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It may also be that religious people are persuading themselves. I think spiritually committed people are happier than the least religiously committed people and main reason of that is a religious person believes holy justice, sins and goodness. For instance, a persons father killed by a criminal then, criminal escaped and disappeared. A religious person believes he is going to take his punishments in hell and relief himself or become less sad and angry, however, an atheist cannot think the same way due to not believing holy justice. He becomes sad and angry when compared with a religious person. According to article of Phillip Moeller in Us news "Regular and frequent religious attendance does seem to be one of the significant predictors of less stress and more life satisfaction."(Moeller 2012) Do not believing holy justice or karma makes people more stressful and sad. For example, a study of Michael E. Nielsen involved over 160,000 people in Europe. Among weekly churchgoers, 85% reported being "very satisfied" with life, but this number reduced to 77% among those who never went to church (Inglehart, 1990). This kind of pattern is typical -- religious involvement is associated with modest increases in happiness. This percentage is much less for non-religious people. (Nielsen 2008).
However, happiness of religious people might be related with the country they live in. In some cultures, majority of people atheists and some of them are highly religious. If a person believes different things than his environment it definitely affects his happiness. I mean in a religious country, people do not like atheists, people and in a country where people are mostly atheists they do not like a religious people. On the other hand, the system and laws of a country are created for the beliefs of majority. So, if a person believes the opposite of his cultures beliefs it is harder to live in that culture for him.
