By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - General Discussion - Religious people more likely to be happy with them and their lives - atheists more likely to be depressed, sad and miserable

crissindahouse on 27 August 2011
Jalocin said:
For some reason the quote didn't work and I can't edit it z.z

Anyway, that may or may not be the case (almost every country are having troubles because of the financial crisis right), but my point was that we're quite happy even though we're atheists.


i think you would be as happy as you are if you would be religious. it's just the money you have to have a good live which makes you happy. don't know a lot about denmark but i bet you don't have a lot of crimilality, problems with immigrants (sure not every immigrant is a problem lol), health care etc. like other countries. i bet you don't have to sell your hosue if you are ill just to get a surgery.

btw. i don't believe that religious people are happier. they just don't show if they are unhappy because a lot of them live in their fake world saying "the believe in god makes me happy" just to realize that they don't know how they can get the next meal.

they only differecne is that if you have a bad life i think it's much better to be religious. if you aren't and you lost your wife/child, are unemployed or whatever you can still believe in god and that everything will get better. if you are not religious i think you will have it harder to undergo this time of your life.



Around the Network
Jalocin on 27 August 2011

^

I totally agree with what you've said. I agree religion probably can help people through hardtimes. Of course, to sustain the way of life we have (social security, health care, education etc.), we have very high taxes.



AbbathTheGrim on 27 August 2011
butcherknife said:
People who believe in God are happier?...Or are people who believe in God more likely to "say" that they are happy?

This study does not differentiate between the two.





Nintendo is selling their IPs to Microsoft and this is true because:

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=221391&page=1

Player1x3 on 27 August 2011

@Sliver-Tiger
Ok, since there are plenty of this comments, I'll respond to one. There is no absolute ''truth''. The truth is, some people beleive in God, some people dont. neither beleifs hasnt been proven right or wrong. For you to say your beleifs are the ultimate truth and the others are delusional and wrong is pur earrogance that is unfortunalty so incredibly common among atheists.
Now, one of the main points of life is, and I am sure all people would agree with me on this one regardless of faith, IS HAPPINESS Whats the point of life your never gonna feel good and happy, and just feel miserable all the time?
One of the main arguments of atheists when it comes to afterlife is ''not beleiving in afterlife gives you more reason to enjoy this one.'' However, as these studies show, atheists are mostly sad and miserable and beleive once their sad life comes to an end, , noting happens, lights out, so thats also pretty depressing and sad.
Believer however, not only has a much happier life but also has a chance and hope of even having a better afterlife, once his life on Earth ends. So, its almost a double win for a believer here.
So, you just keep living in your ''truth'', most of people are a lot happier (as we can see) in their ''truth'' than in yours. Happines is the most important thing in this life, and I beleive whichever beleif makes the person hapy is the right one for him :)



Player1x3 on 28 August 2011
Mummelmann said:
Player1x3 said:
pearljammer said:

The major problem with these studies is that they're often only done in the United States where the religious are a majority and the non-religious are a minority. This of course satifies another criteria for happiness.

In fact, a study done in the Netherlands and Denmark, where the non-religious are the majority, resulted in much, much lower differences between the two. As the study concludes:

"the question in further research should not be whether religiousness boosts happiness, but in what conditions for what people."

There are just so many variables involved here, namely geographical, that a blanket conclusion that 'religious people are more likely to be happy' is a gross oversimplification.

A sense of community is what I would attribute as being the strongest factor for that argument. Of course, I'm talking purely out of my ass on that thought.


Well, there are almost no countries in the world where the majority is non religious, the only ones coming to my mind are Czech Republic and Estonia, all other countries have a religious majority in the.n. If its gonna help, a similar research was done in my country and in Bosnia, and same results came up like in this OP. I have a link, only, you wouldnt be able to understand anything

Actually, there are plenty of countries that are mostly non-religious. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Germany, Italy, Greece, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Russia, France and plenty others. The problem is that when doing statistics, people count everyone who is a member of a church, for instance anyone who is baptised, as religious. This is false, of course. In Norway for instance, roughly 75% of the population are members of the state church with the rest being divided between other religions (predominantly Islam), humanitarian societies and plain lack of membership. Does that mean that 75% (plus devout muslims) are religious? No, the actual number today is between 10-12%, including muslims and other faiths. When people say there are two billion christians in the world, that simply means there are two billion people living in countries that christianity as the state religion, the actual number of believers can probably be shaved down to one fifth or so.


