The Happiest People in the World
I got inundated with stories online a couple of years back stating that "studies" had shown that people who believed in God were happier than people who didn't. Everything from the Scientific American ("Can Atheists Be Happy?"
, which stated church-goers live an average of seven years more than their atheist friends (they don't have any), to cable media and other online magazines. I think I recall maybe reading something about it in this forum a long while back, but cruising down the threads got too involved, so I'm posting my own.
Bullshit, they're happier. People can lie in polls and they can definitely lie to themselves. Let's look at the people who are the most religious and some of the facts about them.
Mormons in Utah. They have the highest use of anti-depressants in the country, especially married women. Psychologists theorize that the reason may be the constant stress they're under to always project the image of the picture-perfect, happy family and their own efforts to try and be the original models of the Stepford wives. Who else uses the most anti-depressants? People that live in mostly the Southern Bible Belt States. Here are the biggest users: West Virginia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Missouri. Not that I'm knocking people who are depressed. I've been on anti-depressants before and for all I know, the people in those Bible Belt states taking anti-depressants might all be atheists who can't handle the stress of being around holy-rolling snakehandlers all the time. But, somehow, I seriously doubt it.
Another statistic: the highest divorce rates are in the Bible Belt and among Baptists and evangelicals. Kudos to Catholics; their marriages last longer. The most secular states are the ones with less divorces. The poorer states where there are more welfare and citizens living on government poverty programs are in the Southern religious states. Southern states have the largest numbers of teen pregnancy.
Following those statistics and assuming that many of those in the Bible Belt actually are religious, I would have to say that I wonder how the people who go to church the most in the country are the ones who use the most anti-depressants, have the most divorces, the most teen pregnancies and are the most financially depressed.
Personal observation. As a registered nurse, I worked in hospital settings and witnessed a great many people dying. Granted, I didn't see that many atheists. The few I did have as patients weren't a one-size-fits-all. Some were stressed by their loved ones wanting to make them convert before they died. One of them told me he would go along with it since it was just bones and rattling in his opinion and he wanted to leave his loved ones at peace. A couple were more militant, one contributing his body to science and another, whose family were devout Catholics, saying he wanted to be cremated and no fussing or religious services. The majority, the believers, weren't a standardized model either, but they and their loved ones were always an interesting study. Rarely, I'd see a person dying with a transcendent, shining expectation on their face that he/she really believed they were going to a wonderful place. Mostly, I'd see a quiet resignation and after death, their devastated loved ones would weep and say in a rote manner that displayed no real belief or joy for the departed: "They've gone to a better place." "They're with Jesus now." "He'll/She'll be watching us from Heaven." Heaven. We're all afraid of the unknown. What is Heaven? What will they find there? Their God is so stern and always has a hair trigger temper. I don't claim to be able to read their minds, but I'm almost sure that I can read their faces.
We're all afraid to die. But, I personally find great peace in imagining oblivion after death. To most believers, I really, really think that they've never given as much thought to the afterlife as they say they have. Too busy involving themselves in the concerns of this life. Underneath what they say is their happiness in their belief in God, I honestly believe that they live in great fear of what's ahead when they'll finally meet him and what kind of life awaits them. I can't imagine being happy and religious. I felt liberated when I acknowledged my atheism.
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