- 18 Sep 2012 00:56
#14060548
I think religious people are happier, but I think the reason is a sense of purpose both for themselves and the universe. For a religious person, for example a devout Jew or Muslim, the universe exists because God made it. The human being exists because God put them there. The purpose of the human is to do what God put them there to do. So at every moment, even if things are bad, the religious person is in a sacred universe that exists to bring glory to God. He knows that everything that happens will eventually work out to be God's plan all along.
Athiests, excepting maybe conspiracy theorists, have no such ideas. They live in an accidental world that exists for no reason whatsoever. They live in that universe because their parents had sex, and their purpose is basicly nonexistant. Things in that universe occur roughly randomly, and there's no reason to think that the bad things that happen now are going to work out to any future benefit to anyone.
Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.
from The Sayings of Muad'Dib by the Princess Irulan