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Taylor scrolling her dash right now seeing how we connected the dots

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taylor literally raised us so well that we figured it out in like 5 mins and i’m very proud of that and i hope she is too 

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Oral Advocacy Mooting Guide

Hello, I am Theophilus Henry Silas, and welcome to my quick guide to oral advocacy. In this, article, I will walk you through some English language tips for all advocacy in legal proceedings. If you are new to or advocacy this article is definitely a good place for you to start and throughout the article, I’ll be using examples from a simulated moot problem and court argument which will be set in…

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Gay Grief Month

Living in a still deeply homophobic society in many ways, I say: to the individual still struggling to accept their sexuality and struggling with internalized homophobia, I would give the gift of unconditional self-acceptance. The true, deep belief in their bones that they are perfect, beautiful, handsome, and lovable, just the way they are. Regardless of what society, their church, or anyone…

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Babcock Sex Tape: Why expulsion was the worst choice, Argument of virtue ethics and moral behavior

Babcock Sex Tape: Why expulsion was the worst choice, Argument of virtue ethics and moral behavior

I learned something when I was younger and that is the fact that every single person on earth has secrets, especially those secrets that people don’t know about (I know it sounds absurd to say secrets people don’t know about) but really, everyone has secrets they don’t want out there in the public atmosphere.

I was informed about the Babcock girl sex tape issue day before yesterday and it has…

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Does religion make people happier?

Are atheists actually happier?

These are questions I will be addressing today. Welcome back to my blog today guys and I hope I will help give a little enlightenment today.

Some researchers are so confident that religion makes people happier, and healthier, that they want it to be prescribed by doctors (1). Now that religion is losing out to atheism and My previous post, Atheism: The death of religion? , is happiness at risk?

The 2018 edition of the World Happiness Report that came out early 2019, it shows pretty much what other recent reports have shown: Western European countries are the world’s happiest, the poor countries of Africa and the Middle East are the world’s unhappiest, and Finland has moved into the #1 spot. A new aspect of the report deals with immigration and finds that immigrants quickly tend to approach the happiness of the countries to which they moved. This is expected because, after all, immigrants usually move to where they expect to find a better life. African countries such as Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Nigeria, South Sudan and the Central African Republic all report lower happiness levels than Syria.

And, here are the rankings, from happiest to unhappiest countries, with the statistical analysis of what factors contributed to the overall happiness, which is measured on a scale from zero to eight (data from this part of the report).

Most of the top 20 countries are from Western Europe or are Anglophone, while, with the exception of Ukraine, all the 20 bottom countries are from sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. This is similar to the results of last year’s report.

Here’s a map of happiness measured in 2017. Greenest countries are the happiest (scores above 5.0; darker green indicates real happiness), while red and blackish-brown countries are the unhappy ones (scores below 5.0).  You can see that misery correlates with social well-being, including poverty. But it also correlates (negatively) with religiosity.

As I said, the self-perceived happiness of people is highly correlated with their income, health, freedom, and social support, which explains the patterns above. But I’m absolutely sure, based on partial surveys I’ve reported before, that happiness is also, across all countries, strongly and negatively correlated with their religiosity. That is, the most religious countries (which happen to be those in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa) are the unhappiest, while the most atheistic countries—those in Scandinavia and Northern Europe, as well as Australia and Canada—are the happiest. (The U.S., which is the most religious First World nation, ranks as #18.)

As Religiosity increases, Happiness reduces

First, as to the distribution of atheism in the world, a clear pattern can be discerned. In sub-Saharan Africa there is almost no atheism (Zuckerman, 2007). Belief in gods declines in more developed countries and is concentrated in Europe in countries such as Estonia, the highest population of atheists (82% of the population are atheists) Sweden (64% are atheists), Denmark (72%), France (44%) and Germany (40%). In contrast, the incidence of atheism in most sub-Saharan countries is below 1% but account for the unhappiest portion.

