New theistic chew toys wanted!

[Ahriman]

Yet another thing you have in common with people who think very differently from you.

I suppose that's true.......how often do you laugh?

[The Grand Nudger]

Every time you post, at least?

[Ahriman]

Every time you post, at least?

That would actually be really great, I mean for you.

[The Grand Nudger]

Absolutely. It's one of my guilty pleasures, like chocolate..hookers, blow, that sort of thing.

On the one hand I do wish that people considered these things they believe more deeply - they're consequential beliefs in many cases - but on the other, it's funny that people don't, and very often the way they don't. It even adds to that sense of the numinous, as I can see myself in people and people in myself - I do all of the same types of shit - just not about gods. College football, fishing, the right and proper type of boat hull. etc.

[Ahriman]

Absolutely.  It's one of my guilty pleasures, like chocolate..hookers, blow, that sort of thing.

On the one hand I do wish that people considered these things they believe more deeply - they're consequential beliefs in many cases - but on the other, it's funny that people don't, and very often the way they don't.

Going deep can be good, but going too deep is not good, like when you're swimming in a pool, or the ocean, going deep can be a nice little challenge, but going too deep can be dangerous.

[The Grand Nudger]

Wholeness shapes the progressive expansion of potentiality?

[Ahriman]

Wholeness shapes the progressive expansion of potentiality?

I have no idea what that's supposed to mean.

[vulcanlogician]

I haven't studied Taoism.  But I have Buddhism.  Happiness isn't really related to Buddhism either unless you associate contentment and peace with happiness.  It becomes difficult to nail down. 

Well, from one perspective, happiness is among the benefits of Buddhistic enlightenment. The Four Noble Truths lay out a path to escape suffering. Inasmuch as happiness becomes possible once one is no longer suffering (and one may argue that non-suffering is a kind of happiness)... you could say that Buddhism is concerned with happiness.

In many ways I think of happiness as a very modern invention.

I disagree. Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus all saw happiness as some kind of fundamental good, or at least as a product of good living (as did many other ancient thinkers).


From Plato's Symposium:

‘Then,’ she said, ‘let me put the word "good" in the place of the beautiful, and repeat the
question once more. If he who loves loves the Good, what is it then that he loves?’
‘The possession of the Good,’ I said.
‘And what does he gain who possesses the Good?’
‘Happiness,’ I replied; ‘there is less difficulty in answering that question.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘the happy are made happy by the acquisition of good things. Nor is there any
need to ask why a man desires happiness; the answer is already final.’

http://faculty.sgc.edu/rkelley/SYMPOSIUM.pdf

To Plato, the only reason to seek beauty was to come into contact with (and then possess) the Good. Why would one want to possess the Good? To gain happiness. And, even though we are philosophers who question everything, there is no reason to ask why we want happiness. It is self-evident. It is foundational. It is the reason we seek to possess the Good in the first place.

[Ahriman]

I disagree. Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus all saw happiness as some kind of fundamental good, or at least as a product of good living (as did many other ancient thinkers).

I am in full agreement with this. Happiness is a state of mind. There have been happy people walking the Earth for a very, very long time.

[zwanzig]

I haven't studied Taoism.  But I have Buddhism.  Happiness isn't really related to Buddhism either unless you associate contentment and peace with happiness.  It becomes difficult to nail down.  In many ways I think of happiness as a very modern invention.

When I think about people relieving themselves of unhappy thoughts, depression, anxiety and so forth, there is most certainly an aspect of relief and contentment.  Just getting that shit off your back can feel like you're airborne.  I don't really consider this happiness but I don't undervalue it.  I have personal experience with this.

Bolding mine.

What are you defining as happiness? Because I do consider the things you mentioned to be happiness.

I put happiness on a scale AND consider it a fluctuating state that comes and goes. I can have a miserable job situation, getting abuse from customers, working with people I dislike. Yet I can consider myself happy not only over all, because of a measure of tolerance for bad situations (there's a difference between feeling stressed and emotionally abused by your workplace and just feeling unfulfilled by it in different aspects; the latter can make me uncomfortable but I can tolerate not liking my job in that way whereas the former would be the line where I'd define myself as consistently unhappy). But I can also find happiness states in moments. Like the security that comes from being able to pay bills and live without worrying so much. The occasional customer relationships where I feel like I'm making a difference or the regulars who know me and seek me out that make all the bad/rude ones vanish from my mind. I can have good moments offwork that bring me peace and fulfillment (sometimes a job is just a job. Not everything you do for work will satisfy your ambitions and dreams and you can have those things fulfilled outside of work).

So, it's a scale, of these small moments of happiness and pleasure in life adding up to an overall definition of each day collectively. But the state isn't permanent. And it is also defined by the absence of harsher situations and pain, which are also on a scale(like, a bad day here and there is not going to tip the scale even if those bad days are really terrible and make me unhappy for the whole day in question).