The researchers suspect not all religious experiences have an equal impact on happiness. For instance, the study is examining whether participating in religious services as a child impacts later happiness. “One of the best predictors of participating in a religious community as an adult is having participated in one as a child,” says Brendan Case, the associate director for research at Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program. “And participation as an adult is very strongly associated with flourishing in the present.”
What religion can teach the non-religious about happiness
So, what is it about religion that supports happiness? Baylor’s Johnson says that focusing on others – something that most religious traditions teach – has the benefit of improving one’s own life, health, and flourishing.
Harvard’s Case thinks it’s the social support provided by religious communities that seems to be key, as well as their offer of meaning, purpose and consolation. “Religious communities are probably so ubiquitous in human cultures because they satisfy a fundamental human urge, or perhaps even need, for a moral community oriented toward the sacred, or divine or transcendent,” Case says, paraphrasing the French sociologist Emile Durkheim’s account of why human beings are intrinsically religious animals.
For Kelli Fleitas, a middle-aged mother of two teenagers, that sense of transcendence comes from singing in church. While she wishes her two teens still wanted to attend services as they did when they were younger, she’s grateful for her own experience – particularly the months that she and her fellow choristers sang carols before holiday services, including “Nova, nova,” a hymn set to 15th Century English text and accompanied by a musician playing on a recorder. Fleitas experiences happiness when she blends her voice with others at church. Singing, for her, is an active form of prayer.
For non-believers, other types of communities, such as bowling leagues and Rotary Clubs, may offer some of the same sense of purpose, rituals and community that religion does, as the Harvard political scientist emeritus Robert D. Putnam described in his book “Bowling Alone.” (Though Case cautions they might not be as powerful of an influence as religious groups).
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