As important as your religious beliefs may be to you, they don?t necessarily make you happier, a new study in the American Sociological Review finds. What does make you more satisfied with your life, the study finds, is having friends at your congregation and a strong religious identity.
“Those are the people who give you the sense of belonging,” said lead study author Chaeyoon Lim, of the Department of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Lim conducted the study with Robert Putnam, author of “Bowling Alone” and “American Grace.”