By the orderd you mentioned them

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Norway

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Sweden#Religion_in_Sweden_today

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Denmark#Overview

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Iceland

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Finland#Currently

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Germany#Christianity_2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Italy        Seriously, what the hell were you thinking saying Italy isnt religious ???? Its the heart of catholic church

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Greece               Once again, WTF??? Greece, one of the most religious countries in the world

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Spain#Attitudes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands#Religion       Close, but still majority

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Belgium          

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Portugal       once again, waaaay off.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_France#Statistics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_russia#Adherents        Again, you are waaay off. Seriously, how can you call Russia atheist country? Where the hell do you get your data from????



Around the Network
Slimebeast on 28 August 2011

Of course I am happier knowing there is a heaven and eternal life instead of just becoming worm food.



RageBot on 28 August 2011
Player1x3 said:
@Sliver-Tiger
Ok, since there are plenty of this comments, I'll respond to one. There is no absolute ''truth''. The truth is, some people beleive in God, some people dont. neither beleifs hasnt been proven right or wrong. For you to say your beleifs are the ultimate truth and the others are delusional and wrong is pur earrogance that is unfortunalty so incredibly common among atheists. 


Nah, you just don't get it.

There's only one thing a person can know in absolute certainty - "I think, therefore I am".
Nothing else is an absolute truth, it's only based on our preceptions.

And there is only one absolute truth, about anything, opinions are bullshit, opinions is thinking that the facts are "on your side", wether it's true or not, who knows what it is though?

And you know why atheists are arrogant? Because they tend to be right about most other stuff, that comes with intelligence, pepole are used to be right (since atheists tend to be more intelligent and educated than the standard population), they just get used to be right about stuff, I know that I am because i'm almost never wrong.

Atheists think you are dillusional because you never question your beliefs, you never question what you think, you never tell yourself that what you think may not be true, you get stuck on a single way of thought, neverchanging, always blind to new things.



Bet with Dr.A.Peter.Nintendo that Super Mario Galaxy 2 won't sell 15 million copies up to six months after it's release, the winner will get Avatar control for a week and signature control for a month.

Player1x3 on 28 August 2011
RageBot said:
Player1x3 said:
@Sliver-Tiger
Ok, since there are plenty of this comments, I'll respond to one. There is no absolute ''truth''. The truth is, some people beleive in God, some people dont. neither beleifs hasnt been proven right or wrong. For you to say your beleifs are the ultimate truth and the others are delusional and wrong is pur earrogance that is unfortunalty so incredibly common among atheists. 


Nah, you just don't get it.

There's only one thing a person can know in absolute certainty - "I think, therefore I am".
Nothing else is an absolute truth, it's only based on our preceptions.

And there is only one absolute truth, about anything, opinions are bullshit, opinions is thinking that the facts are "on your side", wether it's true or not, who knows what it is though?

And you know why atheists are arrogant? Because they tend to be right about most other stuff, that comes with intelligence, pepole are used to be right (since atheists tend to be more intelligent and educated than the standard population), they just get used to be right about stuff, I know that I am because i'm almost never wrong.

Atheists think you are dillusional because you never question your beliefs, you never question what you think, you never tell yourself that what you think may not be true, you get stuck on a single way of thought, neverchanging, always blind to new things.

Indeed, atheists are happy to admit when they are wrong, only they are never wrong, because they are atheists, right?

Recent studies reveal that atheists tend to be privileged, college educated libertarians with serious superiority complexes who are always willing to argue, especially with Christians.

Atheists tend to have a rare, aggressive form of unwarranted self-importance, invariably overestimating their own intelligence. It's mandatory for atheists, because if they're not the geniuses of Earth, they're forced into admitting that they're not always right - and they'd rather castrate themselves with a hacksaw than do THAT.

In fact, atheists are so fanatical that they go around with a chip on their shoulder looking for 'rational' debates. Upon watching an atheist in an argument, it becomes clear that their points consist entirely of condescension, lofty moralizing, and 'clever' quips about their opponents' intelligence - in other words, atheists think that sarcasm amounts to a valid argument. They will begin by stating they only want food for thought to 'improve their position'; five minutes later, they'll state that talking to their opponent is like arguing with a brick wall. The irony of this statement is consistently lost on the atheist.



pearljammer on 28 August 2011

This thread wasn't conducive to a progressive exchange from the start (I think due to the nature of it and the fallacy of its method among other reasons). But that... that's a whole lot of conjecture, right there. ^^

It is among the more ignorant things I've read on here for quite sometime. The only merit to what you have said is that atheists tend to have more privileged upbringings and better education. Everything else is conjecture. Everything. That is unless you have some studies or research that can verify your experience so that we may extrapolate to include all atheists as you so generally speak of.

It begs the question, if you believe all atheists to be so condescending and antagoistic, why bother engaging or antagonizing (which this clearly is) them? I realize ragebot's post as equally full of conjecture, but you have been given several reasonable responses to respond to over that one.

