STUDY: Want ‘sustained happiness’? Get religion.

[Lemonvariable72]

[Chad32]

That doesn't mean you have to completely tear your body apart along the way. All good things in moderation.

[robvalue]

Pyrrho: I didn't mean to blaspheme your God I agree, drinking in moderation is fine and can increase happiness without loosening the hold on reality. As it happens, I can't drink at all due to my medication.

I was referring more to getting so drunk that I forget my problems.

[Mr.wizard]

This study is BS, first it only interviews people over 50, so it limits its Ideas of happiness to one age demographic. Second it only gives people the choices of :

1. Work with charity
2. Taking classes
3. church
4. political organization

Third how do they know it's "sustained happiness" how did they measure this, how do they know the happiness will or has been sustained?

Also, If they interviewed 9000 atheists with the same four options, my guess is one of the other 3 options would be revealed as the key to sustaining happiness.

[abaris]

This study is BS, first it only interviews people over 50, so it limits its Ideas of happiness to one age demographic. Second it only gives people the choices of :

1. Work with charity
2. Taking classes
3. church
4. political organization

Third how do they know it's "sustained happiness" how did they measure this, how do they know the happiness will or has been sustained?

Also, If they interviewed 9000 atheists with the same four options, my guess is one of the other 3 options would be revealed as the key to sustaining happiness.

Thanks for digging that deep. You didn't even have to do this as I pointed out in post #2. There's that crucial word may lead to. So, even given all the above, they still can't find conclusive evidence to make the claim Randy did in his OP.

As had to be expected, he never answered that question. As usual, he took his shit and made a runner when challenged.

[Aractus]

[Pyrrho]

You will burn in a pit of cheap vodka-fueled fire, you heretic!

I never buy cheap vodka.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Going to church makes me sick to my stomach. How on Earth do you expect three hours of bullshit a week to make me happier?

[robvalue]

Nap: you mentioned you can choose to remain ignorant. That is true, you can make no effort to learn and therefor give your beliefs a chance to improve. But even then, you can try and learn and your beliefs might not change for whatever reason.

Is this nonsense over with then? Pretending to believe in religion makes you happy? Because I'm pretty sure the study did not cover people who were pretending.

If Randy really thinks we can suddenly choose to believe in any religion's wild claims, then he himself is choosing to believe; in other words just professing to believe.

[Pyrrho]

Pyrrho: I didn't mean to blaspheme your God I agree, drinking in moderation is fine and can increase happiness without loosening the hold on reality. As it happens, I can't drink at all due to my medication.

I was referring more to getting so drunk that I forget my problems.

It is too bad about your medication preventing you from having a good life.  In the case of drinking, one can enjoy a bit of a buzz without getting fall-down drunk.  I have never had enough that I have blacked out or had extra memory loss about what I did the night before.  I do not recommend that for a couple of reasons, but one can still enjoy drinking.

I also happen to like the taste of alcohol with certain kinds of food.  For example, I hardly ever have pasta with tomato sauce without washing it down with red wine.  The food tastes better with a good red wine.  (Also, the tomato sauce tastes better if one pours some red wine into the sauce when making it, though one needs to be careful not to put so much in that the sauce becomes runny.  Since the alcohol in that cooks off when properly made, you could have sauce made that way even if you cannot drink alcohol.)  I also like red wine with pizza.  With sandwiches, I generally go with beer, especially ales and wheat beers (though, of course, it depends on the type of sandwich).  The right drink can greatly enhance the dining experience.  I once did an experiment with good beer, drinking some while eating takeout from Taco Bell.  Washing it down with good beer almost made it seem like real food.  The beer dramatically improved the enjoyment of the food, though, of course, it was still not a great meal.  (With Mexican food, I generally like a good lager.)  Getting the right drink with food really makes quite a difference in how enjoyable the food is, and it can greatly enhance the dining experience.