Eudaimonist

They don't ring true at all, but I will privately ponder them in the interest of self-knowledge.

I'm not a non-theist because I felt that God didn't love me, but thanks for sharing what is evidently something meaningful for you.

I think the best name for my philosophy of life is simply "eudaimonism", though it is perhaps better thought of as an approach or framework to thinking about life and ethics that can encompass several distinct philosophies. Eudaimonism's earliest roots can be found in ancient Greece -- Aristotle, the Stoics, and most other Greek ethicists could reasonably be called eudaimonists. Eudaimonism views flourishing in this life as the proper ultimate goal of one's actions.

Two important principles I get from the Greeks are:

1) Know Thyself -- Live the Examined Life. In order to flourish (or self-actualize) we need self-knowledge. We need to examine our mental contents and discover our talents.

2) Become Who You Are -- Once we have some idea, through self-knowledge, what our highest potentials are (what we can do to make the most out of ourselves and our lives) we can proceed to actualize these.

An influential modern eudaimonist (though she didn't use this term to identify herself) is Ayn Rand. Her Objectivist ethics is ultimately based in the requirements of human life; i.e. it's at root biocentric, and much like the Greeks her concept of the good life is a rational and virtuous life aimed at happiness.

This is obviously just a super-brief glimpse at my views on life, but I hope it helps to satisfy your curiosity.

gixxer750

Bloggins -

Thanks for your reply. Bad week for me too, so it might take a couple days for a reply.

Eudaimonia - I like your two points - I am a eudaimonist too!

Doug

Gixxer,

I'd like to take a look at one part of your reply to BLoggins.

I don't think that atheists throw out the gospels simply because they don't agree with them. The reason they throw out the gospels is because they do not stand up under historical scrutiny.

Historians need much more than sole texts written at least 40 and up to 100 years after the fact by biased authors promoting their own agenda. Historians will first look at a written document and analyze its veracity on its own merits and will then look for corraborating documents with proven authenticity to give evidence to the original documents in question.

It is pretty common knowledge that the gospels were written well after the events they describe. This is strike one, because there is no written eye witness testimony. Period.

Given that the gospels were written by adherents to the supposed teachings of Jesus, the writers were biased in their approach. Given the pervasiveness of stories of gods on Earth and people rising from the dead at the time, is it not at least possible that these followers of the Pauline teachings of Jesus wouldn't embellish the story they were writing to make their leader appear godlike? History is repleat with such writings. This is strike two. When combined with strike one, the veracity of the texts must be called into question by the historian.

The historian will now look for corraborating evidence to support the texts. Well, the fact of the matter is that there is none. There were several historians operating at the time that Jesus was said to have lived that make no mention of him, much less mention his alleged resurrection from the dead. You mentioned the Josephus text, which has been discounted by historians as fraudulent to at least some degree (we'll get into that more in a minute). Don't you think that something as incredible as a bodily resurrection, witnessed by many people, would at least have gotten a passing mention by the historians operating at the time? I know I think so.

There are other historical analysis tests that the gospels have failed, but I really think that what I've mentioned here is plenty.

This just simply isn't true (though calling something "most important" does have a subjective tone to it anyway). There are writings available to us from loads of professional historians from that time, some biased, some less so. Besides, see the above reply.

Something, anything, from a credible unbiased third party witness, either written by that witness or written from a direct interview of that witness. This doesn't exist.

See the following link for a summary of the evidence against Josephus's two references to Jesus:

<a href="http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/testimonium.html" target="_blank">http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/testimonium.html</A>

To summarize, most scholarship on these writings suggests that all or at least part of the references to Jesus attributed to Josephus, probably the most important historian of the Jewish people in Judah at the time, were added or changed by church authorities. Furthermore, Josephus wrote extensively on many messiah figures of the time, including John the Baptist, who is mentioned much more than Jesus in Josephus's writings. Don't you think that a man that had throngs of followers, performed miracles, rose from the dead and claimed to be the son of God would have warranted more mention than two tiny, questionable lines out of 20 volumes of text?

What eye witnesses? Give us one shread of eye witness account.

[snip]

Most of this quote has already been addressed, but the fallacy that martyrs automatically equals truth is an easy one. People have died by the thousands throughout history for misplaced beliefs. If a person's psyche is influenced strongly enough by something, that person will kill or be killed in the name of that belief. The person doesn't have to have been an eye witness to something for these beliefs to be that strong. I know it's cliche, but look at all the Muslim suicide bombers and the 9/11 pilots. They all truly believe in Allah, that his prophet is Mohammed and a heavenly reward awaits them by their actions. There is no difference.

