and burial

Although the details of Hendrix's last day and death are widely disputed, he spent much of September 17, 1970, in London with Monika Dannemann, the only witness to his final hours.[269] Dannemann said that she prepared a meal for them at her apartment in the Samarkand Hotel, 22 Lansdowne Crescent, Notting Hill, sometime around 11 p.m., when they shared a bottle of wine.[270] She drove Hendrix to the residence of an acquaintance at approximately 1:45 a.m., where he remained for about an hour before she picked him up and drove them back to her flat at 3 a.m.[271] Dannemann said they talked until around 7 a.m., when they went to sleep. She awoke around 11 a.m., and found Hendrix breathing, but unconscious and unresponsive. She called for an ambulance at 11:18 a.m.; they arrived on the scene at 11:27 a.m.[272] Paramedics then transported Hendrix to St Mary Abbot's Hospital where Dr. John Bannister pronounced him dead at 12:45 p.m. on September 18, 1970.[273]

To determine the cause of death, coroner Gavin Thurston ordered a post-mortem examination on Hendrix's body, which was performed on September 21 by Professor Robert Donald Teare, a forensic pathologist.[274] Thurston completed the inquest on September 28, and concluded that Hendrix aspirated his own vomit and died of asphyxia while intoxicated with barbiturates. [emphasis added][275] Citing "insufficient evidence of the circumstances", he declared an open verdict.[276] Dannemann later revealed that Hendrix had taken nine of her prescribed Vesparax sleeping tablets, 18 times the recommended dosage.[277]

You're conflating accidental overdose with suicide.

[Pyrrho]

I'm about half his age, so I have to disappoint. Also, I live in the westernmost city of the country, not the easternmost

In that case, you should start your own local church.  Look at that sign in the second picture!  Don't you want one (or more) of those in your town?

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If I thought I could get the local government to put up one of those in my town, I would be looking into how I could bring it about. Nudelmesse!  Fantastisch!

[Aractus]

Whether people are happier with religion (which these studies fail to show) ...

Incorrect. Multiple studies have shown it and I provided a list of them from the reference list in the Croezen et al. 2015 article. Your beliefs are just as blind as any religious zealot when you refuse to accept published evidence, and then trash-talk scientific papers without even having read any of them.

[Homeless Nutter]

My main beef with the study presented in OP is this - where's the damn control group?

I want to know how happy people over 50 are, who DON'T waste what time they have left on church, community, charity, politics, nor educational courses (I mean - seriously - old people don't feel happy when they're expected to learn sh*t? Shocking...).

Or is that - somehow - not an option? Because when I turn 50 - you just watch me...

[Redbeard The Pink]

Want a sustained halt to your critical thinking? Get religion.

[Longhorn]

Want a sustained halt to your critical thinking? Get religion.

Or a lobotomy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Redbeard The Pink]

Want a sustained halt to your critical thinking? Get religion.

Or a lobotomy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Isn't that more or less what I said?

[Aractus]

My main beef with the study presented in OP is this - where's the damn control group?

I want to know how happy people over 50 are, who DON'T waste what time they have left on church, community, charity, politics, nor educational courses (I mean - seriously - old people don't feel happy when they're expected to learn sh*t? Shocking...).

Or is that - somehow - not an option? Because when I turn 50 - you just watch me...

That's not how longitudinal surveys work. By definition they are surveys, not cohorts of people instructed to do different things. It would be unethical to tell a group of people not to participate in any forms of social activity for the next 20 years until the final results of the study are compiled.

But also, data obtained without the researcher modifying the behaviours or environment of the participants is the most reliable to be compared with real world data. That is, the people who were a part of the SHARE survey are completely representative of ordinary people, the researchers didn't instruct them to change their behaviours they simply observed. You really have no valid argument against the legitimate of longitudinal follow-up surveys like this, they provide excellent quality data.

[Homeless Nutter]

That's not how this type of longitudinal study works. It would be unethical to tell a group of people not to participate in any forms of social activity for the next 20 years until the final results of the study are compiled.

Who said anything about "no social activity"? Social activity is inevitable for almost every human being. Having a control group of agoraphobic shut-ins would be useless - if somewhat morbidly entertaining.

I'm talking about regular, fun social activities - not utterly lame ones, like the ones seemingly arbitrarily chosen by the authors of the study. I mean if you compare religion with a urinary tract infection - chances are the sufferers of the former will usually be less distressed, than those of the latter.

How about drinking Whiskey and chasing p***y, hmm? Because that's what my father has done throughout his 40's and 50's. He's an atheist, not an academic, nor an artist, never been involved with a charity (in fact - he can be a bit of a cold fashist p**ck), political organization, or nothing else of the sort.

He seems pretty f-ing happy to me... And in better physical condition than most people my age I know. Go figure.

Sure - it's anecdotal, but my point is - there are other things to do, for people over 50, besides getting ready for death in a church, dealing with brain-dead politicians, begging, or learning Microsoft Excel.