The least religious nations are the happiest, study finds

Originally posted by zaiger
Do Soviet Russia and north Korea count?

Soviet Russia has never been religion-free and was never a "great nation"... North Korea is not a "great" nation, and it may not exist as a nation at all for much longer.



— Doc Velocity








[edit on 12/8/2009 by Doc Velocity]

Last century we were told lobotomies made people happier and chronically sad people were given the old ice pick brain trim.

Capitolism tells us money makes people happy.

Germany and Russia have practiced the happiness of reduced choices.

Are sheep happier than wolves? Pick the right set of parameters and you can prove anything.

reply to post by Doc Velocity


No it was not religion free but it was an athiest state untill 1939 or so.

[edit on 8-12-2009 by zaiger]

reply to post by EricD


China, Russian and Cuba aren't countries where the inhabitants made those choices of their own will.

You haven't converted a man because you have silenced him is the old saying. The other side of that is that a man told to have not God doesn't necessarily have none.

Originally posted by zaiger
No it was not religion free but it was an athiest state untill 1939 or so.

No, just because the socialists declared that the state was "atheist" didn't mean that the people were atheists. Religion was forced underground, but it still existed in Russia.

I can guarantee you that Russia as an atheist state was not a "happy" place at that time... Tens of millions of murdered Russians weren't exactly dancing in the streets.

— Doc Velocity






[edit on 12/9/2009 by Doc Velocity]

reply to post by Doc Velocity


That was the point i was getting at lol. Atheist leaders are not happy people.

reply to post by Doc Velocity


They were standing in bread lines.........
or being spied on by the KGB!

While I think this is an interesting thread and a topic worthy of discussion, you must be kidding me if you think there is any scientific merit to the study what so ever. This form of social science (an oxymoron) is the most subject to manipulation. The absence of quanitative data make the intrepretations completely subject to the attitudes and beliefs of the individuals conducting the study.

Take one example, suicide. The rates in the Nordic countrys, those countrys lauded by progressives as models of the godless, socialist state are twice as high as Italy's, or Mexico's --both countrys that are highly religious.

What makes this an interesting study is that hopefully it can generate some discussion regarding why there are different concepts of happiness throughout different cultures.

I certainly hope that even through some back-door, none of my tax dollars went into producing this rubbish

Originally posted by Clearskies
[The Russian people] were standing in bread lines.........
or being spied on by the KGB!

Well, under Stalin's particularly venomous socialism, the Russian people quite literally had guns to their heads. During WWII, when Germany invaded, Stalin marched millions of Russians to their deaths — they were either gunned down by the Nazis, or executed by Russian soldiers when they tried to retreat.

When it comes to wholesale slaughter, the Russian people suffered so dearly as to dwarf the Jewish Holocaust to near insignificance.

— Doc Velocity

Hey zaiger, pardon me for borrowing your statistics, but found it very interesting what you'd said on November 17th:

Originally posted by zaiger
Joseph Stalin, Atheist: 20 million plus dead
Mao-Tse-Tung, Atheist: 40 million plus dead
Pol Pot, Atheist: 2 million dead
Kim-Il-Sung, Atheist: 5 million dead
Athiests prefer a communist government that was they can enforce freedom of religion at all costs while preserving their right to speak freely according to what they say free speech is.

Although I could not personally say all athiests, we can see a tendency of many people in Europe and the U.S. (especially in the 60's) that wanted and were doing their best to make a play for Communism as the ultimately fair and Godless government.

[edit on 9-12-2009 by saint4God]

Hey, moocow,

I was sitting in the doctors office and came across this article and wanted to share it with you.


Scientists See God on the Brainwww.livescience.com...

suggests that religion is not a special case of a belief system, but evolved along with other belief and social cognitive abilities,"

A first part of the study established a range or spectrum of religious beliefs relating to God's perceived involvement in this world, God's perceived emotion, and personal experiences as opposed to abstract doctrine. The second part examined how participants responded to religious statements reflecting those beliefs, with the help of fMRI scanners.

The brain scans showed that people use known, higher-function brain regions to sort out their thoughts on God and religion. For instance, parts of the brain linked with theory of mind (ToM) lit up when trying to understand a supposedly detached God's intentions – although individual minds varied wildly when pondering a more involved God.

A possible explanation: "Probably because we would tend to use theory of mind when we were puzzled, concerned, or threatened by another’s behavior," Grafman told LiveScience.

People again relied on theory of mind, as well as brain regions that detect emotion through facial expression and language, when they read statements reflecting God's anger. Statements of God's love stimulated regions connected with positive emotions and suppression of sadness

Unsurprisingly, statements of religious doctrine activated parts of the brain that help decode metaphor and abstractness. That contrasted with statements reflecting religious experience, which prodded the brain to retrieve memories and imagery of self in action.

Even statements that believers or nonbelievers disagreed with produced intriguing results.

"Reading a statement that you have been asked to compare your own personal beliefs with certainly will activate your own belief system," Grafman pointed out. He and his colleagues observed brain regions relating to disgust or conflict lighting up in response.

One question that remains unanswered is whether religion evolved as a central functional preoccupation for human brains in early societies, or whether it simply relied on brain regions which had evolved for other types of thought-processing.

