A poll to help us
- I am happy and religious
- I am happy and not religous
- I am not happy and religious
- I am not happy and not religous
0
voters
I refuse to answer the poll on the grounds that I - like everyone else - am sometimes happy and sometimes sad. That’s the human condition If you aren’t sad when loved ones suffer or die, there’s something wrong with you, however religious you might be.
That’s why I think self-reporting on happiness is ridiculous and untrustworthy.
1 Like
Correlation is not causation. It is certainly probable that in religious communities, happy, satisfied people might be unlikely to defy cultural norms and become atheists and agnostics. Why rock the satisfied boat? So dissatisfaction might lead to atheism or agnosticism, instead of the other way around.
I glanced at the thread about the failures of standard arguments for the nonexistence of God. Fine. It just doesn’t concern me. I have no hostility to religion: on the contrary. I consider it one of the great achievements of mankind, one on which human creativity and effort has formed beautiful myths, magnificent temples, and rich rituals. I’m familiar with a variety of mythologies, and admire most of them. I’ve read almost all the apologetics of C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton with pleasure.
The truth or falsity of Christian, Buddhist, Moslem, or ancient Greek beliefs is of little concern to me. This may have been objectionable when Christian faith was standard in the West. It no longer is.;
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming
You can answer the question, like the other person who did could.
The happiness gap is statistically significant and that’s why it’s being cited in favor of religion.
Yes, but the more probable truth is atheism is just another word for unhappiness.
Why would you think that religion is of little concern? After all I’m claiming (God, happiness) is a consonant dyad.
Gemini AI
1. The Happy Community: The Ni-Vanuatu (Vanuatu)
The Ni-Vanuatu, the indigenous people of the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, consistently rank among the happiest societies on Earth (often topping global indexes like the Happy Planet Index).
- Why they thrive: Their happiness stems from strong, interdependent village ties (kastom), high life satisfaction, reliance on sustainable subsistence farming, and a culture that measures wealth through community cohesion rather than material status.
2. The Sad/Distressed Community: The I-Kiribati (Kiribati)
The I-Kiribati, the native population of the low-lying Pacific island nation of Kiribati, face profound existential distress as climate change directly threatens their homeland.
- Why they are in distress: Rising sea levels, severe salt contamination of their drinking water, and coastal erosion are actively swallowing their ancestral land. The community faces the tragic reality of imminent relocation and potential statelessness, bringing widespread grief and “climate anxiety” to its residents.
You appear not to have read my posts. Far from thinking “religion is of little concern”, I am fascinated with it. As I stated in my previous posts.
What I (personally) am unconcerned with is whether God actually exists. I just don’t know, and don’t much care. I’m perfectly happy as it is – and I would consider it cowardly to court “happiness” instead of truth.
I agree we must value truth. So, which is true? (God, Happiness) is consonant or dissonant?
There’s no way of knowing. As I’ve pointed out, all the polls are of questionable accuracy, and even if their measurement of happiness is accurate, they would not establish a causal connection. In addition, “belief in God” is not scientifically verifiable. We can determine only what people say they believe, not what they actually believe.
I’ve been rereading Turgenev’;s “Fathers and Sons”. Bazarov (the main character) is a self-described nihilist (the word was coined in the novel). He believes in science. He not only dislikes religion, but art, music and literature as well. Disrespect for the “Humanities” is growing. Eye witnesses are no longer the sin qua non of courtroom evidence; forensic evidence is. I suspect that this kind of anti-humanist, nihilist worldview may limit one’s capacity for joy. Here’s Walt Whitman’s take:
When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
Yes, you’re right. The standard for making inferences is quite high in the modern world, especially in the sciences with physics barreling down into the mysterious world of the 6 \sigma.
I had forwarded you to my other thread so that I could share with you my view and those of others on the matter, hoping that we could make progress on what is a minor disagreement between us.
I must emphasize that I’m not downplaying the suffering in the world. It’s a bloodbath out there and sometimes, in here too. You must be happy enough to come here at your pleasure and post interesting comments like you have. Do you thank anyone for it?
I also believe in science. It would be a gross case of ignorance to not do so while simultaneously typing on my laptop.
Yes, Walt Whitman was right to speak so fondly of astronomy. I also like looking up at the stars, learning early on that the morning/evening star is actually the planet Venus. I still recall the brilliance with which it outshone the real stars at dawn and at dusk. Did you know that astronomers can’t perform experiments? I believe that’s one of the reasons why there’s so many and such a variety of telescopes out there. I reckon that astronomy hasn’t progressed to the 6 \sigma level yet. This is not a matter of great concern as we all know science’s MO.
A synopsis that includes contributions from other posters to whom I’m very grateful.
The main subject is that (God, happiness) is a consonant dyad i.e. happiness means God exists. By God I refer to the OOO-God (omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipotent). Such a view is supported by scriptural accounts (re Genesis). Here I’ve relied on Christianity and its account of God due to its popularity.
Regarding the subject of the last sentence - popularity - there are 2 or so billion Christians. Does this mean anything? I think it does.
Then we have this wonderful argument
- God = Source(Good and Beautiful)
- Good and Beautiful = Source(Happiness)
- God = Source(Happiness)
Posters took umbrage at my claim and cited the PoS (problem of suffering). I acknowledged this point - indeed there’s an immense amount of suffering in the world - but this doesn’t seem to affect my argument that happiness \to God (vide supra).
In the course of the discussion I was reminded of a study which found that compared to atheists, theists are happier. Objections to this are community instead of belief being the X factor and also that our reasons for theism are invalid. This is clearly contradicted by communities that are an unhappy bunch and the fact that Christian’s cite salvation through Jesus’ sacrifice as the (main) reason they’re the way the are - happy. Furthemore such faulting of my claim that (God, Happiness) is a consonant dyad completely misses the point of the weltanschauungs existentialism, absurdism, and nihilism.
To pull on the thread that seems most apposite, theists have something to look forward to, an afterlife of eternity with God in heaven. Compare this to an atheist’s nihilistic finality at death. Which of the 2, theism/atheism, goes with happiness? In dyadic terms which is dissonant and which is consonant, (theism, happiness) or (atheism, happiness)?