An Atheist Asks: Do We Really Need Religion To Be Happier?

Religion and well-being have an interesting relationship, to say the least. Contradictory in some ways, de facto allies in others. When the recent 2024 World Happiness Report came out, Finland came out on top as the happiest country for the seventh year in a row.

It got me thinking about this Venn diagram I find myself coming back to a lot later, where faith, happiness, and non-belief meet. Of course, I'm approaching all this with a healthy level of skepticism. Correlation does not mean causation, after all, but it is worth the consideration, at least. Let's take it as an exercise, an inquiry of sorts, or just some casual sleuthing for the sake of this essay.

There's been a noticeable sharp decline in the number of religious people in the world over the past few decades. Hell, Spain, a country that's been a bedrock of Christianity for centuries, ranked 16th in the world in the most number of atheists at 63 percent (for reference: they're 32nd in the happiness index). Finland doesn't trail too far behind at 19th, with 62 percent of citizens identifying as atheists.

A part of my thought process says that maybe this is because there's a much better acknowledgment of atheism now as a concept that transcends cultural, social, and philosophical boundaries. To put it simply: it's a movement built on non-belief in a divine being or some giant in the distant sky. Atheism today has then come to include agnostics, cultural Catholics, humanists, and the "religious nones" (defined as people who aren't affiliated with any kind of religious community). So there's that.

Of course, economic virility has something to do with it because it can say a lot about quality of life. China, Japan, and the United Kingdom all entered the top five in the happiness report and are in the top 10 in gross domestic product. Similarly, France and Germany ranked in the top 25 in the former and top 10 in the latter, as well. Meanwhile, the United States remains the largest economy in the world. And about 73 percent of its population says that they believe in a god, Democrats and Republicans.

Meanwhile, a study conducted by the American think tank Pew Research Center a few years ago argued that actively religious people involved in congregations are actually, well happier, in a sense.

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Using data pulled from local surveys, these people were found not just to be happier, but more civically engaged, too. Researchers at the Pew Research Center determined that regular participation in a religious group does have links to higher levels of happiness and civic engagement. But, and this is a big but, the analysis still couldn't conclude whether actual religious affiliation is associated with a greater likelihood of such. Engagement and affiliation are different things.

The same research claimed that religion is positively associated with life satisfaction, happiness, and morale, as well. In 25 other countries with this kind of data available, religious "actives" were happier than those who had been unaffiliated with any faith group by a significant margin. They're also found to be happier than inactive religious adults in nine of these places.

But then again faith and religious engagement can be worlds apart at times. You can have faith in a god and just not be active in churches or groups. At the same time, you can engage in all the religious activities in the world and have a questionable understanding of your own faith. But I digress. That's a different conversation altogether.

The Philippines, the second-happiest country in Southeast Asia has a 79-percent Catholic base, which seems to be common knowledge at this point (the eye test and social media test prove this, I see; not always a flattering picture though). That doesn't even account for minority religious groups like Muslims, Buddhists, and more.

Funny enough, atheists and agnostics like myself aren't even factored into the census, but who am I to cry wolf, right? The Philippine Statistics Authority, nevertheless, reported in 2020 that 43,931 Filipinos didn't declare any religious affiliation or answered "none." We sadly lack the appropriate data in other respects.

This brings me to the central question in all this: is our happiness, as well as our personal and societal well-being, at risk because of irreligion? Unfortunately, there's not necessarily a definitive conclusion. So yeah, you might as well call this a whole lot of rambling if you've made it this far into the piece. All I know is that the angry know-it-all atheists of yesteryear, I feel, are too caught up in their own moral ascendency and evidence and virtue signaling to try and seek happiness in the first place.

Believers, on the other hand, tend to be just as loud and annoying about their faith systems. Believe me, I envy those with faith a little. Belief can be quite the source of strength, only as powerful as hope. And a lot of times for a lot of religious people, hope is a matter of survival and salvation. Religion gives you that even if I do think it shouldn't come at the expense of absolutism (or at times delusion). That much, you can't deny. Nor can you deny happiness as it comes.

The sensible way to look at this is to posit that joy can be had in different capacities and that it goes beyond religion and partisanship. It's not the sexiest deduction, especially in an era of trend-jacking and senseless hot takes. Incredibly unsatisfying, I know.

But perhaps that's what this pursuit of happiness is to a dirty atheist like me. While we share different values and a difference in core philosophies and interpretations, we have to celebrate the joy in other people's satisfaction, whether it's coded in belief or non-belief. I don't believe in a god, but it doesn't hurt to believe in humanity from time to time. In these small instances, I find that this is where I can be very happy.