Read a good interview transcript in the Atlantic between Arthur Brooks and Jerusalem Demasis on whether religion can make one happy. My theory about what ails us as a society is that we don't understand religion and that there is in fact too much religion, particularly relative to fifty years ago. People association religion to particular sets of beliefs, institutions, or higher power, but religion is whatever humans attach themselves to derive meaning and identity. #

Today there are many things to which one can and does attach themselves to, and one of those most popular right now in the United States is political ideology, populism/Trumpism and progressivism. (Right/left, Republican/Democrat, conservative/liberal are variations of the theme. #

Most people do derive happiness through these attachments that given them meaning, but you should see here the problem. Happiness is dependent on externalities, and therefore we are conditioned to seek these things that make us happy. I think what you really have here in religions is idolatry. #

Religion does make one happy, in fact happiness , or feeling good about oneself, is practically the purpose of religion. The problem is in the belief that the pursuit of happiness is that which ought to be our motivation, it's a problem because as happiness depends on something outside of oneself, it is fleeting. #

Rather than happiness, I think one ought to focus on joy. Joy is a state of being, one chooses or is conditioned to be joyful, by which I mean joy is not dependent on a an externality, it comes from the inside out. Idols promise happiness, but they are finite. Joy comes from within one's soul, woven in to the fabric of who we are that is more than we comprehend. It's felt before known, but once known is infinite. #