Harvard professor praises religion’s role in tackling loneliness

Faith plays a crucial role in living a happy life, Harvard Professor and social scientist Arthur Brooks has said.

There’s a lot of research on the main happiness habits but faith and life philosophy are the first factors to be considered, Professor Brooks told The Irish Catholic newspaper.

“What you do find is that people who don’t pay attention to things larger than themselves, the transcendental questions, the big questions of life and the universe, those people tend to be a lot less happy because they’re way too focused day to day to day on the quotidian trivialities of their life.

“You know, we need relief and perspective, and that’s why the transcendental….is so critically important,” Prof. Brooks said.

Much modern discontent, particularly the “loneliness epidemic” has fear at its root, Prof. Brooks said.

“Loneliness is at epidemic proportions, not just because of the coronavirus epidemic. We started to see these problems coming much earlier,” he said.

“The biggest problem…loneliness obviously is a lack of love. It’s a lack of love in your life. The main reason that we have a lack of love in our life is because we have too much fear. Fear and love are opposites,” which is a principle to be found in religious literature, Prof. Brooks said.