This lesson calls the faithful...
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This lesson calls the faithful to rejoicing. Americans are not doing a lot of rejoicing. As recently as 2011 a Pew Research Center poll revealed that 1 in 5 Americans are dissatisfied with their lives. A World Happiness Report in 2013 found that America only ranked seventeenth among the happiest nations in the world. The answer to our dilemma may be at least partially in our failure to heed this lesson's suggestion that we do more rejoicing in our religious life and in life in general.
Students of the evolution of religion have observed that religion seems rooted in functions of the brain in which we lose our sense of self, almost in a trance-like experience, in favor of a joyful feeling of being part of the whole. This joy is the reflection of the secretion of amphetamine-like brain chemical dopamine that is released in such neural activities (Matt Rossano, Supernatural Selection, pp. 34-35, 171-172; Nicholas Wade, The Faith Instinct, pp. 53, 74f). Religion at its core is about joyful celebration. So such religious celebration is good for your overall happiness, as it stimulates the flow of brain-chemical highs that lead to happiness.
Students of the evolution of religion have observed that religion seems rooted in functions of the brain in which we lose our sense of self, almost in a trance-like experience, in favor of a joyful feeling of being part of the whole. This joy is the reflection of the secretion of amphetamine-like brain chemical dopamine that is released in such neural activities (Matt Rossano, Supernatural Selection, pp. 34-35, 171-172; Nicholas Wade, The Faith Instinct, pp. 53, 74f). Religion at its core is about joyful celebration. So such religious celebration is good for your overall happiness, as it stimulates the flow of brain-chemical highs that lead to happiness.
