{"id":729,"date":"2008-07-02T16:43:00","date_gmt":"2008-07-02T16:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2008\/07\/02\/happiness-is-increasing\/"},"modified":"2008-07-02T16:43:00","modified_gmt":"2008-07-02T16:43:00","slug":"happiness-is-increasing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2008\/07\/02\/happiness-is-increasing\/","title":{"rendered":"Happiness Is Increasing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Americans, and people around the world, are getting happier all the time according to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nsf.gov\/news\/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111725&#038;org=NSF&#038;from=news\">an article at the National Science Foundation<\/a>.  This is consistent with an article I read in Scientific American a few years ago that indicated that most people, in most parts of the world, most of the time, are happy.  I wonder if we make a mistake when we accept Voltair&#8217;s assumption, and that of most critics of theism, who argue that the world is an awful place and that therefore the horrendous suffering of the planet means that there can&#8217;t possibly be a good, loving, all-powerful God.  If most people are happy and getting happier, wouldn&#8217;t that argue against Voltair&#8217;s assumption?<\/p>\n<p>Leibnitz argued that if we assume that God is good, loving, and all powerful, then in fact this must be the best of all possible worlds&#8211;given the existence of human free will.  Perhaps the data supports Leibnitz&#8217;s position?<\/p>\n<div class='kindleWidget kindleLight' ><img src=\"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-content\/plugins\/send-to-kindle\/media\/white-15.png\" \/><span>Send to Kindle<\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Americans, and people around the world, are getting happier all the time according to an article at the National Science Foundation. This is consistent with an article I read in Scientific American a few years ago that indicated that most &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2008\/07\/02\/happiness-is-increasing\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}