The article about happiness and stuff:
By ARTHUR C.
BROOKS
Sunday, September 30, 2007 12:01 A.M. EDT
For
more than a half century, Mother Teresa of Calcutta was revered for
her service to the poorest of the poor, and inspired people by the
joy she apparently derived from pure faith and charity. But earlier
this year, it was revealed that her faith and happiness might not
have been all they seemed. In a newly published set of letters
written over the course of her adult life, she expresses terrible
sorrow about her life, describing it in terms of "dryness,"
"darkness" and "sadness."
For
some commentators, this was evidence that if we scratch the surface
of religious conviction--even that of a future saint--we will tend
to find unhappiness, echoing H.L. Mencken's claim that "God is the
immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the
miserable."
Does
Mother Teresa's apparent misery truly expose an inconvenient truth
about the happiness of religious people? A convincing answer to
this question is not to be found in arguments for or against
religion by believers or atheists--but rather in the abundant
surveys that for years have anonymously asked people about their
faith and life satisfaction. What story do the data tell?
Americans can be divided into three groups when it comes to
religious practice. Surveys indicate that about 30% attend houses
of worship at least once per week (I will call them "religious"),
while about 20% are "secular"--never attending. The rest attend
sometimes, but irregularly. These population dimensions have
changed relatively little over the decades: Since the early 1970s,
the religious group has not shrunk by more than two or three
percentage points.
How
do religious Americans compare to the secular when it comes to
happiness? In 2004, the General Social Survey asked a sample of
Americans, "Would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy, or
not too happy?" Religious people were more than twice as likely as
the secular to say they were "very happy" (43% to 21%). Meanwhile,
secular people were nearly three times as likely as the religious
to say they were not too happy (21% to 8%). In the same survey,
religious people were more than a third more likely than the
secular to say they were optimistic about the future (34% to
24%).
The
happiness gap between religious and secular people is not because
of money or other personal characteristics. Imagine two people who
are identical in every important way--income, education, age, sex,
family status, race and political views. The only difference is
that the first person is religious; the second is secular. The
religious person will still be 21 percentage points more likely
than the secular person to say that he or she is very happy.
Researchers have found similar results in other countries,
suggesting that the connection between happiness and faith probably
doesn't depend on nationality. Nor does it depend on the particular
faith practiced. The 2000 Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey
shows that practicing Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims and
people from other religions--even esoteric and New Age faiths--are
all far more likely than secularists to say they are happy.
Furthermore, it does not matter if we measure faith in ways other
than how often people go to their house of worship. For example,
people who pray every day are a third likelier to be very happy
than those who never pray, whether or not they attend services.
What
about the folks in the middle, who identify with a faith but
practice inconsistently? They are generally happier than secular
people, but not as happy as regular practitioners. There is an
interesting twist here, however, when it comes to the fear of
death. One recent study on a sample of older Americans finds that,
by the time people are in their 70s, religious and secular people
are less afraid of the grave than those in the middle, suggesting
that people suffer when their religious practice is inconsistent
with their faith.
Obviously, not all religious people are happy--millions are not.
Researchers in one 2006 study found that what makes some religious
people unhappy is an image of God as severe, unloving or distant.
The study shows that regular churchgoers who feel "very close to
God" are 27% more likely to be very happy than churchgoers who do
not feel very close to God. This may have been the trouble for
Mother Teresa.
Unhappy religious folks are the exception to the rule, however, and
the percentage gaps in happiness identified here still translate
into many, many more millions of contented churchgoers than
nonbelievers. Based on the current American population, we can
roughly estimate that about 67 million American adults are "very
happy." About 25 million of these folks are religious--but only
eight million are secular.
All
in all, there is no good reason to doubt the claim that religion is
associated with happiness for most people. Mother Teresa was
atypical in her service and charity. But she was also atypical in
her sadness, in spite of her religious life.
Mr. Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University's Maxwell School
of Public Affairs and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise
Institute, is the author of "Who Really Cares" (Basic Books,
2006).
