I mostly agree with this, but I think you might have an idea of “getting the world the way you want it” which is more utilitarian than what most people actually want. I think we can summarize most of what most people mostly want by “living a good and happy life together with other people.”
Happy is there because people are in fact interested in happiness, but not only happiness. “Good” is there because most people are moral realists or some equivalent, and they would not want to live a happy life if in fact it was an evil and harmful one. “Together with other people” is there perhaps just because given human nature, it is very difficult to understand a life as being actually good or happy without it.
There are certainly other things that people care about, but I think that contains most of it. And unless you put a very high weight on believing the truth, that is all consistent with having false religious beliefs, and in fact for many people it is easier with religious beliefs.
I wasn’t claiming that happiness is or should be incompatible with religious belief or observance. Only that “religious people are happier” wouldn’t be very strong evidence that religion is beneficial by any other metric, and “religious people are unhappier” wouldn’t be very strong evidence that it’s harmful by any other metric.
I mostly agree with this, but I think you might have an idea of “getting the world the way you want it” which is more utilitarian than what most people actually want. I think we can summarize most of what most people mostly want by “living a good and happy life together with other people.”
Happy is there because people are in fact interested in happiness, but not only happiness. “Good” is there because most people are moral realists or some equivalent, and they would not want to live a happy life if in fact it was an evil and harmful one. “Together with other people” is there perhaps just because given human nature, it is very difficult to understand a life as being actually good or happy without it.
There are certainly other things that people care about, but I think that contains most of it. And unless you put a very high weight on believing the truth, that is all consistent with having false religious beliefs, and in fact for many people it is easier with religious beliefs.
I wasn’t claiming that happiness is or should be incompatible with religious belief or observance. Only that “religious people are happier” wouldn’t be very strong evidence that religion is beneficial by any other metric, and “religious people are unhappier” wouldn’t be very strong evidence that it’s harmful by any other metric.