people were more likely to believe something true than something false
In general I reject this. Maybe it holds for small classes of statements that regard direct experience (for example "stuff falls down", "getting hit by a car is bad for you") but certainly not for abstract things like theism.
To believe in something because others do allows false beliefs to circularly maintain themselves. On the other hand, if you believed in something because others believe in it for the right reasons then learning that many people believe in something for the wrong reason (e.g. because it makes them happy) will decrease your estimate.
In general I reject this.
As crazy and improbable as an idea might seem, surely it would seem even less credible if you learned that literally nobody believed it. Turning this around, wouldn't it seem at least a little more probable if a bunch of people believed it? And shouldn't this hold for abstract beliefs, too?
Religion apparently makes people happier. Is that evidence for the truth of religion, or against it?
(Of course, it matters which religion we're talking about, but let's just stick with theism generally.)
My initial inclination was to interpret this as evidence against theism, in the sense that it weakens the evidence for theism. Here's why:
We could also put this in mathematical terms, where F represents an increase in the prior probability of our encountering the evidence. Since that prior is a denominator in Bayes' equation, a bigger one means a smaller posterior probability--in other words, weaker evidence.
OK, so that was my first thought.
But then I had second thoughts: Perhaps the evidence points the other way? If we reframe the finding as "Atheism causes unhappiness," or posit that contrarians (such as atheists) are dispositionally unhappy, does that change the sign of the evidence?
Obviously, I am confused. What's going on here?