VERSION|0.5.1|NAME|Dinah|DATE|1373302356|CONTENT|I think we are born with a certain disposition.  Miserable people tend to stay miserable whatever happens to them, ditto the happy and the in betweens.  It has been observed that while those with a pessimistic outlook on life may temporarily achieve happiness if they win the lottery or something, they soon regress to their former state of mind.  This is not to say that life experiences have no effect, but most of us probably know people who have gone through the most horrendous experiences yet manage to retain a sunny outlook on life.  I have never come across a pessimist who turned permanently into an optimist, or vice-versa.

I am somewhat sceptical of claims that religious beliefs make people happy.  Can it be real happiness if it requires such a wholesale denial of reality, or is it more a case of constructing a defensive shell around oneself and not allowing any critical thinking, negative thoughts or doubts to get in?  In the past, some Christians were the most miserable of creatures, terrified of judgement, hellfire and damnation.

Admittedly most of us need to have delusions about certain things in order to survive.  No one on this planet is as important as they think they are, with the possible exceptions of the Queen and Andy Murray, but the beliefs of the religious are so bizarre that they really are in a category of their own.
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