Religion Truly Makes People Happy 1

Running Head: Religion Truly Makes People Happy

How Religion Helps Humans with Having a Better Life and Growing Spiritually.
Ingrid Castillo
El Paso Community College

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Abstract
Religion has always been a major topic in the world, coming since the beginning of time
until present days. The purpose of this paper is to expand the true meaning of religion by
providing studies of colleges, scientific researches performed by individuals, and the
opinions of common people to let society know that religion is not only about going to
church, the synagogue, or mosque. This paper gives examples of how being involve in a
community, and believing in something can give a lot of advantages in life to the person
that performs and includes this type of actions in their everyday life. Even though, this
paper does contain a vast variety of opinions made by different people, it states the point it
is trying to achieve, which is that religion actually makes people happier. To end with, this
paper will examine reports made by online newspapers such as The Washington Post,
videos made by individuals expressing their own opinion, and books that talk about life
changes.

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Many studies about religion have been accomplished since many years ago to
demonstrate a real result about a problem that is being investigated, but this time the study
on religion was performed to demonstrate how it helps improve the life of individuals.
Religion helps fight depression, helps sick people to heal faster, gives a purpose in life, and
causes many more positive actions in the life of the person that believes. Everybody wants
to be happy and most of the people will try everything until discovering what makes them
feel the happiest, and based on studies religion can be the only way to experience what true
happiness really is.
To start off with, people who surround themselves with other people that share the
same believes as them are more susceptible on having a more pleasant life, they tend to be
stronger in hardships, heal faster in such difficult situations, are positive, and tend to be
more social helping fight depression. In a study performed by the Austin Institute for the
Study of Family and Culture, 15,738 American people between the ages of 18 and 60 were
surveyed to determine if there was a resemblance between religion and happiness (Adams,
2014). The studies showed that 45 percent of the people that answered that they attended a
religious community at least once a week, described themselves as being very happy, while
only 28 percent of the people that answered that they never attended a religious community
described themselves as the same. The study also shows that the less people attend a
religious community, the less the percentage for answering as being very happy.
Just as the Daily Mail, Breitbart talked about the same study performed by the
Austin Institute for the Study of Family and Culture to demonstrate the positive results that
religion causes on people, but it also gave information about another study completed in
2004 by the General Social Survey. This surveyed was performed on Americans just as the
study that was covered before and showed the same results. 43 percent of religious people

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said they were very happy and only 21 percent of non-religious people answered the same
(Williams, 2014). This type of religious studies have been held true for many years since
religion is considered a social activity, and social activities always make people more
contented, but it is also said that depending on where someone lives is how they can
determine how positively religions affects their life (Perry, 2012). This is because religion
is not seen the same way in every country and they cant always express themselves freely
without getting a punishment, for example, here in the United States people have the right
of freedom of speech which allows anyone to believe, but in other countries people cannot
give their opinions.
According to a research made by the London School of Economics and Erasmus
University Medical center in Netherlands, not everything or any community can actually
make people as happy, as they could be in a religious community (Kim, 2015). This only
means that even if an individual joined a certain club, sport, or fraternity, they will
obviously feel happiness but not the type of happiness that they would be able to feel if
they were actually involved in some activity that had to do with religion. It is also
mentioned in The Washington Post (Quinn, 2014), that just as any club or sport cant make
you feel the same as being involved in a religious community, physical possessions cause
the same effect, according to Catherine Sanderson (Quinn, 2014). Even if someone
possessed all the clothes they wished for, won a trip to Europe, had all the high hills in the
world, or even had all the money they wanted, that wont cause them the same feeling of
happiness because that feeling will actually be temporary while everything lasts. In
contrast, a religion lasts more than anything since it is something that the person truly
believes in and that constantly grows as the person assists to this community and involves

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themselves with people that share the same believes as them, and as anyone knows, it is not
easy to get an individual out of something that they believe in.
This studies have not only demonstrated that religion makes people happier, but that
it also helps fight depression and can make people heal faster, as mentioned by Mauricio
Avendano, an epidemiologist who performed a study on 9,000 Europeans older than 50,
The church appears to play a very important social role in keeping depression at bay and
also as a coping mechanism during periods of illness in later life," (Kim, 2015). This is
because people tend to find a place to find protection when suffering of depression or
illnesses that can be compared to it. Religion makes them feel welcome and it makes them
feel as if religion understood what they go through. Adding to that, like I mentioned before,
since religion makes people happier, if people going through depression involve themselves
with this kind of people; joyful, full of life, and vivid, this emotions transfer themselves to
other people just like a laugh would.
Just like religion can help fight depression, it can also maintain the individual in a
healthier form. Churchgoers tend to limit themselves more when talking about drinking,
smoking, drugs, and even food, than people who dont attend church (Besser, 2013). One
reason this is more common on churchgoers is because most of the religions that exist now
a days are precise when telling people of all the effects of consuming alcohol, drugs, or any
other thing that can damage the body of the consumer. Since most churchgoers were
introduced to their religion since they were kids, this means that most of them have grown
with the same sermon of not doing or abstaining themselves from performing acts that can
be dangerous. This leads to them being healthier and in most cases, having a longer life
than people who are not religious at all.