Did our brain evolve towards a god belief, and love and empathy, as a survival mechanism, survival of the tribe, and community.

reply to post by saint4God

Joseph Stalin, Atheist: 20 million plus dead
Mao-Tse-Tung, Atheist: 40 million plus dead
Pol Pot, Atheist: 2 million dead
Kim-Il-Sung, Atheist: 5 million dead
Athiests prefer a communist government that was they can enforce freedom of religion at all costs while preserving their right to speak freely according to what they say free speech is.

Interesting, and with this in mind does a community or country whose citizens are linked together with a common bond of spiritual and social understanding have a better chance of survival?

reply to post by Stormdancer777

Athiests prefer a communist government that was they can enforce freedom of religion at all costs while preserving their right to speak freely according to what they say free speech is.

So then I see it as yes, atheists too have a sense of community, insuring their survival as well, securing the survival of their tribe,

Also does god belief, prayer and meditation activate the pleasure center of the brain?

Originally posted by watcher73

Odd how non thinkers will invalidate science in their minds while believing something with absolutely no proof.

How exactly does science determine if someone is happy or not? I didn't realize that happiness is a physical property which can be measured. If it's not empirical, it no longer qualifies as science, and enters into the religion category. Also, how is using infant mortality as a measurement of a nations happiness even valid? 4000 mothers a day in America willfully murder their own child. Surely they wouldn't do this to make themselves unhappy (otherwise keep it and be happy), so logic would indicate that in America, infant death = happiness???????? Save the junk science for the global warming community

No doubt that this study is skewed by Muslims. Muslims are very unhappy people by nature. To include Muslims with other religions just isn't right. If the person changed the study to exclude Muslims, the findings would be totally different.

What makes Muslims unhappy? Being forced to cling to their religion under penalty of death? Not being able to eat a good pork chop? Women treated as 2nd class citizens? Knowing their prophet was a person that married 9 year old girls? It all adds up to form very unhappy people.

Drop the Muslims, and in general, religious people are very happy.

[edit on 11-12-2009 by Carseller4]

reply to post by Carseller4


What an ignorant, pathetic post. Muslims aren't intrinsically unhappy any more than Catholics are intrinsically paedophiles. Sure, some are, and the ones that are are shown all across the media, but they are not representative of everyone. Muslims are also not forced to be Muslims on pain of death - how do you explain all the Muslims in free countries? Surely if what you say is true, there wouldn't be any. Clearly you are wrong.

I'm an atheist, so don't think I'm standing up for people of the same faith as me. I'm not consumed by hatred or prejudice, so when I see posts like yours, it makes me feel ill that someone can go through life so uneducated about their fellow man.

Originally posted by davesidious

Muslims are also not forced to be Muslims on pain of death - how do you explain all the Muslims in free countries? Surely if what you say is true, there wouldn't be any. Clearly you are wrong.

The Muslim scurge is desending on America right now. It seems like every other day a Muslim father trys to kill their daughters for becoming too "westernized." You even had a young Muslim girl fleeing for her life from threats from her father. No matter where Muslims live, they are never truly free, and therfore cannot be truly happy. Their religion demands death for betrayal.

I guess since I am a big defender of equal rights for women, the way Muslims treat their women just rubs me the wrong way.

There is no doubt that this study is skewed by Muslims. Lumping in Muslims with the truly religious is a farce, and it is designed to make Christians look bad.

Originally posted by kingofmd
How exactly does science determine if someone is happy or not?

As a scientist I can tell you it doesn't. I can tell you though that many of the scientists in our office aren't happy most of the time...so I don't think merely being a scientist makes a person a good judge. Likely the best judge is our children. They've got pretty good radar when they ask, "What's wrong mom/dad?" They see first when a person doesn't seem happy.

reply to post by davesidious


I'm with you davesidious...

I can’t believe some of the sick bigoted post we seem to be getting on here lately...

Some people seem to have so much vile hatred for anyone who is different from themselves...

Pure ignorance!

reply to post by Carseller4

The Muslim scurge is desending on America right now. It seems like every other day a Muslim father trys to kill their daughters for becoming too "westernized." You even had a young Muslim girl fleeing for her life from threats from her father. No matter where Muslims live, they are never truly free, and therfore cannot be truly happy. Their religion demands death for betrayal.

I guess since I am a big defender of equal rights for women, the way Muslims treat their women just rubs me the wrong way.

There is no doubt that this study is skewed by Muslims. Lumping in Muslims with the truly religious is a farce, and it is designed to make Christians look bad.

Do you actually know any Muslims??? I happen to know lots and none of them are as you describe.

You claim that you are a big defender of equal rights for woman?? And you reinforce that statement by launching an ignorant and bigoted attack on a minority group? (Muslims are a minority group in America)

What about the rights of the woman who choose to be Muslim???


Don’t get me wrong... I’m sure there are plenty of bad Muslims out there... same as there are plenty of bad Christians, Atheists, Jews etc...

But to tar billions of people with the same brush is ignorant beyond belief.

Do you think Christians have always treated woman fairly??? You think woman haven’t been persecuted, throughout history, by other religions???

You solve it by educating, communicating and including... Not subjugating, haranguing and excluding!!

The Muslim scurge is desending on America right now

Can you actually hear yourself?? It sounds like the type of stereotyped fanatical rhetoric that you seem to be against... Just replace the word Muslim with Christian and America with Islam and you would be marched off to Guantanamo in an orange jump suit.