A lesson at Easter: The experts may be right, but sometimes faith wins over facts
Saturday, 4 April 2026
Josie Pagani is a commentator on current affairs and a regular opinion contributor. She works in geopolitics, aid and development, and governance.
OPINION: My fellow Catholics believe that Jesus died on Good Friday and rose again on Sunday.
Stick with me, the gags are further down. Let me conjecture the point of the Easter miracle.
Expert historians look at what we know about how the world works and the way news was spread in Palestine at the time. They conclude that the resurrection could not have happened.
The whole point of a miracle is that it is, well, miraculous. It wouldn’t be a miracle if it were just how Jeff and Job spent their typical Sundays.
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To believe the Easter story requires faith. Expertise gets you nowhere. Not to miracles, anyway.
This week I came across research showing the gap is wider than ever between what experts say they know and what we the people believe.
98% of scientists agree that humans “evolved over time”, while only 65% of the public do. The majority of the rest agree that humans “existed in their present form since the beginning of time.”
Experts think longer sentences don’t reduce crime. The public don’t agree. Town planners tell us free parking is a terrible idea. People love it.
Experts tell you by nearly every measure – literacy, life expectancy, material well-being – the world is getting better. Most people think the world is going to hell in a hand basket.
88% of experts think it’s safe to eat genetically modified foods, versus 37% of adults. 86% of medical experts think children should be required to be vaccinated, versus 68% of adults.
It’s tempting to assume the public is stupid, but the other way of thinking about it is that it requires ever more faith to believe that experts are right.
Experts tell us AI will change humanity. So far it’s helped you dump your boyfriend and write a CV.
Economists say growth is coming. The public recognise this prediction has continued for long enough to have become astrology decorated with equations.
Experts in retail tell us there’s no such thing as “greedflation” when supermarkets raise prices to increase profits during periods of inflation. You have to have faith.
Chocolate companies tell us “shrinkflation” is a myth. There is no way that Snickers bar is the same size it was when I queued up to kiss Simon Le Bon at the Duran Duran concert. Don’t mock. The girl behind me married him. I had my shot.
Experts told us to bump elbows and wash our fruit during Covid. Neither stopped the spread of the airborne virus.
Last week a new expert report revealed the happiest countries in the world.
There are experts who get paid to do this stuff, which makes me unhappy.
According to the latest World Happiness Report, the happiest country is Finland.
Have they met Finns? I hung out with Finnish friends around the time I was trying to snog Simon Le Bon, and loved them precisely because they drank and smoked too much and lived by the mantra of dreading one day at a time. A handful of Finns are none of these things. Apologies to them.
Finland has been the happiest country for a whopping nine of the past 10 years. According to experts, what makes them happy is the miracle of a high social safety net, free education and healthcare, and low corruption.
That creates a sense of security and comfort. But happiness?
Happiness is fleeting. Like a surprise, or a sunset. It’s as complex as grief. Who is the happier man, asks the writer Hunter S Thompson, “He who has braved the storm of life and lived, or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?”
Then again, for the first time Costa Rica finds itself in the top 10 happy places and it sounds sunny and pleasant.
Finland is not known for growing coffee. I think happiness comes from staring heartache in the face, and still finding some joy.
Happiness has to be earned by endurance. The thrill of the pash is that it’s a reward for the queueing.
Maybe it is the long sunless winter of Scandi countries that makes a pickled herring a happier experience.
Without suffering, how can we know we are happy? Us Catholics have a point.
Happy countries are happy like a TV pharmaceutical ad. Frolicking on the beach, disease-free, a golden labrador and small print warning of loss of cardiac function, seizures and incontinence.
The expert report said New Zealanders are meh about happiness.
We have a “what goes up must come down” attitude, which unhappily inverts the historical Easter sequence.
Happy people live in the moment as if today is their last, we are told. Our national happiness is phlegmatic. No point in following our dreams, we say. Just ask where they’re going and catch up with them later.
Happiness is a complex thing to measure. Experts are right about vaccines and evolution. I’m not sure they’re right about what makes us happy. Best that experts leave some things to faith.