[ March 20, 2002: Message edited by: Doug ]</p>

Eudaimonist

Eudaimonism is broad enough that this is possible. Some Christians approve of self-actualization, which is one aspect of eudaimonism. And some of the Stoics did get rather "religious" about the application of their philosophy, in that they thought they were "following Zeus" (alternately: "following Nature", which amounted to the same thing) in self-actualizing. I have to wonder if Stoicism had an influence on Christianity.

Where Christians usually shy away from becoming full eudaimonists is that they often see this life as merely a means to a heavenly afterlife, instead of as an end-in-itself, to be valued for its own sake. I have even seen some (though certainly not all) Christians say that happiness is not an appropriate goal in life. But I suppose Christians could value this life enough to value it in the way eudaimonists do.

[ March 20, 2002: Message edited by: Eudaimonia ]</p>

DMB

I have never been a theist (although subjected to religious indoctrination during my schooling). I can assure anyone who's interested that I don't fear anything to do with god. I could just about be a deist, but find the Abrahamic god with his pettiness and obsession with trivia simply unbelievable. I don't believe because I can't.

So the god I don't believe in is Zeus as well as Jehovah, Odin as well as Allah.

The only argument I have seen here for picking one over another is because of the historical truth of Jesus's resurrection. This has always struck me, along with the virgin birth, as pure myth and similar to myths from other religions. We don't have thousands of eyewitnesses: we have the evangelists, writing at least some time after the death of jesus, or even some unknown editor(s) tinkering with the text after it was written.

Jerusalem must have been full of Romans when Jesus died. Funny that none of them noticed anything. Most of the Jews didn't convert to xianity as a result of the events surrounding the death. If god exists and wants people to know about the resurrection, why didn't he do a better job of getting the news around at the time?

Of course, one can think up reasons why god never wants anything to be clear. It's a bit like the tooth fairy in <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=47&t=000219&p=3" target="_blank">this thread</a>

The koran, of course, even explains that it is clear and has been given by Allah specially to clear up previous misunderstandings. I personally find as many obscurities in the koran as in the bible, but have you tried it, Gixxer? After all, it was revealed later than the bible and could therefore be taken to supersede the latter.

Eudaimonist

Wow, I'd say that the evidence for a factual resurrection is virtually nil. But that discussion is perhaps better saved for the Biblical Criticism board. If you haven't already, I recommend you go there and discuss the case for a historical resurrection.

Jamie_L

If God is omnipotent (i.e., God can do anything), then God can make everyone know which religion is true. Just like that.

Now, since everyone clearly does not know which religion is true, one of three things follows:

1) God is not, in fact, omnipotent.
2) God chooses not to show everyone what is true.
3) There is no God.

Well, if 1) is true, then at least we can stop worrying about all the religions that say God is omnipotent. So, we don't have to worry about whether Christianity is true: it's not.

If 2) is true, then there's no point in us worrying about the question. Either God doesn't care if we know the truth, or he's being a prick. Either way, no sense wasting time on it.

If 3) is true, then our questioning is done. We can all go about our morally depraved atheistic lives as we see fit.

Jamie

gixxer750

What is wrong with the idea that Matthew (an eye-witness) wrote an authoritative text 30-40 years after the death of Christ from his own "notes" and recollections? What is wrong with the same thing happening with Mark (for Peter), Luke (for Paul), and John, another eye-witness? Perhaps strike one made contact after all?

Too many far stretches. If the story of Jesus were embellished, why on earth try to claim a virgin birth? The more likely story would be that Mary got pregnant from someone other than Joseph, and that the Christian messiah is really an illegitimate child. Why put anything about it at all? Why would they have Jesus appearing first to women after his resurrection? Women had NO sociall standing in that culture, and it makes the men look like fools. Why record the apostles' desertion of Christ when he was arrested. If I was making up a story I would certainly make myself look better than that. Strike two may not have been a strike after all.

As is shown in the narrative of Jesus before Pilate, the Romans had absolutely no interest in the religious matters of the day. The Roman historians were interested in one thing - Rome. They would have passed off a story about a bodily resurrection as easily as you do.

I thought Paul was the one that "Deified" Jesus - did he not exist either now? Paul - previously known as Saul of Tarsus - was not only an unbiased witness, he was biased in the opposite way. He was Christianities biggest opponent. And he gives us his eye-witness account of the things he saw and experienced. I hope you don't argue that his witness isn't credible because of the fact that he converted. That would mean that you want an eye-witness account from someone who saw and experienced the Risen Christ - but still refused to believe.

