Everyone has the right to believe whatever they want to when it comes to religion, but it has always seemed to me that many people look on religion as some sort of insurance policy; and now it looks like I was right, as a study presented at the Royal Economic Society’s annual conference in Coventry makes just this point when it says that people with such a “policy” are likely to be happier than atheists and agnostics, as religion acts as a type of “insurance” against personal disaster.
Now I always thought that people looked at it as more of a ‘life’, or should I say ‘afterlife’ policy rather than personal ‘emergency’ or ’accident’ cover.
In other words people pay the ‘premium’ of going through all the rituals and mumbling the right words every so often, in the hope that, maybe, they will be able to cash in their ‘policy’ if or when they reach the ’Pearly Gates’.
Umm! … That’s a pretty big ‘maybe’, and nothing to feel too happy about.
It’s a bit like insuring your baggage when you book a flight and getting that uneasy feeling that you might never see it again as you approach the check-in desk. Do you feel happy then ? … I doubt it ! 
So how does ’going through the motions’ of religion in the hope of covering your arse on Judgment Day make you a happier person ?
It beats an old athiest like me, for I’m very happy to be unburdened with superstitious and supernatural beliefs, and I’ve never trusted bloody insurance companies, so I’m comforted with the thought that on the day when they screw down the lid, and I’m ’all dressed up with nowhere to go’ I won’t have to bother …
… to check the ’small print’. 
