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Where do we find happiness?

For the most part, we non-believers find happiness the same places that anyone else does. There are some, but very few, religious people who derive their principal joy from their religion. More of them derive an underlying sense of comfort and security from their religion – and we will have to come back to that point – but life is full of opportunities for happiness and joy apart from religion.

For the most part, this is too obvious to bear much belaboring. Good feelings come from anticipation of good things, from satisfaction of our appetites and desires, from achieving things that were difficult, from doing the right thing, from giving and receiving friendship, from giving and receiving love, from sharing the joys of those who are close to us, and from many other sources.

It is doubtful that there are joys that are entirely unique to religion. Feelings of euphoria, awe, contentment, wonder, adoration, and of any other kind are all available in other contexts. Religious feelings are not one-of-a-kind feelings – rather, they are normal human feelings that are harnessed to particular objects and purposes. Those same feelings can be harnessed to any number of other objects and purposes.

From the point of view of evolution, of course, our species’ capacity to feel these things far pre-dates the appearance of religion. A sense of awe before a powerful Other is a very handy trait in an animal society or a primitive human society that relies on a social hierarchy and strong leaders. Awe before one’s God is just another version of the same thing, though idealized somewhat. If that sense of awe is of value to you, you can stand in awe of the unmatchable works of nature (violent storms, towering mountains, heaving oceans, thunderous waterfalls, glorious sunsets, the wonders of the night sky), or before august and mighty human institutions, or even before individual persons who are powerful, wealthy, beautiful, or celebrated.

Religious people also may feel a sense of spiritual transport, and some religious services are specifically designed to encourage this feeling. So are many kinds of secular music and pageantry, which achieve a similar effect in people who are susceptible, as do all of the arts.

It would be tedious to make the same point about every variant of religious experience. Some religious people would object to the whole undertaking, though, and insist that what they or others experience is truly unique. And of course it is unique, as any specific experience or any specific kind of experience is unique. Being uplifted by a sacramental rite is different from being uplifted by viewing a rainbow shimmering across mountaintops, which in turn differs from the kind of music that can snap you out of a depressive state of mind (for me it used to be Led Zeppelin at full power, which was again probably different from someone who got to the same place via Bach or Handel). The details are always special – whether the experience is religious or not. So we are not trying to demean religious experience here, whether ordinary or mystical. We are only saying that you can get essentially the same experience through other techniques.

If the experience was extreme, of course – if you have been a charismatic pentacostalist, for instance – you might need more extreme secular methods to match the phenomenon. But whether the chemistry of the brain generates its own peak states, or whether these are imported from outside, there are only so many states that the brain can attain, and none is unique to religion.

All you lose in terms of emotional possibilities by not being religious is the specific content of religion. And that is, assuredly, a loss.

But every field of human study or endeavor has its own unique delights that you miss out on by not participating. You may be a football fan, a card player, a doll collector, a motorcross enthusiast, a hip-hop fanatic, a dancer, a gourmand, a movie lover, a chess player, a student of fine art – but you are unlikely to be all of those things. Whichever ones you are not, you are missing out on. If you are not religious, then you miss out on that as well. So it gets added to the list of thousands of other things you don’t have the time or interest to get involved in. You can only do so much anyway. Maybe if you use the time you might have spent on religion pursuing some new interest, you will actually come out ahead.

Are religious people happier overall, though? Apparently they are not. Though studies vary, because both happiness and strength of religious belief are hard to measure, overall it seems that religion is not a special road to happiness. Certainly it is for some people, but not for most, and probably not for you. If it were, you wouldn’t be reading this.

But if by chance you derive pleasure and joy from religion, then by all means, stick with it. The same goes for yoga, skydiving, reading, watching NASCAR, writing poetry, horseback riding, chess, stock-trading, fashion design, golf, cooking, and you-name-it.

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