A couple of months ago, I happened to ask a friend who had emigrated from Sweden if she was religious. “No!” she exclaimed.  “Almost no one in Sweden is religious.”

As we see at left, there seems to be a huge correlation between atheism and the national level of happiness.  But what causes that?

Are believers unhappy people for some reason? That doesn’t make sense.

Here’s my two-fold theory. Atheists believe:

a) That we only live once, so we try to enjoy it while we can.

And, more importantly,

b) That we need to take care of one another (since there is no God).  We’re willing to make sacrifices if that means things like great education, universal healthcare, environmental responsibility, tolerable working conditions, and near-zero poverty.

Countries Without God