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Is religious faith necessary for maximizing happiness in a utilitarian framework? Consider these two thought experiments:
Two people are on a deserted island without food or water. Logic tells them that they will surely die, and there is nothing they can do. One of them has faith, the other does not. The one with faith will believe in an ultimately good final destination, and may even believe (in the face of reason) that God will find a way to save him if He so pleases. Of the two dying men, only one man can maximize his happiness in his last days. The atheist, even the most poetic and nostalgic atheist, could not be as happy without a fully fleshed out and trained belief in a final ultimately good hereafter. Maybe he will remember the good in his life, but human happiness is optimal only with hope and desire (the happy man is the man desiring to meet his wife, not the man who remembers the wife who passed away).
A man can bear extreme pain with positive feeling if he believes his pain is for a reason. For example, a soldier who knows that his death will save his loved ones and protect his community will die with a certain gladness, which exists in spite of and alongside the pain. Given this, consider a society in which everyone believes that all of their pain and misery is for an ultimate heroic purpose. This is a society in which everyone’s suffering is turned into something positive, and hence a society with greater sum total happiness.
No because religion teaches you that many things are outside of your control. I believe that research indicates that having a higher internal locus of control is correlated with being happier.
An atheist can have a trained belief in a final ultimately good hereafter. You can believe that death can ultimately be defeated by humanity. Not in your lifetime but you can contribute to moving humanity in that direction by discovering something that extends the life expectancy of humans (like a vaccine or penicillin). That is your ultimate heroic purpose to get humanity closer to defeating death. If humanity always keeps moving in that direction than death may someday be defeated. You know you won’t physically or consciously live forever but because of your contribution to society a part of you will live on and be part of the reason that humanity was able to defeat death.
Also, it is possible to temporarily chemically achieve states of happiness that are happier than anything that is possible when sober. Or you could achieve non-religious enlightenment by believing you don’t really die (like thinking your real body is somewhere else and this world is just a simulation/dream. You don’t believe that you die upon death, but instead you just wake up somewhere else).
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