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Religion causes all of the effects mentioned before, but they not only last for one
day or one week, they can last for about 6 months (Nielsen, 1994-2011). An experiment
was performed on people that involved them to have a religious experience, these people
were 20 theology students who were given psilocybin (a hallucinogenic found in
mushrooms) or placebo (a harmless pill to calm or please someone). This students reported
that their experiences were great, their levels of happiness were tremendously high, and the
most surprising result was that these effects lasted for about 6 months. The results are
something that can be obvious due to the consumption they had before and even though
they were in a way intoxicated, this can be used to describe the effects on regular people. I
can infer that the students selected were not accustomed to attend church every week, so it
is very chocking how they had such experiences by only attending one time to church.
Adding to everything, life satisfaction was researched in 79 nations with the help of
World Values Survey data to have information that has more variation on the subject and
the results were that there was an 80 percent correlation between life satisfaction and
religion (Okulicz-Kozaryn, 2009). This research demonstrated that the effects of religion
depend on the person itself, but also the type of society they are involved with as mentioned
before on the third paragraph (Perry, 2012). This research also demonstrated that the people
that have more life satisfaction have it because of their involvement in church talking
social, but less life satisfaction on people that truly believe in God. This is because the
people that really believe in God dont look for social stability, in contrast to the other
people.
Happiness is also associated with many more factors such as marriage, friends,
prosperity, experiences, and as you guessed it, religion. As long as the individual is happy it
brings them some characteristics such as, optimism, integrity, humor, achievements, etc.

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(Changing Works, 2002-2016). This site gave the same response as many others, that
religion makes people happier because it gives them a purpose, comfort in an afterlife, and
forgiveness for their sins. The same kind of opinion was shared by some spectators that
participated on The Big Question, a show that asks random questions about a topic and
receives open-minded opinions from the public. We find difficulty in accepting that when
we die it all ends, so one of the features of most religions is that something happens after
we die, there is an afterlife, there is something to look after. This opinion was shared by
Kevin Friery (The Big Question, 2015) which only tells us that people find shelter on their
own believes and thats what keeps them happy, the fact of creating their own little world.
It doesnt matter what religion it is, what matters is to believe in a
high power to have complete happiness. A believer or not, it has been
confirmed that a relationship between religion and happiness does exist
giving people many benefits in life, so even if it is all a lie, I have to
admit it is a beautiful lie that many people love to live with.

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References
Adams, C. (2014, December 25) Religious people much happier and have more life
satisfaction than others, according to a new study. Daily Mail. Retrieved from
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2886974/Study-Religious-people-happierlife-satisfaction-others.html
Besser, R. (2013, March 25) Is religion good for your health? Good Morning America.
Retrieved from http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2013/03/25/is-religion-goodfor-your-health/
Changing Works (2002-2016) What makes people happy? Changing Minds. Retrieved
from http://chtheangingminds.org/explanations/emotions/happiness/what_makes_
people_happy.htm
Kim, E. K. (2015, November 6) New study finds faith, religion can help provide sustained
happiness. TODAY. Retrieved from http://www.today.com/kindness/studyreligion-faith-can-help-provide-sustained-happiness-t39036
Nielsen, M. E. (1994- 2011) Religion and Happiness. Psychology of Religion. Retrieved
from http://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/happy.htm
Okulicz-Kozaryn, A. (2009, August 20). Religiosity and life satisfaction across
nations. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 13(2), 155-169.
Perry, S. (2012, April 13) Are religious people happier than atheist? MinnPost. Retrieved
from https://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2012/04/are-religious-peoplehappier-atheists

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Quinn, S. (2014, January 24) Religion is a sure route to true happiness. The Washington
Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/religion is-a-sure-route-to-true-happiness/2014/01/23/f6522120-8452-11e3-bbe56a2a3141e3a9_story.html
The Big Question [Traditionalism Archive] (2015, March 22). Does religion make you
happy? (The Big Questions, 22/3/15) Youtube. Retrieved from
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G251yZju6HY
Williams, T. D. (2014, December 24) Religious people much happier than others, new
study shows. Breitbart. Retrieved from http://www.breitbart.com/nationalsecurity/2014/12/24/religious-people-much-happier-than-others-new-study-shows/