A review by ben_smitty
The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt

5.0

Psychology meets philosophy of religion. Haidt's The Happiness Hypothesis takes readers through the world of ancient wisdom while backing these philosophical claims with psychological research. Analogies and anecdotes are used throughout the book to explain complex ideas that are both compelling and relevant. The chapter on Divinity itself is worth the price of the book, explaining the dimension of sacredness that is prevalent in the East but disappearing in the West. The line between sacred and profane, as I've seen in my time in the United States, is replaced by words like "purity" and "personal holiness" in a vague moral sense. Sacredness in the East, however (even in the Ancient Near East Old Testament), is a disgust-based morality (do not eat pork, wash your hands, bathe your body before entering the temple etc.) that are seen by many of my friends as "unnecessarily religious."The meaning is lost to them. I've been looking for an explanation of this dimension of sacred and profane for years.

A truly fascinating read.