Catholic Candle note: This article is a “companion” piece to these two articles:

❖  The Connection Between Virtue and Happiness – Part 1:  https://catholiccandle.org/2023/11/26/the-connection-between-virtue-and-happiness-part-1/

❖  The Connection Between Virtue and Happiness – Part 2:  https://catholiccandle.org/2023/12/18/the-connection-between-virtue-and-happiness-part-2/

Satan is always exceedingly unhappy.  He hates us and hates our happiness.  He hates the fact that we can be happy on earth by living according to God’s law and His truth.  He hates the fact that we have a chance to be perfectly happy in heaven for all eternity. 

Those who fall for Satan’s lies and traps necessarily become unhappy and depressed.  The more a person falls for the devil’s snares, the more that person obtains the devil’s results: unhappiness and depression (as well as sin and damnation).

The correlation between leftist positions (which are satanic lies) and the resulting (satanic) depression and unhappiness is shown in an interesting pair of studies conducted recently by the Department of Psychology at the University of Turku, in Turku, Finland.

These university researchers were interested in determining whether there is a correlation between those persons who support leftist positions such as transgenderism, Marxism, and “anti-racism”, and those persons who report themselves having greater instances of unhappiness as well as depression and other “mental health” problems.  The researchers discovered that there is such a correlation.[1]

These same two studies also showed that, of those who held these leftist positions, there was twice the percentage of women compared to men.[2]  This distribution between the sexes fits with the Gallup polling data which showed that young women are more liberal than young men.  Here is that graph of Gallup polling data:

This Gallup poll data is from the Gallup Poll Social Series and it available here: https://www.americansurveycenter.org/featured_data/the-growing-political-divide-between-young-men-and-women/

These two Finnish studies were published in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology and examined the relative level of depression and unhappiness in persons who ascribed to ideology which the researchers called a “Critical Social Justice Attitude” (“CSJA”).  This attitude involved persons who perceive others “foremost as members of identity groups and as being (witting or unwitting) perpetrators or victims of oppression”.[3]  Further, these attitudes included conclusions such as:

·         “If white people have on average a higher level of income than black people, it is because of racism.”

·         “University reading lists should include fewer white or European authors.”

·         People who are not gender-confused “should state their gender pronouns in, for instance, their social media profiles.”

·         So-called “trans women” [i.e., gender-confused men] – are women.

·         Limiting speech rights of privileged people is not justified. (reverse scored).[4]

·         There are only two biological sexes in the human species. (reverse scored).

·         A person should not say things that might offend an oppressed person.

·         The police are institutionally racist.

·         The ideas of Karl Marx should not have more influence in national politics. (reverse scored)Bottom of Form

.[5]

People were given a questionnaire about these positions, which the researchers then scored.[6]  The higher CSJA scores (which indicated greater acceptance of leftist positions) correlated closely with the group of people who self-reported higher incidences of depression, anxiety, and unhappiness.[7]

To Catholics, God’s all-wise plan is evident here: God created us to follow His law, embrace His truth, and follow our Reason.  He created us to live lives of virtue.  He created people to be happy by living this way and holding the truth.  Of course, no one can escape being unhappy who is living the opposite way – viz., a godless life, rejecting the truth; a life of vice, unruly passions, and unreasonable emotions.

The leftist, anti-God way of life always leads to a greater incidence of depression and unhappiness, as a foretaste of the unhappiness that awaits the servants of Satan in the afterlife.  This is a necessary reminder that we must strive for virtue and holiness!  Let us do so always and in everything!