Mormons desperately want everyone else to see how happy they are with the True Gospel of Jesus Christ as taught by the One True Church, covet that boundless happiness, look into Mormonism, decide it's true, and join the fold of the most intensely happy religious practitioners in the world. There are, however, reasons to doubt Mormon happiness. The two biggest in my mind have to do with Utah's extremely high consumption of antidepressants. Naturally Mormons will deny there's any connection of the state's depression to Mormonism stating that Mormon women claim to be happy (so they must be), or that it's probably the Mormons struggling to live the lifestyle who are depressed, or maybe Mormons are more responsible about getting help than people in other states. The counter is that Utah is not the only state to boast both high religious fervor and high antidepressant use.
Utah's new state song.
We might also want to ask just why it is that Utahns are number one for porn subscriptions when the LDS Church specifically prohibits pornography and why it is that Salt Lake City is one of the top U.S. cities for cosmetic surgeries and Utah is 8th for plastic surgeons per capita.
Why wait until the Resurrection to have a perfect body?
Do these look like statistics of a happy people? How might Mormonism be
contributing to the pain and rejection people feel? To their secret
habits? The desires to be more perfect? Isn't it possible that Mormonism
has some seriously ugly side effects on one's mental health?
And what about the kind of self-interrogation designed to make believers feel like utter shit? I couldn't help but wonder.
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