Religion and Happiness related? Not necessarily.
I’m sure people have heard studies things that religion is correlated with a long happy life. I think its been easy to dismiss any such relationship by arguing about all the negatives of religion, but I don’t think I’ve seen a study that really gets at the root of this correlation. Thankfully a new study dug a little deeper.
“Religious people are happier than secular people, but it’s less about faith than communities of faith,”
…a survey of 3,100 American adults taken in 2006 and 2007. The study was published in the journal American Sociological Review.
The depth of one’s faith or the type of practice doesn’t matter, Putnam said. It’s all about having friends where you worship.
“Praying alone doesn’t have any effect on your life satisfaction”
I rather like that last line. Its not faith or religion or god that leads to happiness, but having friends and spending time with them. Good thing to remember.
