The Correlation Between Religious Belief and Happiness

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I just feel like religion has such a complicated mix of costs and benefits that I would be scared to push that button. I don't see a strong correlation between societies in which there is very low belief in God and societies in whichthere's a lot of spirituality. In fact, quite the opposite the society where I see most kind of mumbo jumbo spirituality belief in astrology and who knows what is India. And that's also the place for the most religion, for the most belief in religion. So I think we do need beliefs in or we do yearn for beliefs in something meaningful larger than ourselves, but that does not have to be supernatural.

When is a certain speech act an opinion versus a call to action? Does that distinction matter for censorship purposes? Why does it seem that human behavior tends towards censorship rather than towards freedom of expression? Is feeling emotionally or politically harmed a valid reason for censoring certain speech acts? Will it always be the case that, given enough time, truth will win out over ignorance, bullshit, misinformation, and lies? What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for creating a society in which truth wins at the end of the day? Why are citizens so often attracted to populist and/or fascist ideologies and political parties? What value does religion provide to a society?

Iona Italia is the editor-in-chief of Areo Magazine and the host of its Two for Tea podcast. Iona is the author of two books: Anxious Employment (a study of eighteenth-century essayists) and Our Tango World (sociological and philosophical musings on dance and life). She holds a PhD in English Literature from Cambridge University and publishes weekly creative non-fiction pieces on her Substack, The Second Swim. Her background includes a decade in academe and a 12-year career as a tango dancer and teacher. Iona lives in London with four old friends. She loves dancing, running, choral singing, chess, dogs, and sci-fi.

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