The aim of this study is to examine what factors that makes individuals happy, and how big ofa role, or not big of a role, religious faith and active participation in a church or other religiousorganizations have. Research from the United States that is discussed in the paper claims thatreligious people are the happiest. At the same time, happiness-statistics shows that Sweden,which is a more secularized countrey has a happier population than the United States. With aquantitative method, comparison is made between statistics from World Value Survey and theSOM-institute to try to find a pattern on other factors that makes individuals happy. The resultis then discussed and analyzed together with other studies to answer the research questions:What is it that affects if people feel happiness, in Sweden and in the United States, and how tounderstand the function of religion, with the help of Bauman´s theory. Bauman claims thatindividualization is a threat and that the real meaning of life is found the community.The result finally shows that religious believes can play an important role for happiness on anindividual level but that it is not a pattern one can find support for in general. The factors thatseems to have the greatest impact on happiness are health and relationships with family andfriends. The subject is very large and complex and exactly what affects our happiness cannever be completely answered because it is to individual.