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People with religious faith tend to be happier than those without?

Although I have deepest respect to Jonathan Haidt and his work, there is something that he claims I cannot quite figure out. How can something that brings guilt, terror, humiliation and fear of eternal punishment make someone feel happy? Not just happy, but happier then those without it? Haidt, being an atheist himself, doesn't explain the phenomenon, he just states this fact. The research he talks about in his book seems to be legitimate though
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/opinion/17kristof.html?em

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Permalink Reply by The Nerd on February 2, 2010 at 12:45pm

Can you point me to that "stable part of philosophy"? I haven't seen the research on that, and I wouldn't know where to begin my search, but you clearly are familiar with it.

At least in my own experience, I endured quite a bit more humiliation from my peers about non-religious things I did from the moral mandates of religion. I didn't act the same way my classmates did, I didn't dress the same way, I just couldn't be what they wanted. I was humiliated by their teasing and I felt guilty that I couldn't change enough to please them - no religion required. I'm not saying that religion is never a greater source of guilt and humiliation than life in general, but that it certainly can't claim that prize all the time.

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Permalink Reply by AnnaSero on February 2, 2010 at 12:59pm

I feel for you about the peer cruelty, majority of kids at certain age do get to become ruthless, there is evolutionary explanation for that. The good thing is that most of them eventually outgrow it. But no one needs humiliation coming from religion on top of that.
There is a Reason Project on internet started but Sam Harris that you might want to take a look at, it's a good place to start you search on philosophies of religions. It covers all main modern religions and provides quotes from the scripts.
http://www.reasonproject.org/scripture_project/

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Permalink Reply by Edward Teach on February 2, 2010 at 12:51pm

I am soooooo not humiliated, terrified, and guilt ridden in life as an Atheist and moral realtivist. How could I be?

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Permalink Reply by Sonny Mobley on February 2, 2010 at 1:21pm

Me either! If anything I am bolstered, mentally, by it. :D Prolly why I can't help but think of people who need religion as weak... I felt weak as a theist and strong as a non-theist.

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Permalink Reply by Rayray on February 2, 2010 at 1:25pm

Yes, me too. I always questioned my religion, now I do not question atheism. I have never felt more sure of my beliefs.

Permalink Reply by AnnaSero on February 2, 2010 at 1:30pm

Me 3. I remember I once wanted to believe in god, I was very young and it was a dark moment. Things got better on their own, sh** happens, but I never felt as weak as back then.

Permalink Reply by Edward Teach on February 10, 2010 at 10:01am

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality. – George Bernard Shaw