One of the best-known findings is that religion protects people against depression. According to a 2003 meta-analysis (2) that combined the results of 147 different studies, religiosity explains less than 1% of the differences in vulnerability to depression. If religion has such small correlations with depression, it may not be a huge factor in happiness either.

Comparing countries Such doubt emerges most strongly from comparisons between countries. Much of the research linking religiosity and happiness was conducted in the U.S. where more religious people are slightly happier. Researchers saw this as evidence for the universal benefits of religion (a perspective that interests evolutionary psychologists like me because it helps explain why religion is so common around the globe). Yet, there is no association between religiousness and happiness in either Denmark or the Netherlands (3).

Why the difference? Religious people are in the majority in the U.S., but in a minority in Denmark and the Netherlands. Feeling part of the mainstream may be comforting whereas being in the minority is potentially stressful. Ethnic minorities around the world tend to have higher blood pressure, for example – this being a reliable index of stress.

If religion contributes to happiness, then most religious countries should be happiest. Yet, the opposite is true.

According to Gallup data for 2010, the happiest nations were Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands. These are among the least religious countries in the world. Also according to Gallup data, Sweden, Denmark and Norway were the second, third, and fourth-least religious states, being exceeded only by Estonia in their atheism.

Why are these European countries so happy? Their happiness is explainable in terms of a combination of national wealth and redistribution of resources via high taxation and a well-developed welfare state. So paying taxes makes people happy after all!

It is not the actual payment of taxes that cheers citizens of course but the end result of good government which is to say a secure standard of living for everyone.

In the jargon of religious studies, the European social democracies provide existential security. No one has to worry about being arbitrarily dismissed from their job and running out of money for basic necessities.

The principal source of European happiness is also the main reason for their unprecedented level of atheism. As detailed in an Atheism: The death of religion?, when countries become more affluent, and their people acquire greater material security, their religious temperature nosedives.

What it means—and this is supported by several sociological studies (see here for one)—is likely that people either turn to religion or maintain their religion when their social situation is so dire that they’re unhappy.  When conditions are good, and there’s lots of social support, including help for sick people, old people, free medical care, and so on, then there’s no need to be religious, no need to supplicate a god for what your society can’t provide. When you’re well off, your country gradually loses religion, the thesis of Norris and Inglehart in the preceding link.

Religion is simply what you do when you don’t have well being.

I always quote Marx on this point. I’m not a Marxist, but here’s one place he was right:

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

—Karl Marx (1843)

  Sources 1. Koenig, H. G. (2008). Medicine, religion and health: Where science and spirituality meet. West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Foundation Press. 2. Smith, T. B., MacCullough, M. E., and Poll. J. (2003). Religiousness and depression. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 614-636. 3. Snoep, L. (2008). Religiousness and happiness in three nations. Journal of Happiness Studies, 9, 207-211.

4. Psychology Today

Happiest Nations on Earth are the most Atheistic: Rebuttal of the claim “Religion makes People happier” Does religion make people happier? Are atheists actually happier? These are questions I will be addressing today.

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Atheism: The Death of Religion?

This is my two bits on Atheism

Hey Guys,

Its me again and I am back to disturb you again, sorry I have been so crappy these past few months, but it’s not without reason. I had exams and I was held up by school, then I had a surgery and that had its own complications and then school hit me hard. Anyways today’s topic is one I am really into, because sometimes when I tell people I am an atheist, they will be like ‘I am the first…

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taylor: i wanted access to my masters

scott: i TOLD you i was gonna sell to scooter

taylor: i wanted access to my masters

yael: LEAVE MY CHILDREN OUT OF THIS

taylor: i wanted access to my masters

justin: why can’t you just LOVE... love man

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HE DESERVED SO MUCH!!

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PAPA STEVE!

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HE DESERVED SO MUCH!!

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I’m just now finding out Anne Frank was bi??? OMG

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Richard Madden  Received An Honorary Doctorate For His Contribution To Drama at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, Scotland.