Local opinion: Successful, happy societies are mostly secular, not religious

Project 2025 details how a Donald Trump presidency would put our pluralistic nation under the thumb of Christian nationalists. These tribal zealots want our laws and policies to be guided by their theology. The goal is to seize political power and transform our multicultural into a monoculture that will privilege their religious sect. A 2/24 Public Religion Research Institute poll found that 55% of Republicans support their views.

The premise of this authoritarian manifesto is that faith-based God-fearing people are happier than their secular counterparts. Not true! Facts and evidence falsify that claim. Our world’s happiest people live in secular societies — which Project 2025’s authors could have easily discovered had they valued objectivity and honesty.

Irreligious nations are populated by mostly nonbelievers: atheists, agnostics, humanists, and freethinkers. And to be clear, their nonbelief is self-generated, not imposed by governments.

The World Happiness Report uses comprehensive data to monitor performance in 143 countries. They monitor six categories: gross domestic product per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make your own life choices, generosity of the general population, and perceptions of internal and external corruption levels.

In its 2024 update, the report concluded “that Finland is the happiest country in the world” followed in ranking order by: Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Israel, the Netherlands, Norway, Luxembourg, Australia and Switzerland. The U.S. is 23rd on that list, below Bulgaria and above Bolivia.

While Israel is arguably a unique case, the other countries on this list are among the least religious in the world. But how could that be? Isn’t being a Christian nation, according to Project 2025’s authors, a prerequisite for being a better functioning and happier society? Apparently not.

How have secular nations been able to create equitable, safe, humane, just, civil, prosperous, well-functioning, happy, and free societies? Aside: In some of these locales, religion is not completely absent. In the above-cited Nordic countries, for instance, the Lutheran religion permeates these cultures. While their nonbelieving populace accepts this faith’s heritage and ceremonial traditions (church marriages and baptisms are frequent), its dogma is not followed. And religion plays no part in governance.

Sociology professor Phil Zuckerman researched Denmark’s irreligion while living there for 14 months. He concluded that the basis for their nonbelief in religion is their disbelief in God. He said that is why he titled his book Society without God, rather than Society without Religion.

That point merits further discussion.

After 149 interviews, he realized that a Godless society:

• “…is not only possible but can be quite civil and pleasant.”
• can provide the necessities for its people.
• is safe, healthy, moral, prosperous, better functioning, and communally happier.

What about issues such as mortality and life’s meaning? Don’t they require belief in the divine? Again, apparently not.

Concerning mortality, a hospice nurse said it was “generally the atheists who had an easier time calmly accepting their impending fate, while the Christians had the hardest time facing death, often being wracked with worry and anxiety.”

About life’s meaning, he observed that while most Danes saw no divinely bestowed meaning in life, they lived “moral, loving, satisfying, and prosperous lives despite the taken-for-granted meaninglessness of it all.”

He determined that for Danes, religion and God are “non-issues.” He felt this stemmed from a “basic disinterest or a sheer lack of thought” on these matters. He called it a “benign indifference.”

Contrast their state of mind with that of America’s religion-driven Republicans who unabashedly authored and proudly publicized a 922-page plan to upend American society. I suspect it was written to advance the Seven Mountain Mandate, which for the unaware, is a Christian-based directive to take dominion over these seven aspects of our society: family, religion, education, media, arts/entertainment, business, and government.

To be clear: While Christianity provides for many the foundation and framework for living happy and fulfilling lives, it is very wrong to assume it provides the same for everyone.

Respectfully consider: Every religion claims theirs is the “true way.” But one U.S. citizen’s religion is another U.S. citizen’s mythology. When Christians realize why they themselves reject all other religions, they will then gain much-needed insight into why others reject theirs. That Christianity is the majority religion in the United States is irrelevant.

According to our Constitution, Christianity is on equal footing with all other beliefs and non-beliefs. No group deserves any special treatment or privilege in our country. Its adherents would do well with some humility. And a bit of neighborliness would also be appreciated!

Project 2025 and democracy are incompatible. A secularly based government, even with all its inherent flaws, is still the proper institution to administer a highly pluralistic nation.

I think most non-Christian Americans would not mind if I borrowed Democratic VP nominee Tim Walz’s favorite admonition and say to proponents of Christian nationalist views, “Mind your own damn business!”