If you assume the bible is true, God is the creator of all things, and every living thing in the universe only exists because of him, so then surely he has every right to be authoritarian and want complete control. God GAVE us and the Angels free will however, if god was a complete dictator Satan and Humans would have been destroyed the moment they rebelled, or alternatively we wouldn't have free will and wouldn't be able to rebel in the first place.

China is not even in the top20 Happiest countries, and yeah, I mean % population, so nothing to do with China really

I believe that religion is connected on how people live and how they view things, as well as each other, so of course it is connected to happiness

also, Brazil is 17th and it's poor, and the very rich Qatar, Oman, Emirates, Saudi Arabia are close (and better in economy than Europe-US btw) but not as happy

This seems to have been ignored but I thought I'd quote it to bring it to people's attention.  As long as this is applied fairly across the board I see no problem with the example mentioned in the OP.  

Homosexuality isn't a sin in the Bible. All sex is sinful unless between husband and wife, there's no difference between heterosexual or homosexual sex outside of marriage, it's all sinful according to the Bible. Being homosexual is not sinful, the Bible only says you can't have sex, it doesn't say being gay is sinful. The only difference is that marriage is a heterosexual institution because it is meant for procreation, and until science figures out otherwise a homosexual marriage cannot produce children, a 3rd party is required as well as 3rd party genetics. The Christians have merely incorrectly and over conservatively interpretted a few passages from the Old Testament.

I didn't really want to respond in this thread but there you have it.

I don't want to burst your bubble, but most people here in the Netherlands and in those Northern European countries don't give jack shit about religion. We are on that list because we are some of the most prosperous countries in the world. Even the people that are statistically considered "poor", would have it pretty decent in most other places. Unlike those Arab countries, distribution of wealth is much more balanced, meaning more happy people instead of just a happy few.

Religion has absolutely no impact on the majority of people's daily lives as people do what they want with whom they want, it by law serves no role in government, it has had no impact on how we built our economy. And this is not something that's new, this sort of influence has been steadily declining for centuries now. Churches have been and are still being closed left and right, to either be demolished or repurposed into libraries, art-galleries or apartment buildings. No, and I won't debate this, but you are very wrong, christianity or religion in general is not connected to happiness here.

Not all cultures believe in freedom of speech as much as others, and the ones that have are starting to not. Heck, even in America, we've been hijacked by two political movements (one anti muslism, and the other liberal one anti Christian) that are both against freedom of speech for all people.

I am encouraged that this guy had that head band on. Also, the two swimmers that straight up threw down about Jesus on their tv air time was just awesome.

"Homosexuality is not bad unless you act homosexual."

Brazil is a country with a majoritarian christian population, so expressions like that are pretty common here.

Like it or not, religion is still part of the Brazilian culture in many ways, even our main holidays are basically religious holidays, like October, 12th (Our Lady Patroness´day), Carnaval/Ash Wednesday, Christmas etc.

Religous figures are present in many popular folk parties here, like June Parties (similar to Solstice Festivals in Europe/NA), Processions Festivals etc. etc.

It´s just lame and dumb to criticize a simple expression like Neymar´s bandanna. If that´s the case, then they should have banned images of the Statue of Christ the Redemeer in OG merchandising items and Tv streamings

Hahaha "the Muslim version" you meant du'a.

Nothing, we never talked about homossexual marriage. But that we do have it here for a while, the civil union of homossexuals is not a big deal here. What we do not have is the obligation that all religious groups celebrate the marriage, but some religious groups in Brazil do not celebrate even heterossexual marriages, so no one cares that much.

The books for kids I talked about is to encourage sex play with the same sex and stuff like that, pretty graphic stuff, kinda evil, and for ages 0-6.