Do Godly Men Act Happier Than the Non-Religious?

A good friend of mine, Stephanie, went to a pot­tery class ear­lier today with her son; her son, 8½-year-old Carter, sat between two pas­tors,* and remarked that he wished all men could be as happy as them. It occurred to Stephanie that “Godly men ACT hap­pier than non-religion men,” and she asked me why.

As a bit of back­ground, i first encoun­tered the idea that Chris­tians are hap­pier back in the early 00s when i was first start­ing out as a Chris­t­ian. I ran a moderately-successful mes­sage board called The Fel­low­ship Hall, and a user by the name of MikeR, whom i’m still in con­tact with via Face­book, men­tioned that i surely had a shine or a glow in my eyes. I for­get the exact way he phrased it, but he spoke of it as an actual phys­i­cal dif­fer­ence between Chris­tians & non-Christians.

As time went on, i received a lot of com­ments from folks i worked with as well about how happy i always seemed, that i never seemed to have a bad day. Dur­ing the ear­li­est cou­ple of years, i often wore a wooden cross pin on my work uni­form as well, and it was obvi­ous from the com­ments i received that folks asso­ci­ated my pos­i­tive atti­tude with my religion.

When i was a Chris­t­ian, i believed that i shouldn’t com­plain. I took to heart what Philip­pi­ans 4:11 taught: to be con­tent in all things. What­ever trou­ble i may have been fac­ing, what­ever stress i may have had in my life, i did my best not to allow that to effect me. I believed there were big prob­lems in the world than my own per­sonal issues, and so i wore a smile, per­fectly con­tent. I won’t lie: the belief that my small­est cares fell into the prov­i­dence of a lov­ing God cer­tainly made me feel good and added to my happiness.

One thing i noticed, though, is that most other Chris­tians i knew didn’t seem any­where nearly as con­tent or happy as i was. I know that’s entirely sub­jec­tive and doesn’t mean any­thing to any­body else but me, yet it was an obser­va­tion of mine over sev­eral years.

To the point of Stephanie’s ques­tion, though, if it does seem as though Chris­t­ian men are hap­pier than non-Christian men, why would that be so?

I offer the fol­low­ing suggestions:

Chris­tian­ity offers hope. A world with­out the super­nat­ural is depress­ing for many; hell, i’ll be the first to admit that nat­u­ral­is­tic death scares the shit out of me. I’ve been try­ing to wrap my mind around the con­cept of the ces­sa­tion of exis­tence since my grand­mother died nearly two decades ago, and any­time i think about it, i feel ter­ror. Crip­pling, par­a­lyz­ing, mind-chilling ter­ror at the thought that some day, i’m going to no longer be.

Chris­tian­ity, like most reli­gions, offers hope in that area. Chris­tians need not think about depress­ing things like that: For them, all of the worst aspects of life on the planet are han­dled hap­pily by a lov­ing God. That’s a load off of their shoul­ders and cer­tainly could make them seem happier.**

Chris­tian­ity offers abso­lu­tion of guilt. Human­ists, athe­ists, adher­ents of karmic reli­gions, and so forth have to live with the guilt of any wrong they may do; Chris­tians, how­ever, believe that the guilt for all of their wrong­do­ings was taken up by Jesus and that his blood pro­vides the pro­pi­ti­a­tion and abso­lu­tion for their sins. While they may feel guilt, it’s a guilt tem­pered by the knowl­edge that they are secured a place in Heaven, which is sure to make them feel tons bet­ter. That may cer­tainly account for any extra hap­pi­ness seen in Christians.

Chris­tian­ity offers fel­low­ship. Another big­gie here is that Chris­tian­ity is very com­mu­nal. Spend­ing time with like-minded indi­vid­u­als is a boon for hap­pi­ness, whether it be at church, a Super­bowl party, or a World of War­craft raid. Spend­ing time with oth­ers doing what you love is a great cure for bad atti­tudes. Chris­tians believe their fel­low­ship is global, and they may exhibit their enjoy­ment of that any­where where they may run into oth­ers with whom they share faith.

All of that said, i don’t believe that the hap­pi­ness level of Chris­tians is any sort of proof that Chris­tian­ity has any sort of merit. If hap­pi­ness was proof of merit, then why are a vari­ety of recre­ational drugs still ille­gal? What about adher­ents of other reli­gions who find joy? What about the hap­pi­ness, peace, and joy i’ve found since free­ing myself from the yoke of Christianity?

Today, i have friends who are happy. I have friends who are unhappy. I have friends who seek to uplift those around them. I have friends who spend their time focused on neg­a­tiv­ity, espe­cially in regards to politics.

And what i’ve noticed is that it doesn’t mat­ter whether these peo­ple are Chris­t­ian or athe­ist, guy or girl, gay or straight, which leads me to believe that there isn’t one right way to find ful­fill­ment or hap­pi­ness in life. Everyone’s path is going to be dif­fer­ent. Obvi­ously, i encour­age oth­ers to give up the false hope of reli­gion in favor of intel­lec­tual free­dom, but at the end of the day, so long as their super­sti­tions aren’t being turned into laws to gov­ern me, they are free to believe what they want.

I wish we could all be a lit­tle bet­ter about giv­ing the world a smile, though. We need more joy. Per­haps desperately.

* My opin­ions of reli­gion notwith­stand­ing, i think every pas­tor should take pot­tery classes, if only to fully appre­ci­ate the potter/clay sym­bol­ism used in the Bible on an expe­ri­en­tial level.

** It is my opin­ion that hon­est Chris­tians ought to be most mis­er­able: How can the live joy­fully at all with the thought that the major­ity of folks whom they know and love are going to die and burn for an eter­nity in Hell? In one book i read which dealt specif­i­cally with how folks would be able to find joy at all in Heaven in light of that, the author sug­gested that in Heaven, there will be no mem­ory of those in Hell! What a farce!

Tagged as: Christianity, fellowship, guilt, happiness, hope, joy