A Surprising Look at Church and Happiness

There is an interesting study takes a look at religion and happiness – the question why are religious individuals happier. According to the researchers it could all come down to social networks. In addition to looking data from a survey of almost 2000 US adults to try to figure out the association between attendance at religious services and the number of close friends within and outside of the church. What the researchers found is about a third of the people who attended weekly religious services and have 3 to 5 friends in the congregation were extremely satisfied with their lives. However those who went to to church religiously but did not socialize were only happy about 20% of the time. The summary doesn't downplay the role of faith but it clearly accentuates the role of friendship