Thank you for your suggestion to check out the Biblical criticism forum - i will look into it. Have a wonderful day!

gixxer750

OK Quick reply:
BLoggins -

C.S. Lewis wrote something to the effect of "the only way to know that miracles do not happen is if we reject testimonies about them. The only way we can reject testimonies about them is if we assume that miracles do not happen. We are, in fact, arguing in a circle." We do not witness spectacular miracles regularly, and it is very easy to say, as a rule, that things follow the laws of nature and never deviate from them. But we can have no solid basis for saying "Miracles do not happen". I realize that this is a bit off topic, but I wanted to add it in.

As for the fact that nearly all religious groups claim miraculous signs, seeing visions, having answered prayer, etc. - it seems to me that this is a much stronger argument FOR theism than against it. Nearly all people at all times have believed in the supernatural (that is probably phrased too strongly - forgive me, long day at work), and it seems to me an extremely arrogant position to say that they were/are all suffering from psychological delusions and, in fact, the supernatural does not exist. Agnosticism is a much more rational position than atheism.

Ecclesiastes says that God has "set eternity in the hearts of men". Since the beginning of written language we have stories of gods and supernatural events - why is it that we dream of such things?

Anyway, I am off topic again. Sorry. I have no real problem with the fact that Muslims, Hindus, etc. claim to have witnessed supernatural things. The Bible says that many will be deceived. Just becasue something is spiritual does not mean that it is good or that it is from God. I believe that people in other religions have been decieved - as hard as that is to swallow.

We are saying the same thing with different words. I was listing "conformity with reality" as a necessay part of the True religion, not trying to argue that my religion is true because it conforms to reality.

This is a great point! I've never thought about it quite like that, but you are right. You cannot prove scientifically that Christ rose from the dead - what you can do is decide if there is sufficient evidence to convince you of its truth.

Sure it does! Those other gods are not real - thats why we're not hearing from them. One other point - it is easy to read through the Old Testament and think that God was showing Himself in fantastic miracles on a regular basis, but this really isnt true. There was the Flood in Noah's time - which could very well have appeared as a "natural phenomenon", then there was a period of thousands of years before God gave Abraham a son at the age of 99 - an individual miracle that was witnessed by a handful of people, and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah which, again, may very well have appeared as a natural cataclysm, then it is another period of hundreds of years until Moses' time and the miracles in Egypt and the Red Sea, etc. After that we have another period of hundreds of years until Elijah, whom God did miracles through. My point is that God did not display His omnipotent power to all people throughout the OT. There were very select times, and for a definite purpose. 2000 years ago we had the resurrection of Christ, and then the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in believers since then (IMHO, of course). Anyway - it is true that we understand more about the world around us today than in past times, but that does not discount the hand of God guiding and directing everything. Just because something can be naturally explained (i.e. - the birth of a child), does not mean that it is not miraculous at the same time.

Also, (whew I am long-winded today), while we have MORE knowledge about the world around us, it is far from COMPLETE knowledge. There are many things (i.e. the Beginning), that are most simply explained by a Creator God who designed and sustains the world, not by a naturalistic theory that excludes God. Occham's Razor...

Of course the Bible is written with a distinct bias - these witnessed experienced the Risen Christ! Of course they wanted to tell the world to place their faith in Jesus. A question I have asked before with mixed results - If I tell you that Canada beat the U.S. for the Olypic gold in hockey, does it make a difference if I am a Canadian? Just because the gospels were written with a strong bias and with a definite goal of evangelism does not make their testimony invalid.
Also, these eye-witnesses were fishermen and other normal people. They were not historians or scholars. Their testimony is not invalidated by the fact that they were not professionals.

The idea of Hell is a problem for me too, but I've heard it said that Hell is not God's punishment as much as it is the Truth of who we are in the presence of Holiness. God has gone to great lengths to save people from the consequences of their own actions - but if they continue to reject His offer of salvation, they will pay those consequences themselves.

I apologize if I have picked and chosen the things to respond to, but time is limiting. And I have gone off topic too much, I think. Let's try to keep things simple and deal with issues one point at a time, okay? Looking forward to hearing your response.

Eudamonia - Sorry, I guess I am not a eudamonist. But I do like "Become what you are". That is Pauline theology in a nutshell!

Eudaimonist

I thought Paul would tell you to become what Christ is. But maybe that's just a nitpick.

Sorry to hear you aren't a eudaimonist. It's waiting for you should you become a non-theist.