“Like you can't just decide to believe. You can decide to belong though. Like if you decide that you want to go to church every Sunday and you want to take part in these rituals of religious life, maybe that does make you happier, even in the absence of belief.”
Conversations with Coleman · Ideas & Essays · October 2026
Coleman Hughes asked about research finding religious Americans happier than non-religious ones. Phelps-Roper says what she has missed since leaving her church is its sense of purpose and its community. She adds that, having been such a staunch believer, belonging without belief is part of what keeps her out of religious communities now.
Transcript
…to sort of bring about some sense of accountability. Again, not to punish people for their sins of the past, but to figure out how to do better in the future and to sort of have this maybe collective immunization from this happening again, at least in our lifetimes. That would be ideal.
…showing pretty convincingly that religious people in America at least are happier than non-religious people? And if so, do you think that's correlation or causation? And have you thought about, you know, independent of whether religions are true, the happiness value that they might provide?
…and, you know, sacrificing for one another. People don't talk so much about sacrificing for each other these days too much, maybe outside of their own like immediate families. But anyway, so to go back to your actual question though, like about happiness, I might believe that. I will say though, too, I don't think you can talk yourself in. I mean, I was going to say, talk yourself into belief. Like you can't just decide to believe. You can decide to belong though. Like if you decide that you want to go to church every Sunday and you want to take part in these rituals of religious life, maybe that does make you happier, even in the absence of belief. But for me, like having been a believer in that way, like and such a staunch believer, like the absence of that, I think would be that's part of what keeps me out of religious communities now, aside from the fact that I just don't necessarily like believe like what they believe.
Right. I mean, the community piece is one I've heard a lot of people say. You know, obviously it's harder to build your own community that's like stable and really, you know, survives long periods of time. It's much easier to be born into one that already has a natural stability. But the other…
Yeah, choice is both like a burden and a privilege. You know, when I left Westboro, I was so overwhelmed by making any decision because decision-making was, as I like to put it, like a muscle that had atrophied. I had so little control over my life at Westboro. And while like when I was younger…
How do you raise your children with respect to religious belief? What do you tell them when they ask mommy, is there a God? What are the kinds of conversations you have with them? And how do you approach that?
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