On that note, I have to call you on dodging the original issue with the study that I'd brought up. I provided you with a study that when certain variables are reversed, there are huge discrepencies in the result. Instead of addressing that, you focus on people who put efforts on debating which countries are or are not mostly reglious. That was beside the point - there are countries where this is the case and reults in huge discrepencies.



Mummelmann on 28 August 2011
Player1x3 said:
Mummelmann said:
Player1x3 said:
pearljammer said:

The major problem with these studies is that they're often only done in the United States where the religious are a majority and the non-religious are a minority. This of course satifies another criteria for happiness.

In fact, a study done in the Netherlands and Denmark, where the non-religious are the majority, resulted in much, much lower differences between the two. As the study concludes:

"the question in further research should not be whether religiousness boosts happiness, but in what conditions for what people."

There are just so many variables involved here, namely geographical, that a blanket conclusion that 'religious people are more likely to be happy' is a gross oversimplification.

A sense of community is what I would attribute as being the strongest factor for that argument. Of course, I'm talking purely out of my ass on that thought.


Well, there are almost no countries in the world where the majority is non religious, the only ones coming to my mind are Czech Republic and Estonia, all other countries have a religious majority in the.n. If its gonna help, a similar research was done in my country and in Bosnia, and same results came up like in this OP. I have a link, only, you wouldnt be able to understand anything

Actually, there are plenty of countries that are mostly non-religious. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Germany, Italy, Greece, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Russia, France and plenty others. The problem is that when doing statistics, people count everyone who is a member of a church, for instance anyone who is baptised, as religious. This is false, of course. In Norway for instance, roughly 75% of the population are members of the state church with the rest being divided between other religions (predominantly Islam), humanitarian societies and plain lack of membership. Does that mean that 75% (plus devout muslims) are religious? No, the actual number today is between 10-12%, including muslims and other faiths. When people say there are two billion christians in the world, that simply means there are two billion people living in countries that christianity as the state religion, the actual number of believers can probably be shaved down to one fifth or so.


By the orderd you mentioned them

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Norway

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Sweden#Religion_in_Sweden_today

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Denmark#Overview

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Iceland

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Finland#Currently

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Germany#Christianity_2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Italy        Seriously, what the hell were you thinking saying Italy isnt religious ???? Its the heart of catholic church

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Greece               Once again, WTF??? Greece, one of the most religious countries in the world

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Spain#Attitudes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands#Religion       Close, but still majority

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Belgium          

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Portugal       once again, waaaay off.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_France#Statistics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_russia#Adherents        Again, you are waaay off. Seriously, how can you call Russia atheist country? Where the hell do you get your data from????

"estimates atheism rates in Norway as ranging from 31 to 72%, based on various studies."

"several academic sources who have in recent years placed atheism rates in Sweden between 46% and 85%"

"According to Zuckerman (2005),[11] 28-60% of Finns are agnostics, atheists, or non-believers."

"A December 2006 poll by Harris Interactive, published in The Financial Times, found that 32% of the French population described themselves as agnostic, a further 32% as atheist and only 27% believed in any type of God or supreme being."

"Using these numbers, one attempt to estimate numbers of practising followers of different religions in Russia arrives at the following results: 3-15 million Russian Orthodox; 2.8 million Muslim; over 1.5 million Protestant (including at least 900 thousand Pentecostals); no more than 500 thousand Buddhists; 300 thousand followers of New religious movements; 60-200 thousand Roman Catholic; 50-80 thousand Old Believers." Do you call that a religious majority in a population of around 100 million? Lay off the exclamation marks and start reading the links yourself before having a fit.

Your link with Russia in it simply states what I've been saying all along; there are a lot of people who are members of a church. Heck, I'm a member in the state church! Does that mean I'm religious? No, no it doesn't. Learn to differentiate and go deeper.

Different studies produce different results, its not as black and white as you think. When it comes to Scandinavia, the majority of the population do not believe in a god or deity and the number of religious people per inhabitant shrinks every year. The rest of the countries I mentioned suffer from the same polling problems; different studies, different results. When data varies from 25-80% and more, can you really use it for anything meaningful? No, your wikipedia links are pretty much useless. Did you even read them or check more in depth with other sources? Religion is not as big and mighty as you seem to think and most people aren't personally religious, they're simply members of a state church out of tradition, respect etc. The Western world as a whole is most agnostic or atheist, its just the way it is, we don't live in medieval times any more. You simply made a thread about this one study because it made a conclusion you liked, there are thousands of studies on this subject and they all give off very variable data.